DRUG USE IN LYRICS COMPLETED + EVALUATION

MY EVALUATION OF DRUG USE IN LYRICS 

Today is the day that I have completed my work, finally! Here I present to you the final edit of Drug use in lyrics. The documentary duration is 11 minutes and 57 seconds. I am very happy with the duration of my documentary and planned for it to be around 10-15 minutes.

EDITING PROCESS + PROBLEMS

Most of the problems I had experienced with this documentary have been posted about in previous blog posts. Here I now present the other problems that I had faced but have not talked about.

The editing process was quite hard as I had several technical difficulties with the sound. I had to re-upload my documentary twice and when I did, the voice still sounded un-professional.

Here is a clip of how my voice sounded after the 1st voiceover was put on.

You don't have to watch all of it to notice that their is a significant problem with my voice.

As you can see from the clip, my voice sounds very harsh and the acoustics is not quite right.

Another problem that I had experienced was with one of the Voxpops and how to spell Voxpops. I was not fully aware of the word Voxpops and only have learned to spell it now correctly. Which is why in some of my previous blogs posts and previous projects you would see that their is an error with the spelling.

One of the problems that I had faced, was with her interview. The audio was a problem again and the quality of recording. If you see in the video her voice is not loud and the background noise is more present than her voice. The background noise sounds a lot like static, this resulted in me not adding this interview into my final edit of Drug use in lyrics.

The best parts of my documentary.

CHOICE OF MUSIC

Now that I have listed all of the problems that I had faced with my documentary, Its time to list all the   best parts of my documentary. I believe that one good feature that was included in my video was my choice of music. In my piece I added a lot of beats that were very in-sync to my recordings rather than out of place. The music choice that I added to my piece allowed my documentary to flow naturally. 

THE EXAMPLES OF CELEBRITIES 

Another feature that made my documentary good was the variety of topics, choosing relevant examples that related to the subject. Such as presenting how the Beatles had promoted drugs in their lyrics and how singers from way different genres had drug use in their lyrics too. 

My research was also a successful part of my documentary, as the research allowed me to fully be acknowledgeable of drugs on a deeper level, which made me add these detailed features about drugs in my final piece. Such as finding out the different street-names of drugs, finding drug use in songs in different eras, and how drugs can be helpful, despite people being vague and only mentioning the negatives of drugs. 

VOXPOPS

The Voxpops went really well as I managed to capture the interviewee in a good light and background.  The interview allowed people to have a balanced debate, where they can found out for themselves if they know the underlying messages that are being presented in lyrics, through different types of genres such as Rap and Pop Music.  The Voxpops allowed me to gain information and see wether the members of the public are aware of what some songs contain in their lyrics. 

STRUCTURE 

The structure of my documentary was very organised. It was in-sync and was consistent. When a topic was finished talking about it was presented in a time-lapse, which allowed viewers to watch and not get un-interested as the pace was regular and steady rather than fast. The structure of Drug use in lyrics was slick and smooth. 

WHAT I COULD IMPROVE AND CHANGE.

 ↓ VISUAL WRITING

One of the things that I could have changed in my documentary, was the clip where I was writing on the whiteboard. There was ways where I could approached it differently. If I could approach this in a different way I would have presented this word and edited it on KeyNote, where I could add various effects such as ''typewriter'' which could have made my documentary have a professional look rather than a decent look. 

If you look at the words on the whiteboard you can see that their is a significant problem with the lighting. The whiteboard is reflective. If I would have done this again I would most likely have to assure that I shoot the whiteboard in angle so it is not reflective and does not show an uneven light. 

 ↓DURATION 

Another thing that I could have changed was the duration of my work, If it was not limited I could have made my documentary be a lot more detailed and I could have had the opportunity to approach it deeper, but because the documentary time was limited I made sure to add as much detail as I could. 

Reflection 

From starting in September to now, I have learnt alot of things and I have gained new skills. When I started in September I was shy and new to media. I had previous experiences with editing but not with the software final cut pro. This experience has been truly amazing and has allowed me to express my creativity through my work.

I went from having little knowledge about media to having a good understanding of media. 
I would say that now, I am fully confident in editing and using a camera. Infact one of the most things that I really enjoy doing is editing! 

