8 Shot Journey

For my first project I had to make an 8 shot journey, this consisted of 8 different shots showing someone starting somewhere and getting to a destination. For my 8 shot journey I had my actor starting off on a bench outside the college and working his way through the college to get to a vending machine.

It started off with a simple storyboard depicting the locations and directions my actor would be walking in, to this I added what shots I would use and more detailed notes on what my actor would be doing during the shot. After having my storyboard checked by my teacher I got my taped and stripped about 20 minutes of it so when I filmed I wouldn’t have the trouble of it having many different start times. This made it much easier for me when I got to editing.

I then started filming my idea throughout my different locations and making sure I had the shots I really wanted. With my actor I had very little problems with the shots and what I wanted him to do. I only had to redo 2 shots and I was happy with the others. Most of my shots have very few extras walking through the shot because I filmed during very quiet hours of the college making my job much easier. There were 2 shots which I had to redo because of actor errors and prop problems, the first one was shot 3 where the turnstile wouldn’t open fully on each shot we did, so in the end I cut this out in the edit making the shot slightly shorter. The second shot that went wrong was shot 5, with this one people kept walking into the lift during the shot so we had to redo this one at a later time when people weren’t using the lifts so much.

When I had finished my video I had to write out a log sheet depicting my shots and their times. My log sheet shows all my shot times making things much easier for when I edit them, also it has a small comment on how the shot went and also the locations of each shot in the college.

When the film was finished I had to edit it to separate each shot I was using and have them in separate places on the sequence. I also had to cut out all the handles at the beginning and end of each shot I was using so there were not any blank spots in the film where nothing was happening. After editing these I had to make sure there were no problems with each shot and that they were in the right order for my film. After I had finished editing each shot to how I would like it I saved the file so I could then burn it onto a DVD.

I then had to compress my video to fit it onto my blog, to do this I had to use the compressor. I changed around the settings to how they needed to be for my video to be successfully compressed.

This is my final edit of my video.

SNC Live station promo

The final jingle I made is a promotion for my own radio show, this is 59 second long.

This has many different tracks playing in the background, starting with an orchestral build up, then many rock tracks from; A Day to Remember – Downfall of us all, Deftones – Back to school, Avenged Sevenfold – Bat country, Coheed and Cambria – The Suffering, System of a Down – Aerials, Enter Shikari – Hectic, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Justify, and Guns ‘n’ Roses – Sweet Child of Mine. I used a medley of tracks to get across what my show is about. My voice is recorded over the top to say what the show is about and when it is on e.t.c. I had to make my voice louder on this one to make sure it was heard over all the music

http://www.zshare.net/audio/68355206376d5fab/

This is my final draught of the show promo. On this one I added a classical music track to the beginning and then a rewind effect about 5 second in before I started the rock music to give it a good effect and to really put through what was on my show. I also added another couple of vocal points in it where I would say more about the station and so there wasn’t any extremely long musical moments which could make it string out too long.

If I could change this one again I would most likely add more effects to my voice and either add more music or just increase the length a little bit so there is a little bit more musicality in it.

SNC Live station ident.

The second jingle I made is for the station identity, this jingle is 5 seconds long.

The music in the background here is a guitar solo by Avenged Sevenfold Guitarist Synister Gates. I used this part of the solo because he holds a note for a few seconds and then plays a couple of shorter ones soon after. This is the effect I was looking for, for my station ident. The sound over it is my voice with the small room effect on it I used this to give my voice a slight echo, I also repeated my voice 2 times for each letter of SNC to enhance the effect of an echo. After feedback on this jingle I decided to change it very slightly to alter effects.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/66986231aa238f27/

This is my final copy of the station ident, The length of the jingle has been increased by 2 seconds compared to my first draught. I increased the length because before the words were fairly inaudible as they were said over such a short time. By increasing the length it also let me add a 3rd repeat to the letters so you could hear them better aswell. The final change I made is turning down the volume of the music as it was too loud compared to the voice.

If I could change this one again I would possibly make it a bit longer to hear more and possibly increase the sound of the music by a small amount as this is quite quiet with everything else going on.

SNC Live news jungle

After some practice using Soundbooth I made 3 jingles for a radio show. The first one I made is a news jingle which is 9 seconds long.

The music I have in the background is a melodic bass line downloaded from soundsnap; I thought this would be good as a chilled out relaxed news tune for a late night show. The voice has had the dream sequence effect put upon it to make it sound more mellow and soothing. I thought these came well together as as one to bring the effect I was after.

After I created my first draught of this I got some feedback from some peers and decided that it was too long with not enough voice in it making it drag on quite a lot. This pushed me to edit it into what I have now.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/66986069990c95a5/

This is my final copy of my news jingle the music has been reduced by 10 seconds and I also added a second vocal track to make it seem more exciting. However I do not believe my final edit is all it could have been. After more responses from my peers and teachers, I think I should have taken less time off the main tune, making the music string out a little bit longer and giving the words more effect.

