Introduction
Technological convergence, simply put, is how individual consumers interact with others on a social level and use various media platforms to create new experiences, new forms of media, and content that connect us socially, and not just to other consumers, but to the corporate producers of media in ways that have not been as readily accessible in the past.
Set Design
To begin with, we utilised a variety of digital technologies throughout the research and planning process of our music video. When we considered things such as set design, we utilised the game “The Sims 4” to recreate a 3D version of our sketches in order to see how our creative ideas would transpose in a more realistic way.
In order for us to be able to create the atmosphere appropriately, we used things such as the wall tool and the foundation tool in order for me to be able to create a room, in which we could then insert wallpaper, floorboards, and mise-en-scene through the use of the build-and-buy tools. This helped us to figure out the scale of our set, and allowed us to get a better idea of what it would really look like, as we were able to add textures, as well as colours and a variety of possible props, as well as lighting options, and general layout.
As we wanted to create a contrast between the 1920’s element and futuristic element, using this programme helped us to create that visual juxtaposition through the use of mise-en-scene.
Animatic
Additionally, when we first created our storyboard we had a couple of slides which we drew onto paper, but in order for us to properly be able to visualise and assess whether our idea would properly come across to an audience, we decided to work on an animatic through the use of Hitfilm Express 3.
By photographing each shot of our sketches, and cutting them through the use of the timeline and the blade tool, as well as adding a .mp3 version of the song into the editing programme, we were able to cut each shot to the beat of the track in any combination we wanted to and therefore were able to play around with the options the shots gave us. This was done through dragging and dropping items onto the timeline, as well as deleting the ones which didn’t work right. At the time, when creating the storyboard animatic, we very quickly realised that we did not plan enough shots and therefore this creative process helped us to establish the fact that we needed to generate a larger variety of shots.
By exporting the Hitfilm File into a .mp4 file we were then able to upload it to YouTube, where we could make it available to our audiences, and therefore receive feedback on our work.
Black Magic Camera
On our shoot day the most important piece of digital equipment was the Black Magic Camera. We used this camera to film our video, which has the ability to shoot in 4k, which increases the amount of pixels in the video, which therefore heightens the pristine quality of our film, and therefore makes our work semi-professional. Whilst it usually records sound, we decided not to do so due to the fact that we didn’t need it as we would add the track over the top during the post-production process.
Another thing which was important, which we had to pay attention to was the histogram, which showed us the balance between the shadows, midtones, and highlights, and helped us to adjust the aperture of the lens in order to control the brightness of the video.
Next to this, we also had the Zebra function enabled, which is when there are black and white lines running through certain areas of the displayed video, so that when focusing the display video, we could see which areas had the most light, and also which areas were in focus. We also had our camera plugged into a larger monitor so that the bystanders on set could point out any errors in film and correct these.
Lenses
In order to gain a variety of shots we utilised a variety of different lenses. In order for us to be able to shoot a wide angle of our set which included each of the dancers and musicians, and for the mad scientist all of the equipment, we used the 18 mm lens. In order for us to shoot our mid shots within our music video, we used a 35 mm lens, and lastly, to shoot our closeups we used an 85 mm lens to obtain the detail which we wanted to portray.
Digital Clapper
Another device which we used during our production stage was the use of a digital clapper, which enabled us to sync the track to the actions happening in the video. The track would be added into the music video later, which is why the timestamps at the beginning of each video were vital, in order for us to be able to accurately synchronise the action and the track, especially during the lip-sync sessions.
CD Digipak
Furthermore, during our production stage, we used Photoshop in order for us to be able to creatively design the band’s CD digipak. The tool which we utilised most during this creation process was the rectangular selection tool, as this allowed us to create many different shapes in a variety of lengths and sizes. Additionally, we also used the fill tool which allowed us to add in blocks of colour and therefore make the entire process quicker and easier. In order for symmetry to exist on the digipak, we used the rulers in order for me to break the square up into four parts, which then allowed us to select the area which we fully created, copy and pasted this into the three other squares and flip them vertically and horizontally. This way the embellishment on the front of the digipak looks clean and professional, with everything being in the right place.
