Skills Development & Experimentation

Pixlr Experimentation:

Pixlr was recommended by quite a lot of people as a good alternative to Photoshop. I am not actually going to be reliant on Photoshop as I am producing a documentary but I might need to create logos or any edit images to avoid copyright issues and for that reason, I may need to use Pixlr. It was quite similar to Photoshop so I would actually use it if I needed to.

VideoPad Experimentation:

I researched this as an alternative to Premiere Pro when once it downloaded and opened up it was very hard to navigate. Initially, it looked very similar to Premiere Pro but once I started playing around it with it, it was nowhere near as good as the software I have used before and know. It didn't even let me input a video to edit so I couldn't actually judge if the software would have been good to use in Final Production. 

Adobe After Effects CC 2018 Practice:

We edited a video in after effects. We added the text as a lower third and made its transition in and fade out. The final effect is that when she walks into the frame the text box comes in with her, says her name and profession and then fades out. The three boxes on the outside of the frame are called the title/action safe. It ensures that when you export the video, nothing is cut off, as long as you kept it inside those boxes. Learning about the lower thirds is really useful as I am producing a documentary and lower thirds come into production. However, I am not sure if I am going to use After Effects as I did it on Premiere Pro before and it worked just as well. 

Adobe Bridge:

We looked at Adobe Bridge. It's a content management system. It allows you to easily filter through your images based on some in-depth details and select the images perfectly suited for your needs. It shows you the metadata of the images. Metadata is essentially the data about the data, so the image data. This could be things like the file format, image size, the ISO, the shutter speed and even if the flash was fired or not, those are just a few of the things it can tell you about the images data. It's really useful if you have a lot of images that you want to keep but you don't necessarily want to use them all, you can rate the images or a 1-5 star ranking system, and you can rate the ones you need and then filter it to only show 5-star photos for example. Overall, I think Adobe Bridge is the key to staying organised and to ensure you use the best images. 

Finding the right score to support my documentary:

I think the score is vital in any documentary. It really helps set the tone of the documentary and helps subliminally send a message to your audience. However, I think the score is even more crucial in my documentary as it's a music documentary. The main thing I need to bear in mind is copyright issues. I can't really use well-known songs as it will flag up and my documentary could be taken down. Above are some R&B style instrumentals that I have found which are copyright free and I could use. To be certain, I might message the YouTube account that produces the instrumental to ensure that I can use them, copyright free. I haven't chosen one yet but as I start production I will make a decision, but these are just a few options so far.

B-Roll:

'In film and television production, B-roll is supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main shot. The term A-roll referring to the main footage has fallen out of usage.' B-Roll is essentially clips taken from pre-existing videos such as news articles or other documentaries that you can use to add context to your video. It can be used to provide educational content to a documentary, as well as historical or even add comedic value to the video. B-roll has many different uses.  Above is the B-Roll footage that I put together about the origins and evolution of R&B music. It was quite difficult to find B-Roll on the topic so I just used it as an opportunity to gather footage of older R&B artists compared to R&B now. I am sure there is still a lot more footage that I can add to final production but as a first attempt, it was ok. It was also a really good opportunity to brush up on my Premiere Pro editing skills and refresh my memory before I start final production. I will definitely use some of this footage in my final documentary as I think it helps make the documentary look more professional and also gives all the interviews more context.

Documentary title sequence:

This was my original idea for the title sequence for my documentary. It was ok but I wasn't very fond of it. I felt that it didn't truly reflect my ability and I could make something that not only represented the topic better but also my ability on Photoshop. 

Experimenting with title sequences:

I played around with some effects on Premiere Pro to animate my titles. I tried making it zoom around, change colour and tried adding a visual echo-type of effect. I didn't really like any of them. I currently have a simple transition that fades my titles in. I quite like the simplicity of this and I don't think I will change it. I might try and further experiment with some other effects I have tried yet, in case there is one that I missed and I like.