- Adobe Photoshop (image manipulation)
- What did the image manipulation program allow you to manipulate? E.g. graphics necessary for the magazine.
- What crop tools did you use? E.g. Marquee, Lassos and colour convertors such as Red Eye Corrector, Colour Variations, Colour Dropper, Dodge and Burn.
- The image manipulation program, Photoshop, allowed me to edit and airbrush all of my images taken as well as edit the layout of my music magazine at AS and my ancillary tasks at A2.
Friday 9 March 2012
Digital Technology Task 1 - Answer.
Theorist Johnathan Kramer.
Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":
1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension - This means not rejecting modernism, but building on what has gone before, this could link to how 'Postmodern & Modern are natural extensions of eachother'.
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic - This is sort of a mocking humour, a knowing sense of playfullness and irony.
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present - This means the knowledge of there being no boundaries and not repecting the differences in genre and time.
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles - This relates to using an unusual cultural 'blur' that you would not expect to hear together or see together, for example, mixing classical music with pop music.
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity - This releates to how songs traditionally have a set order of a verse chorus format, however, a postmodern artist may ignore this traditional order and produyce a song with a different structure for example, 'the Foals' sample alot of this mixed structure in their music.
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values - In the case of music, the 'elist' would be considered to be classical music possibly and the 'populist' could be seen as a more commercial type of music such as pop. By questioning the exclusivity of the classical music and merging the two genres together, anything can work. For example, the Beastie Boys track 'Intergalactic'.
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold) - This involves a piece of music hosting multiple sounds.
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts - This means to consider 'pop' usic especially as defining an era.
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures - Sampling different styles of music from different cultures and traditions and merging them as one.
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music - This is a link to how we listen to music, re-defining how we listen to it.
11. embraces contradictions - this means to involve anything unusual on a track for example, a strange acompaniment to the vocals.
12. distrusts binary oppositions - This means to go against the norm of binary pposites, possibly merging the two together or just sampling one of the two so there is no equal balance and thetrack may be sided more to a particular instrument for example.
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities - this means to include anything that has a stuttery or broken sound to it, for example, in today's music industry, the effects that 'autotune' give to an artists voice can be used for artistical effects.
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism - This means for a piece to be eclectic and embracing that individualism.
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities - This means involving references to todays society that are temporary, for example, a link to a political leader in a rap song that may not be relevant in five years time and also involving references and different intercontextual links.
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.
Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":
1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension - This means not rejecting modernism, but building on what has gone before, this could link to how 'Postmodern & Modern are natural extensions of eachother'.
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic - This is sort of a mocking humour, a knowing sense of playfullness and irony.
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present - This means the knowledge of there being no boundaries and not repecting the differences in genre and time.
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles - This relates to using an unusual cultural 'blur' that you would not expect to hear together or see together, for example, mixing classical music with pop music.
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity - This releates to how songs traditionally have a set order of a verse chorus format, however, a postmodern artist may ignore this traditional order and produyce a song with a different structure for example, 'the Foals' sample alot of this mixed structure in their music.
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values - In the case of music, the 'elist' would be considered to be classical music possibly and the 'populist' could be seen as a more commercial type of music such as pop. By questioning the exclusivity of the classical music and merging the two genres together, anything can work. For example, the Beastie Boys track 'Intergalactic'.
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold) - This involves a piece of music hosting multiple sounds.
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts - This means to consider 'pop' usic especially as defining an era.
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures - Sampling different styles of music from different cultures and traditions and merging them as one.
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music - This is a link to how we listen to music, re-defining how we listen to it.
11. embraces contradictions - this means to involve anything unusual on a track for example, a strange acompaniment to the vocals.
12. distrusts binary oppositions - This means to go against the norm of binary pposites, possibly merging the two together or just sampling one of the two so there is no equal balance and thetrack may be sided more to a particular instrument for example.
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities - this means to include anything that has a stuttery or broken sound to it, for example, in today's music industry, the effects that 'autotune' give to an artists voice can be used for artistical effects.
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism - This means for a piece to be eclectic and embracing that individualism.
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities - This means involving references to todays society that are temporary, for example, a link to a political leader in a rap song that may not be relevant in five years time and also involving references and different intercontextual links.
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.
Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.
Post Production -Task 3 Answer.
- Detail the progression you made post-production, specifically from:
- Editing a conversation (prelim) to a 3 min music video (and possibly a 2 min opening to a film at AS).
- Progression using Photoshop from a school magazine front cover and contents, to a music magazine cover, contents page and DPS to a CD digipack and music magazine advertisement.
- Try to think about how you have become more technically competent in terms of your use of digital technology to present work creatively at the stage of post-production.
- The progression I have made post-production as regards to editing a conversation is pretty significant. When looking back at the short clip we filmed as a group, I think that my ability to take leadership and control over a project has not changed although I feel that my ability to see a shot well and edit a video has.
- My progression with Photoshop has not been significant however, I do feel that my ability to be creative and push the boudaries by experimenting with Photoshop has improved considerably. I think that my overall appearance and layout of work has become more professional and refined.
- I think that the fact that I had to airbrush and edit each individual photo at A2 which involved a lot more work than AS, shows how my ability to work in large scale improvement. I feel that the amount of airburshing and intencity of it has truly tested by abilities with Photoshop and I feel that I am now at a higher level of Photoshop ability.
Post Production -Task 2 Answer.
- You have 10 minutes to brainstorm everything you did for your main product at A2 at the stage of post-production. This must be detailed in terms of tools used, the software pros/cons, your strengths/weaknesses.
- At A2, the things I did at post-production included:
- Producing a draft music video and ancillary tasks including a magazine advertisement and a digipack CD artwork.
