All Done - Looking Back and Forward

FINISHED!

So I have completed my Creative Media Practice final piece and my first module of 3rd year is officially completed!

Last week I was just starting my post-production on the piece so I will talk about it first. I used Adobe Premier to edit the piece and I found that this was all I needed. It wasn't too complicated or too simple, it did the job and I could add my title tool text in as well which was very useful. Editing the footage was relatively easy, although I had to make sure that the final answer to the video was at the end so that after someone watched the answer footage it then didn't move on to another clip in the video. Looking at the footage while I was editing it, once again I did notice that the lighting wasn't as good as I would have liked, so if I was to do this sort of project in the future I would definitely want lighting kit to try and create a better mood. I would avoid using the TV studio though as this would make the setting seem artificial and I wanted it to look like a comfortable atmosphere.

Also once again listening back the sound quality wasn't up to scratch which annoyed me because of the reason. If I was to do this again I would make sure and sort the sound issue out, because I think that this element of the piece is extremely important.

The YouTube annotation editor was a lot easier than expected. Getting the timing right for each cut was the hardest part, but it wasn't even that hard it was more time consuming than anything. I would definitely use YouTube interaction again as I thought that it was very effective and engaging but at the same time not that hard to do! I also decided that I wanted my footage to be all in one video rather than linking to different videos. This was because if someone was on Full Screen and then clicked a choice that linked them to a different video, this would make them lose the full screen experience and also would break up the flow of my piece.

Here is my finished piece:

 

 

The text I choose, after reflecting, maybe wasn't the best choice and after my presentation, Mark and Ian fed that back to me. I think that it was easy enough to see and the colour was okay, but maybe it looked a little to 'fancy' for the piece. Maybe a Calambri or Arial would have been the better option.

 

 

The only other disappointment that I suffered was not being able to meet Sile. As mentioned in my blog post previously, it didn't mean that I couldn't complete my project, but I think that it would have improved the legitimacy of my project and also it would have been interesting for me to speak to councillor about the condition and to help me gain a better understanding of what I was trying to make people aware of. I chose Anxiety because it doesn't seem like a massive condition on the surface but when you look deeper into it, it can be really affecting and the symptoms aren't very clear.

 

 

I think that my presentation went well (although as always I talked a bit much!) and I was happy with my Prezi. Click the link below:

 

 

PREZI

 

 

I talked through the process of my project and then showed my finished piece. I also mentioned if I did the project again what I would change. I think that if I was to do this project again I would make sure and meet up with a professional, if it was something like mental health, just to give me more of a backbone and confidence in the knowledge that I am distributing.

 

Also I think I would have liked to use more than one person, to open up the video a bit and give the user more interaction.

 

The only other thing that I would consider would be using quick flashbacks of examples of the types of symptoms with anxiety. I think this would have been a nice touch to the piece but I did like the fact that the whole video was one shot and scene rather than different cuts to different places. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, yet still have an impact on the audience.

 

Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and I think that concentrating the classes in blocks has been beneficial to everyone in the class. I enjoyed looking at different ways to use interactive media and I think for me, looking at these techniques and software packages has been really useful for me. YouTube annotation seemed like the most interesting to me and as a user I thought I would enjoy it the most so this is why I chose to do my final piece using this technique of creative media practice.

 

Thanks!



During My Final Piece

Hello!
 
So this week I started my final piece for my Creative Media Practice module. Initially I had been unsure as to what my idea was going to be but after some thought I decided to go with my mental health awareness idea.
 
I have emailed Sile, who is the health and well-being councillor at LJMU, but at the minute unfortunately it looks like we might not be able to meet! Every time we arrange, either one of us is off or else I'm in class when she is free. I have already started to produce my piece now and I know that I will be able to complete it without her help but I think that if I had met up with her it would have gave me a bit more knowledge on the subject.
 
I looked at a couple of YouTube videos on Mental Health and more specifically anxiety and one of the videos really stood out to me. Watch below:
 

 
 
This is an interesting video about a guy called Jason and his battle with anxiety. I have looked up on the NHS website for symptoms of anxiety as well as another website for statistics, but this video is very useful as it is giving first-hand experience on the condition and how it effects peoples lives. Looking at this video has made me realise that actually having someone for my production that has this condition would be a lot better because it would be more 'from the heart' and honest.
 
Here are the links to two of the websites I looked at:
 
 
 

 NHS Anxiety Symptoms

 

 

Mental Health Statistics

 

 

 

At this stage I have completed all of my filming. I took Michael Shiells into The Automatic and found a suitable space with a blank wall, which I was going to use to insert the text on the YouTube annotation editor. I wanted to make my setting as simplistic as possible. The room was fine and all of the content I thought was fine, after the research I did, but there were a couple of problems.

 

The lighting wasn't the best and I thought at the time it might be okay but looking back at the footage now, it isn't as professional as I would have liked it to look if I'm being honest. The fact that the window was beside Michael didn't help with the lighting as it seemed very bright.

 

Also the sound could have been better but I was having major problems with using a boom mic. It didn't seem to work for me at all and when I went downstairs for help they said it was working fine, but in reality I think I would have liked a bit more help for that. We did have another play around with it but decided that we were just going to have to use the internal mic, so the sound quality wasn't as good as it should have been.

 

The shots were all okay and pretty simplistic, which is what I wanted, and I recorded the shots in different cuts so that it would be easier for me when it came to editing. I finished all of the filming in a day so now I just have the post production to worry about! I'm not the best at post-production so will have to set aside quite a bit of time for this. I think though I may not be as bad as I expect, maybe just a little bit rusty!

 

So the next stage for me is editing the footage together, then adding text onto my production, uploading the finished piece on to YouTube, annotating it on there and then creating my presentation.

 

Wish me luck!