Evaluation

 
Above are all my evaluation questions, presented as voice recordings. I am happy with the level of detail I answered my evaluation questions to and I feel that I presented them in an interesting way, with the mix of text-to-speech and my own voice. This was relatively easy to make and I believe a great way to finish my coursework.

Final Music video

Above is the final music video. I am happy with the end result, even though it is not perfect. I feel that I created a perfectly amateur music video that ties in well with what I envisioned the artist to be like, alongside the ancillary tasks. I enjoyed editing the music video and am pleased with the editing entirely.

Final Digipak and Poster

These are my final digipak and poster products. After receiving feedback that my ancillary texts seemed too childish, I used real life backgrounds and the simple white outline like what is seen in the video. This was the only major change I needed to make on my poster, apart from changing the Daily Mail to a more suitable newspaper for my artist and adding copyrights at the bottom. Some of the panels on my digipak had to be changed as they did not fit in, alongside putting all the panels in the right order and including the barcode with copyright. 

Overall, I'm happy with the professional end result I have achieved with my digipak and poster. I feel that whilst they are not completely conventional, they are realistic and could be seen in the real world. I enjoyed creating these and feel confident that they tie in with my music video well. 

Animation step-by-step

Within this blog post, I am going to explain the step by step process for my animation work, which is seen frequently throughout my video. By using only flash animate, I would map out my animations from simple sketches, as shown below:



I would draw all frames required in this basic skeleton form. I would also draw certain things on different layers and draw them on separate layers, as I wish to focus on these elements in detail. For animations where feathers are thrown, this is the technique I used. All lip-syncing was drawn on a different layer also, so it was easy to move around with the animation.





Many of the animations I drew, I followed frameworks found online. For example, the running animation was followed from an animation chart. For other animations, I used my own movement by copying myself in a mirror to see how the animation should behave in certain angles. For lip syncing I also followed an animation chart, but drew my own in-between frames to make it flow much smoother.



Overall, I am happy with how most of the animation turned out. Whilst I may have liked more time to tween my results, I still am very satisfied with the end result and feel they work well within my video. 

Working alone vs. Group work

This audio clip features me talking about the positives and negatives of working alone. Overall, I found the experience of working alone to be positive and easily manageable, but there were complications that I encountered whilst making the project.

Original ideas and how they changed

Original ideas and how they changed from maddieh1

This is a PowerPoint I made showing the original ideas that didn't work, and what I did to change them. I felt that this blog post was a good idea as it shows a constant development throughout my music video to make the best end result possible. 

Review and Week 14

Last week was productive, but however not completely to plan as the weather stopped me capturing the drone shot that I needed. My animation is also still not fully complete, but very close to being so. I mostly stuck to plan.

This week is the final week are able to work on our music videos, so I want to ensure that everything looks perfect. Over the easter holidays if I need to I will polish up my blog so I can give it a good chance of getting a higher grade.

Review and week 13

Last week was mainly successful and productive in terms of editing most of my music video together, and I stayed mostly to plan.

This week, I aim to film the smaller remaining bits of my music video and continue to animate the few I need left. I am very close to completion with my music video which I am extremely pleased about. I will also work on my digipak to ensure it has the highest marks possible.

First draft and feedback

Today, I presented my first draft to the class to gain an opinion on my music video. Below is the video I showed them:

All seemed to enjoy my music video, and gain a good idea of narrative and representation from it. However, as it is with a first draft, there were some things that needed to be changed, as shown in the feedback sheets below:



From this advice, I will:
- Replace the street scenes altogether, perhaps with more field scenery and animation where possible
- OR green screen a street scene that looks more inviting than the ones I have
- Make the scenes look brighter through editing
- Re-film the running sequence, instead using a pan shot so the camera is stable
- Film missing segments of my music video
- Correct mismatched lip syncing

I hope to get this all done within the next week, so I can have some updated feedback and make some final final changes.

Review and Week 12

Last week went ok in terms of editing, however no filming was done as I would have liked it to be, so this week will be filming heavy. I did stay mostly to plan.

This week is going to involve hopefully finishing up my music video so I can tidy my blog up and start to prepare my evaluation. I intend to finish the rest of my animations and the new ones I now need to do, edit the music video to a high enough standard and work on my digipak and poster to make the corrections and updates I need to.

Editing Progress 5

Throughout the last week, I have focused on editing the animation into my music video. I faced a few difficulties whilst editing, but these will be explained below.