First Jingle

This is the first jingle i made using soundbooth

Download Declan Bradley - Car Insurance Jingle

Photographs taken outside.

These are 2 photographs i took inside the college of the atrium, they are of similar areas but with a different shutter speed.

This one was taken of the atrium from over the entrance with a 20 minute shutter speed, this wasn't a long enough exposure to give a good shot of what i was looking at. The first shot on the left is the negative and is quite pale, showing that the exposure time wasnt long enough. The second shot on the right is the photoshopped copy, i made this a lot brighter to show more definitionof what is in the shot.

This second photo i took was of a different area on the same balcony looking towards the cafeteria area. this was taken for 25 minutes and was still underexposed. The original shot on the left is a bit better than the first but still pale, therefore still not enough exposure. The second shot on the right i brightened up and added a bit more colour too it to give more definition to the walls and the back of the cafeteria.

After these two shots i know that if i were to take another shot inside the college i would need to try an exposure time of at least 30 mins to get a good photograph.

Photographs taken outside.

These are 2 of my photos that i took outside the college grounds with my pinhole camera.


This photograph is of the college building going underneath the bridge which is just out of the picture. The shot on the left is the negative image taken straight from the camera. This was the first ever image i took with my pinhole camera and coincidentally the best (i call that beginners luck). Whereas the shot on the right is after i played about with it on photoshop, inverting the colours and brightening it up a little bit.

This photo was taken near my first one of a tree and the sky, i tilted the camera up a bit more than i had first intended and it just shows the edge of the tree and a majority of the sky. The shot on the left is the original negative from the camera, and not much is visible. But when i put it on photoshop and inverted the colours, more was visible, i then used the spot clearing tool to give a clearer image of the sky.

This last photo taught me that I need to concentrate more on where I am pointing the pinhole camera because since it has no viewfinder its all down to your own judgement.

Creating a pinhole camera.

I created my own pinhole camera from an old quality street tin. To do this I first gave the entire inside of the tin 3 coats of black poster paint. This is because when the light is shining inside the tin I don’t want it to be reflected around, thus ruining the photos. After I did this, I then drilled a hole into one of the sides of my tin; I then covered this will a small piece of foil over the exposed area. After taping the foil down securely I pierced a small hole in it with a pin to give me the essence of my pinhole camera. I then had to create a shutter for my camera because I didn’t want light getting in to the tin when it wasn’t wanted, to do this I cut a small flap of cardboard which I taped over the hole, however I only taped one side of this down permanently because I would need to lift this to take the photos.

To take the photos I went into a dark room to get myself a piece of photographic paper, I cut this out to size and taped it on the opposite side of my tin on the inside, to finish I put the lid on and made sure the tin was light tight so no light could get in unless I lifted the shutter and exposed the pinhole. This is how I made me pinhole camera suitable for taking photographs.

After the photo has been taken the photo needs to be developed, to do this you have to take your tin etc. into a darkroom. This is when you open your tin to take the photographic paper out and label it with a pencil so it wont wash off while developing. Now you need to wash your paper with developing fluid for about 30 seconds to actually be able to view the image on your paper, this is then placed in fixer for 30 seconds more so when you bring the photo into light it wont create anymore images on the paper. You then need to wash the paper for about a minute to clean off the chemicals of the fixer and developer. after your photo has been dried you have the final product.

How a pinhole camera works.

A pinhole camera is a camera that works without a lens. A pinhole camera is made up of a light tight area, a small, pin sized, opening, and a shutter. A pinhole camera can be created in any kind of light tight area. A piece of photographic paper is placed opposite the pinhole opening to project the image it has been pointed at. This works because the photographic paper is extremely light sensitive and will capture the light that has been reflected off objects to create the image.

The camera will work differently depending on the amount of light in the area, the distance between the pinhole and the photographic paper (focal length), and the diameter of the pinhole (aperture). The aperture is measured in f-stops, with this; the smaller the number is, the bigger the aperture will be. By dividing the focal point by the aperture you will obtain the f-stop. The f-stop will tell you the amount of time you need to leave the shutter open in certain areas of certain light (shutter speed). The shutter speed is just how long you will keep the shutter open for. The shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, to capture an image. Shutter speeds are measured with a scale of;

B, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000,

B being bulb, and 1 being 1 second. However instead of 2 being 2 seconds, it is a half of a second, and the rest of the numbers follow the trend of being the denominator of a fraction.

Welcome!!

Hey, i'm Declan Bradley and this is my blog, this will contain my initial AS media studies projects :D. These will contain photographs, videos, and audio projects.