Sarmad Shafique

How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

Digital technology has changed the way media is produced, distributed and consumed. Technological convergence has made the entire process less expensive and available to everyone. Anyone with a smartphone can record, edit and upload films. The worlds biggest media library is available in the form of internet.

During the coursework we used different digital technologies to create and distribute our media products.

The coursework started with research, I searched online for different music videos using online websites such as vimeo, dailymotion and youtube. Youtube contains majority of the world’s music videos as it is the largest video sharing service to date, but unfortunately Youtube is banned in Pakistan. To get access to youtube I used alternate websites such as playit.pk or ytpak these websites access youtube through a proxy server and plays the requested video on its own player.

I watched videos that inspired me and embedded them into posts on my blog on wordpress. I kept updating my wordpress blog with the progress.

During planning I created the story board using my Wacom Bamboo graphic tablet. This allowed me to draw directly into Adobe Photoshop. My Photoshop skill had improved since the AS level course work as our teachers taught us more.

I used the snipping tool on windows 7 to take screenshots of music videos and the evidence for my blog. When I visited Shalimar Gardens for the location reccee I used my smartphone to take pictures and I used its built in camera app to take a panoramic shot of the location for my blog.

Audience surveys were conducted online using an online tool called Survey Monkey it allowed me to design the UI of the survey and publish it online with a shareable link. I shared the link using facebook and a popular instant messenger, Whatsapp. Within a week I got the results and survey monkey created infographics for me which I posted on the blogs.

Servies like google images and google search allowed me to gather information and images for extensive research.

After listening to various tracks on soundcloud, I selcected “tere ishq mein” cover by nescafe basement. Soundcloud allowed me to embed the track on my blog which was really helpful. Later I downloaded the song and edited the song using Sony Vegas, a music editor which allows to edit video and sound files. I cut out the part which we did not require and rendered the new track as a mp3 file.

I used my Nikon D5300 with a tripod to film for the music video. The video was shot at 1080p HD with 60 frames per second. As we shot outside I kept the ISO to 100 so that there would be no noise in the video. I played the song on my phone while the band lip synced to it. This later helped me to sync the video with the edited track by matching the wavelength of the video’s sound to the music.

The record label logo was also created using photoshop. Bushra and I sat down together and created the logo. I used the online presentation tools; prezi and slideshare to create presentations which I could embed on my blog.

Using Sony Vegas got easier with practice and tutorials online on websites such as youtube and daily motion.

Picmonkey was often used to create collages to put up on the blog. I used vine to upload a 6 second video of the band performing for behind the scene.

The online tool for website creation Wix was really helpful, Bushra created the wireframe in word using that as a base She created the website. I later used photoshop to create images to be used on the site. We integrated them together has created the final website. Bushra used an online custom shirt printing service to create the store on the website.

Various tools, software and hardware were used to create the 3 elements of the coursework and the blogs.