- Producing a final draft music video and ancillary tasks including a magazine dadvertisement and a digipack CD artwork.
- I used photoshop for my acillary tasks and used tools such as the crop tool, correction tool to airbrush the images, adjusted the levels, curves, saturation of the images, used the text tool, used the dodge, greyscale and burn tools. I experimented with layering and adding different light filters, this was time consuming although effective.
- I downloaded fonts from dafont.com in order to produce my ancillary tasks.
- My music video was firstly edited on Adobe premier where I experimented with lighting effects and editing.
- My final draft of my music video was edited using iMovie where I also experimented with curves, saturation and editing.
- I uploaded my final drarfts to my blog aswell as printing them off onto large scale for the hand-in.
- The pros/cons of editing software:
- I found Photoshop easy to work with as I had used it in my AS year aswell as outside of school so therefore I was aware of how to use it and could experiment with editing. Therefore I found Photoshop to easily use.
- I found Adobe Premiere simple to work with as it used the same named tools as Adobe Photoshop, therefore, even though I had never used this program before, I could easily understand how to work it with minimum preperation beforehand.
- The only problem with this program was that the program expired after 30 days of a trial and there was no way that I could install this particular editing software again aposed to a program such as Photoshop.
- iMovie proved difficulat to work with initially as the layout of everything was so different to an Adobe program. I felt that because of this simplicity, I was afraid that the outcome of my music video would not lookas professional as if it were edited on Adobe Premier.
- The pros of this were that it had some editing sfotware that I was able to use in order to change the saturation and curves etc. although I could not include the lighting effects I was experimenting with on Adobe Premier.
- My Strengths/Weaknesses:
- I feel that my strengths on Photoshop have grown since AS, even though I had used the program before. I feel that my ability to push the boundaries and think outside my initial ideas has become a skill of mine and I have become more experimental with it.
- My strengths at editing videos has improved as I have never edited a music video before and I am proud that I could learn to program two different editing softwares and make them work for me.
- My weaknesses would be my time management of downloading software as perhaps if I had downloaded Premier earlier, I would've been able to complete my video on that software instead of learning how to use another.
- You should also detail your progression of graphics and DTP skills at the stage of post-production between AS and your A2 ancillary tasks.
- My progression of graphics over AS and A2 has improved considerably I think as although I was extremely proud and please with my work produced at A2, I think that my experimental flare at A2 enabled me to produce the work that I did and wouldnt have been able to at AS.
Post Production -Task 1 Answer.
- You have 5 minutes to brainstorm everything you did for your main product at AS at the stage of post-production.
- At the stage of Post-production for as I:
- Created a draft cover, contents and DPS using Photoshop.
- Created a final draft cover, contents and DPS using Photoshop.
- In Photoshop, I used tools such as the crop tool, correction tool to airbrush the images, adjusted the levels, curves, saturation of the images, used the text tool, used the dodge, greyscale and burn tools, I also used art filters to create the cover.
- I downloaded a font for my magazine text from dafont.com and installed it.
- I Edited eat Photo individually on Photoshop and created a slideshare presentation.
- I asked for peer feedback on my first draft aswell as teacher feedback in order to improve points for my final draft.
- I uploaded my final drarfts to my blog aswell as printing them off onto large scale for the hand-in.
- I wrote up my first and final draft of my article with my artist to use on my DPS.
- Software Pros/Cons:
- The software I used was Photoshop, I found it extremely easy to work with as I had used Photoshop before and because of this I felt that I could experiment more with the tols it provides although overall I love this program.
- There were no real cons to the software at AS, the only thing would be that the technology I used to take my images, i.e., my camera at AS did not provide me a guarenteed good result as some images were ruined by the blur that I found after uploading to my computer.
- My Streengths/Weaknesses:
- I feel that my strengths at AS were especially with Photoshop as I have had experience working with it before and love creating things within the program. I feel that this pre-prepared skill enabled me to create the work that I did.
- I feel that another strength of mine was my ability to reseach. I feel that mise en scene and the idea of a 'concept' and link thoughout my work is vital and so my research into locations and styling etc. proved well for me to do this.
- I think that my weaknesses were possibly time management at AS, as I left things unplanned which cost time, this is something I hoped to improve for my A2 year.
Monday 5 March 2012
Research and Planning Question 7. Answer
How your Research and Planning has informed your practical production:
- How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
- How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
- How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence your production work?
- What pre-production planing techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-listing, flat-planning etc.)? How effective was your planning - how did it help you in the production phase?
- What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?
- How did you use production feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?
- My research into my genre contributed a great deal to my overall production work as a lot of the mise en scene, although a more niche and period take on rock music, relied alot upon research into the genre and traditional imagery with the style of music over both years.
- My research into audience contributed top my production work greatly as it helped me to vision my work from an audiences perspective and imagine how they would view the overall media piece. By doing this, I could then change things I needed to for example, mise en scene or camera angles that didn't work and adjust them to suit from an audiences perspective.
- My research into institutions helped me to organise my production in a more professional way and affected the amount of work and depth of detail I researched into my work areas in order to bring my work up to professional standards.
- For my AS year, I used flat-planning for my pre-production technique in order to have an initial rough idea of what my magazine layouts would look like. In my A2 year, I used the rest of the techniques including scripting, storyboarding my video and shot-listing in order to prepare me for production.
- From planning my first production, I could then improve the things that needed to be improved for my second to have a better overall finished media text. In my A2 year especially, this planning influenced my organisational skills to help me keep to my filming schedule.
- I used production feedback to influence my work whilst it was in progress to make sure that what I was producing was right for my audience as well as right for my genre and visually appealing. I felt that by doing that, My marks could be improved overall.
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