CLICK THE BANNER TO VISIT THE FIX'S OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The Fix Album Cover

The Fix Album Cover

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

For this question we have also chosen to produce a video response which shows all of the technology that we used. New technology has been extremely important during this project, from the camera to the world-wide-web, and has allowed us to research, plan, organise and produce our 3 media products - music video / website / and album art [digipack].



CAMERA:
  • We shot our music video in Full 1080p HD - allowing for much greater quality than any of our previous projects which were shot in SD [480p].
  • We managed to convincingly pretend that our video was shot with a 21:9 wide-angled lense, by cropping 13% off of the top and bottom of our video which wsa originally in just 16:9 widescreen. Of course we didn't shoot in 16:9 and then just blindly cut off the top and bottom - we used a humble roll of tape to conceal the parts of the video that would be cropped on our camera's digital display. 
ADOBE CS3 EDITING SOFTWARE:
  • Photoshop enabled us to enhance all our photos incredibly. We could edit, colour correct, and adjust brightness and contrast to make our pictures look professional. 
  • Did you know: The image on the front cover of our album is actually not just a photograph - it is composed of an individual shot of each band member 'photoshopped' together!
  • Premiere Pro was vital in the construction of our video as digital editing software allowed us to cut and place clips wherever we wanted in just a touch of a buttton. As this year's project was a music video we ended up having far more video tracks than last years film project as there was so much footage for the same section of the song, however, we did not have to worry at all about editing multiple tracks of audio during our music video. We did use a lot of audio editing however in our other videos such as the 'Official Premiere' video.
  • Did you know: Nsync's version of 'Just got Paid' is actually 4:20 long. Using Premiere Pro, we were able to seemlessly edit the songs duration to around 3:40!
STUDIO LIGHTING:
  • We were lucky enough during this project to get to use our school's new 'Seward Studio' which is packed full of [mostly uneccessary and indulgent] technology.
  • Did you know: There is over 100 miles of cable running through the ceiling and walls of the Seward Studio!
  • The floor lights we used were key to our music video and became one of the videos greatest features.
  • The haze machine we hired was also very effective in scattering the beams of light through to the camera which made the band more prominent.
  • Did you know: During the filming of our music video, our excessive use of the haze machine caused the fire-alarm to go off throughout the school. During subsequent shoots we turned off the smoke detectors in the studio!
  • We also used a three-point studio lighting set when on location in the photographic studio, this was extremely helpful in lighting our shots - something which could have been improved last year when we did our film project as we did not have these lights.
THE INTERNET:
  • Blogger, youtube, and facebook they have been a great asset during construction, research, planning and evaluation of the project. 
  • Facebook and youtube have allowed us to reach a wide audience with our video. It gives a platform to view our media product to young people which is easy, free and accessable.We were able to create a facebook 'event' to tell everybody about the screening, and we could invite all our friends. 
  • Did you know: Our music video received just under 1,300 views in just the first 6 days of its release onto youtube!
  • Of course, we can't talk about the internet and not mention 'google' - an invaluble search engine for research and referencing, enabling us to find all we needed to know about music videos.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Band Photography:

We used the lowest level of Lordship Park for photographs of the band which we have used on the website and album artwork. They turned out looking very professional, and a lot of it was down to having a great location.
Since shooting at Lordship Park I have come across to photoshoots featured in magazines at this same location (lower level). One of the photoshoots was for JLS!

Audience Feedback Questionaire:

Media Questionnaire

Monday, December 6, 2010

MUSIC VIDEO: SCREENING

We screened our music video in our school on wednesday and it was a great success. Around 60 people packed into the media black to see it! We printed and handed out 30 questionaires which were all filled in.



There were both boys and girls at the screening, which meant we got a good variety of feedback. The response we got was also very good, with our video's marks out of ten all being 8-10, with an average of 9.3.




I am currently editing a video of our screening, including interviews and reactions of the audience.

Website: THE FIX'S OFFICIAL SITE

As well as the video and album cover we produced the website for the band. Hosted on 'WIX', we were able to create a fully functional website for free - however it does come with this catchy URL...



 Welcome Page: This is the page that will first appear when you visit our website, it's purpose is to sell the album. There is a banner at the top with a link to itunes where you could download the track.
 Home Page: This is the master page for our website, it is simply made up of a photo of the band with their names written on it. 'The Fix' logo is fixed in the top left hand corner, along with the music player and the sign up, login, facebook, and youtube links.The bottom banner in also permanent and includes the banner to download the album from itunes as well as links to the all the boy's official twitters. There is also a picture carousel of the each band member which, when enlarged, displays their name, age and star-sign! In the very bottom left we have displayed the copright and record label information.
 'The Band' Page: This page gives fans an insight into the story behind the band and how they formed, it also presents an opportunity to leave comments to the band.
'Gallery': This page is simply a gallery for fans to browse through photos of the band - there are publicity shots, relaxed shots of the band on shoots, and even some live photos!
'Videos': All The Fix's official videos are displayed on this page. In addition to the official music video there are also two behind the scenes videos of the band preparing for the shoots. There is also a link to the band's youtube channel.
'Tour' Page: This page displays information about The Fix's upcoming tour, with links to buy tickets from two different sources; gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk.
'Official Store': This page acts as a door to the band's official store (which of course doesn't exist). This method is typical of artist websites.

Album Cover:

Here's a picture of the final signed-off album artwork... The digi-pack has been sent off for printing, so when we get a copy I will take some pictures of it!
Each image of each band member is an individual shot which we edited together using photoshop. The pictures were taken at Lordship Park: Photographic location...

SHOOTS:

Main Shoot: Lordship Park (Studio Location)

This was our final shoot of the production, and it went really well - we even managed to finish 2 hours earlier than planned!

The location was an incredible photography studio: www.lordshippark.com 
We dressed the band members in suits for this shoot, giving connotations of weath and money, and filmed close ups, group dancing, two-shots and three-shots...