Putting the animations into premiere was easy enough - all of the animations were png sequences which were then made into mov files through conversion on premiere. However, when the sequences were re-sized in premiere on their own, they looked blurry and wrong. This was fixed by resizing all of the frames individually through photoshop batch method:

Using this code was able to make my time a lot more effective, but it was still very time consuming. However, once it was done I was happy with the end results. Some of the animations are white also, which was easily changed by using a colour corrector and turning the lightness up to 100%.

I'm pleased with the progress I've made, however receiving feedback there is still a lot more to do, hence the 'replace' png over footage that needs to be redone.

Review and Week 11

Last week was not productive in the way I expected, but however allowed me to get a lot of animation done due to adverse weather we experienced. There is however lots of time to make up for what I missed last week as there was only a small amount to do.

Because of the fact I could do animation all of last week, I have a lot of editing to do. Having a two hour slot for filming will be enough to film some short segments, however I may need another filming session just to get a few more bits done, perhaps on Thursday. 

Editing Progress 4

After having a lot of footage to edit over the course of the last week, I managed to get it all done. Editing in all the park scenes, I worked out a preset that allowed me to create a brighter feel for the clips:

This made my job a lot easier when editing the new clips in, as I didn't have to constantly find my settings again. I also learnt how to transform clips, as some had been filmed the wrong way to flip them so they looked correct.

Overall, I'm pleased with the progress I have made on my editing. Hopefully most of the video will be done within the next week ready to be shown for a first draft.

Review and Week 10

Last week was successful as everything I planned to get done was finished, and more. Animation was as successful as I did find it draining, but I hope to keep it up this week.

This week has a lot of editing focus, with a first draft having to be presented by the end of this week. Once all the editing is complete, I will focus on filming the few small pieces missing so most of my music video can be complete to show. At the end of the week I will also edit in whatever animation I have done so some feeling can be gauged for that.

Filming session - Park 1

This is the first time I have shot this footage, and I feel it went well. Some shots were not done because the cold became too much, but it still had positive results, even if only some shots have to be re-done (i.e. the running). The running sequence was an issue in terms of keeping it smooth, hence why it was slowed down. However, the actual running then looks a little bit pathetic. A selection of shots from the shoot are shown below, unedited:

Review and Week 9

Last week didn't go completely as I expected, as I wasn't able to film during the week due to plans fallings through. However, I've planned to film the remaining scenes at the end of the week, and hopefully I will not have to film again except the occasional shot.

This week I plan to edit what was filmed before half term commenced, and film those scenes that I wasn't able to over the half term. I have also been animating in the evenings at home, in which case I hope to get them all finished soon so I can edit them all in and ensure they work, then I feel my video will be close to completion. 

Poster progress

Unlike the digipak, the poster wasn't something I had planned beforehand. However, I did know that I wanted it to be similar to the digipak, so I had no trouble in actually making it. Below is the final result:

I'm very happy with the final result, and it is probably my favourite piece out of the digipak and poster. I feel that it looks professional and well balanced, like most actual music posters are. Below, like the digipak, is a sped up video showing the process of making the poster, which could be considered more interesting as I actually start from scratch:

Digipak progress

Having not focused on my digipak, I took this opportunity of a holiday to work on it. Here is what I have so far:



I decided to make it entirely digital so I had full control of what the product looked like. Also, it adds enigma to the reader - normally digipaks will have a real life image of their artist, so why is the artist only a cartoon? I did really enjoy making this digipak, and like how it turned out, especially the typography. The typography is all done by hand, so I had to keep it consistent within my own means. Overall, I am happy with how the product turned out. Below is a video that shows the whole process of making the digipak over five hours:

Review and Week 8

Last week stayed relatively to plan, however we could not film on the Friday due to poor weather. This is something I hope to get on top of when we go back to school, as the deadline for the product is coming close.

As I am on half-term this week, I hope to get a lot of the animation done. I now have an opportunity to sit down and work on this, so I aim to get most of the minute animated to edit back into my music video when school starts again.

Filming session - Field

Today, I attempted to film on the field for the first time. I hadn't considered the field as a location, but I consider it a shortcut for Greenwich park filming, my other location. Because some shots I'm shooting only focus on grass, I thought I could save myself the travel by just filming these shots at school. Here is what was filmed today:

Whilst it could be used as final shots (as I did edit), I feel that this is a good starting point for these shots. After I edited them they seem perfect as they aren't necessarily weather dependant and my lip syncing works well. Overall, I'm happy with the results of these shots.