In order for us to achieve the shiny look of the digipak we used a variety of different blending modes and settings on the embellishment as well as the text in order for it to look like shiny metal. When double clicking onto the layer on which the embellishment was found on, a settings menu came up which gave us the ability to choose different kinds of effects which we could specifically apply. The different variety of tools we used were “Bevel & Emboss”, “Inner Shadow”, “Inner Glow”, and “Drop Shadow”. Combining these together allowed me to create a shine on the otherwise flat layer and therefore make it stand out and look 3D.
Website
The programme used to create our website was through Wix.com; an online website creator which allows us to express our creativity and effectively design our very own website for the band. The main focus of the homepage is the representation of the album ‘Bolt’, which is shown through the music player which consists of all the tracklists in which the audience can play and listen to each track by clicking on the music player. This was done through Wix Music tool where you can upload your own mp3 files in order to present it on the website. The other main tools that were used were the text boxes and image tool which just simply adds the texts/images onto the website. Bandsintown is an application which was embedded into wix.com which allows us to create real tour dates for the band, allowing audience to buy online tickets to the show straight from the website. The black and gold embellishment effects was achieved through processes of colour-editing and customising via trial and error.
Editing
When we were editing our music video, we used the Mac OS system as well as Adobe Premiere Pro. In our offline edit, we started out by renaming all of the rushes in the bin as this would help us to navigate through the approx. 230 raw shots and therefore be able to filter out the shots which were useless and therefore save us time. We decided to name the shots including the futuristic elements with an “F-” at the beginning and the shots with the mad scientist in them “Mike-” (due to the fact that this was the actor’s name), which then helped us to quickly find shots during the editing process.
Another thing we did was sync up all the shots, which is where the effect of the digital clapper came in handy. In order for us to accurately be able to sync the video to the soundtrack, we matched the time of the track and the time on the clapper within the video. This was done for the majority of our shots, which was a lengthy process, however saved us time in the end as we didn’t have to resync a shot every time we decided to place it in the timeline by pulling it out of the bin.
We cut our shots to the beat, meaning that every time there was a significant beat within the soundtrack, we decided to cut to another shot using the blade tool, cutting one of the many layers within our timeline. Whilst we started off with just portraying the dancers and the musicians in the 1920’s element, we later on decided, in our online edit, to cut in the mad scientist elements. This was for the video to remain diverse and keep the audience interested, as well as the dancer which was primarily added within the transition, in order for it to lead up to the transition point and build suspense and interest. We also decided to shorten the shot length during our online edit to put in a larger variety of shots, to keep up with the rhythm and keep the engagement of audience.
Text Blink
At the end of our music video we decided to add in the name of the song “Beatophone” in a creative way. We decided that it would be cool to have a blinking neon sign of the name, which shows up for about 3-5 seconds at the end of the song.
We created the blinking text in Photoshop, however first, through Adobe’s Typekit we downloaded a font titled Beon Medium which looks like a neon sign. We used tools such as the marquee tool and selected the verticals and the horizontals within the font and put them on separate layers, as the effects which we then adhered would be different for horizontals and verticals. We used the effects “Bevel & Emboss”, “Inner Shadow”, “Inner Glow”, “Drop Shadow”, to create the neon effect. To add the glowing effect, we added the “Outer Glow” effect, which then gave the sign it’s blue glowing effect.
To animate it, we created the same sign in black and white (without the “Outer Glow”) and uploaded both files to Giphy. Giphy allowed us to put the two images in a variety of different combinations to change how fast the sign blinked, and in what pattern it blinked. In the end we had a prototype which demonstrated what the blink at the end of the video would look like, and so we inserted both image files into Premiere Pro, made them as short as possible, and re-created the blinking that we made in Giphy earlier.
Lastly, we added a buzzing neon sign sound effect over the top to add to the image and keep up the detail all the way through.
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