Creative Media Practice - My Finished Piece

Okay so like I discussed in my earlier post Creative Media Practice - Problems When Filming My Final Project I had a massive issue when filming. The card that I shot my first 2 days worth of footage was corrupt and I lost all the footage, which inevitably changed my final piece so over the weekend I wanted to reshoot and re-edit my piece the way I intended it to be.

Like I have said in the previous post I wanted to merge the split screen that I experimented with and the creative side of the youtube annotations. Having finished my piece I think I have done that with success. 

My idea was to create an interactive music video, where the audience would chose the outcome of the video. The video contains three different scenes all with split screen and all with Catherine Hardman on the left of the screen, the writer and singer of the chosen song "Suitcase" and Jake Shotten-Wilson, an actor I found that I thought would play the other part well on the right of the screen. The three scene's would all show different outcomes of the video, one scene would show both Catherine and Jake miming the lead vocal, one scene would show just Catherine miming the lead and Jake performing the backing and the other would show just Jake miming the lead and Catherine performing the backing. Through the use of youtube annotations the audience would pick which scene they would jump to next.

The video above shows the first time I've worked with Catherine and the first Time I heard the song during a live acoustic session that we filmed. 

The three different scenes shown above 

I'm extremely happy with my finished piece I think it does exactly what I wanted it to do, I'm happy that although the corrupt card caused a lot of problems I've ended up with the finished product that I set out to achieve. I think it demonstrates the split screen process well, which I found easy enough to understand on Final Cut, and it shows how I can not only correctly annotate videos through youtube but use them in a creative way. 

One of the problems I came across when doing all 32 youtube annotations was how time consuming it was, I eventually realised the easiest way to solve this would be to make a table showing every part and every scene and what time the song would then cut to.

Annotations and table I created to help speed up the process shown above 

Although I think my video is success if I was to redo it, I would experiment more with the song choice, I think the song worked to an extent but having been through the editing process I think it would be really easy to take the original mastering of the track, remove the lead vocal and use another singer to sing the second part, that way it would all still be in sync but the audience would then choose who sang the song not who was miming it. I also think the way in which the song has backing vocals in the chorus is effective but in every version both Catherine and Jake sing it together. If I was to redo it I may leave them singing the backing vocals out, I realised this before the editing process that's why on the video it specifically says, "Who do you want to sing the lead vocal in the next section?" not just "Who do you want to sing the next section?".

Still from the video showing the annotations and the question to the audience shown above. 

Having said all this I think my video is a success, I enjoyed the process, it was very time consuming but I think its very effective. I've learnt from certain things creating this final piece and also learnt a lot from this module that I intend on taking forward and with my filmmaking.

My video is shown below make sure you switch the annotations on and I hope you enjoy it! 

Creative Media Practice - Problems When Filming My Final Project.

For my final project I wanted to merge the split screen that I experimented with and the creative side of the youtube annotations. 

I decided to approach a band or musician to let me make a video with there song, a duet would work well but anything with backing vocals could work. I decided to use a musician called Catherine Hardman that I had worked with in the past, just because I felt her song suitcase would work well with this process. 

My idea was to have her and an actor walking each side of the screen, she would sing the lead initially and the actor would sing backing, then after each verse the audience would choose who sang the next bit, then the pair would eventually meet up together. 

After two days of filming last week (Tuesday and Wednesday) I met up with both the actor and the artist today before editing and wanted to look over what we had shot. 

To my disappointment the footage that I shot on both days was corrupt and would only read on the camera so editing was impossible, I later found out that it was due to the fact that I had used poor cards for the filming and to say it's a lesson learnt is an understatement. 

So we quickly did a re-shoot as shown below and we plan on reshooting it properly this weekend to get it the way we wanted. 

I feel this worked but I'm very disappointed that I lost footage and I know it'll work better now I've seen this version. 

Creative Media Practice - Using YouTube Annotations To Be Creative

Before researching youtube annotations I never thought about using it for a creative purpose. I just thought it was a way. Annotations can be used for linking to social media, links to other channels, links and also to link to subscriptions to channels. 

Through researching annotations I found out it was a way in which the producer could involve the audience in the outcome of the video, giving the audience involvement and more interactivity through the video. 

The video above shows annotations can be used in gaming. 

I think the use of youtube annotations may be something I use in my final piece. It could bring my initial idea of a split screen music video to life more, allowing the audience to chose parts of the song. 

Creative Media Practice - The Art Of Pop (Fact Cinema)

When researching for this project it reminded me of art exhibition I went to a few months ago in FACT called the Art of Pop. The Art of Pop had more than 100 video clips telling the story of music videos running constantly on numerous screens and projections through the gallery.

The use of different screens throughout the gallery worked really well and gave the audience an chance to see certain videos in different ways, how the appear along side other styles ect. 

Creative Media Practice - Second Screen

While looking into second screen I tested out QR codes. QR codes are a pixilated image (example shown below) that when scanned on a smart phone or tablet links to a website, video or image. I find QR codes interesting and I think they do serve a purpose but I think the audience is minimal. I think it's a case of a good idea but has a limited reach. 

QR Code linking to our website

I much prefer a different type of second screen a piece of software called Layar. Layar works on a similar basis to QR codes but feels a lot more user friendly and I think it's a lot more interesting for the consumer. 

Instead of scanning a a barcode you scan an image and then that image can link you to anything from a video to a website. This allows the producer to be a lot more creative. 

I first came across Layar around a year ago when I began creating video's for a magazine called LowDown in Liverpool. Layar was built into the magazine so that when you scanned an image in the mag the person would come to life and talk to you about each article. 

I've recently started working with a company called Wray Brothers. Wray Brothers sell cleaning and clothing products all around the country and through my idea of bringing Layar to there catalog every  issue from 2015 will contain a video to match each item of clothing.

I think Layar is something that could and should become a far more popular use of technology, I really like the way in which it is used in the video below. Taking popular scenes from films and brining them to life when you at the location of the film. 

Creative Media Practice - Isadora

For this part of the project I experimented with the software Isadora. This software allows the producer to manipulate realtime and prerecorded media. One of the positives I found about the software was how the producer could import different media files and then allow Isadora to randomise the different files and create a unique end product. I liked the fact it gave the producer the ability to be the consumer to an extent.

I wasn't very impressed with the layout of the software, the features and look felt dated, also the effects felt rather dated too. It's gave me inspiration for in the future to create sections of films or music videos with a sort 80's style effect in parts.

In the video above I like the way the technique is used, I think the way the video would be improved to do experiment the use of colour more, I think the dot's work perfectly and this style could look really interesting if the shapes were sharper, and changed more in size. This technique could then be used really effectively in a Pop Art video piece. I'd like to explore this style for a music video of some sort.  

In conclusion I think this software could work well but to create something that's contemporary and substantial it would need to integrated into other pieces of software such as after affects or final cut. 

Creative Media Practice - My Use Of Youtube Annotations

Although I've only just discovered how YouTube Annotations can be creative I've used them professionally for over a year now. 

As you can see in the video above this is the end screen to all our sessions at CCTV. It provides a chance for us to let our viewers continue to watch more videos, we can add similar videos of people's interests, link to play lists, link to Facebook, twitter, our website and allow people to subscribe to our channel. 

The still above shows the analytics from youtube of views and estimated minutes watched we've gained from annotations. Over 22 months we've gained an extra 534 views and an estimated 1,509 minutes. It's not a lot in comparison to the amount of views we've gained over all in that time but it's worth the extra time to put them in.