In the future I hope to do more documentaries, this experience with Drug use in lyrics

 was hard and tiring, but it has not stopped me from being motivated and wanting to make more documentaries in the future.


Thank you for reading my last blog post!

Dear Diary - Editing Process Part 2 - (Problems with Clips)

PROBLEMS WITH CLIPS

When listening to what I have edited in the voxplots I had noticed in some areas where the microphone tends to make an unplesant sound. I did not realise this when I was recording the Voxplots, despite this sound I have decided that I will still add that interview to my final edit. I believe that the sound does sound very unplesant and unprofessional, but during this period of time it would be hard to re-record and get more interviews, as most students are busy either doing projects or revising as exam season approaches.

Unfortunately I cant post the video that presents the errors as blogger says that the clip needs to be more than 100MB but you will see the clip and how it sounds once my edit has fully been completed and you will also see how I try to hide it through music and other methods. 

In my opinion, I believe that I can edit and change this so the sound is not present in my final edit, by cutting some of the voxplots and fading the sound levels so you can not hear it. I could also cut the clip so she just starts speaking instanly and I could replace my voice with font, which sounds like the easier option as even on the clips my voice did not seem to be heared that much.

Risk Assessment - Drug use in Lyrics Documentary

Dear Diary - Editing Process

Sneak Peek of my introduction to Drug Use in lyrics.

The process of editing my documentary Drug use in lyrics has been going very good and effective. So far I have added my voiceovers to my visual clips, edited some of my voxplots and added music to my work.  I do have a lot more things I have to edit but I am determined to finsh my documentary by the deadline that I have set.

All the pieces I have edited up to date have a duration of 6.41 mintues, So I am sure that my documentary will be around 10-15 mintues which is what I am aiming for.

A screenshot of my timeline and what I have edited up to date.

VOXPLOTS 

Here is the pictures of the two girls that I have interviewed. The 1st one is called Larissa and the second interviewee is called Sherene. Overall I had done 3 interviews, 2 with females and one with a male. I decided to interview 2 females, merely because most teenaged boys around the ages of 16-18 tend to listen to a lot to songs. Especially in my class the boys tend to listen to Grime, which is a genre of music which comes from England, that sometimes promotes drug use in their lyrics. This is why I decided to interview more females then males because most females that I am friends with dont really take in any consideration of what they're singing, even me I tend to sing along to songs without actual knowing what it means its like a trend for people to sing the latest songs and not really know what the singer is talking about.

Some people may even know that the song is about drugs but not the effects of being under the influence of it. The guy that I interviewed seemed to know that the song was about social status but not about drugs, even when I played the infamous part ''pop the molly im sweating''  I had to edit the clip as he paused a lot and said uhmm. This was a shock to me as I thought that he would be aware of what the message of the song was but he had no idea, it just goes to show that just because some males listen to Grime it does not mean they're always aware of what the rapper/singer song is about 

Dear Diary - FMP (Final Major Project) Progress

The shooting process of my documentary has become very successfull, despite missing a couple of days I had managed to still get the right amount of footage in time, for the editing process and also to complete my deadline. Today I thought that it would be sensible to go over my clips just to see if they are of a high standard and if they were suitable to present in my documentary Drug use in lyrics.

I believe that the visual parts of my recordings were quite good, I had managed to do different types of shots such as a close up and a pan shot of the area in which I had interviewed people. I also did some visual shots where in my documentary, I had mentioned that drug use in lyrics were present in songs in the 1960s and the 70s.

Here is a clip where I did a closeup shot of the flowers in the area where I had interviewed some people, I thought that it would be a good idea to shoot these flowers, as their apperance was very beautiful and I wanted to present to the audience the type of environment that I was in. If I didnt show the environment that the interviewees were in, it would have been pointless and un-synced when editing.

Another shot that I did which was apart of my visual work was the pan shot of the designated smoking area sign. I had managed to interview someone who was in this area and thought that it would be important to record the sign, so my audience is aware that some of the people I had interviewed were in a smoking area.

After this post I will start the process where I edit my clips and start to form them together. On the days that I was absent I took the opportunity to edit the clips that I had recorded when I was present at college, which was the 4th to the 15th of April, So I am positive that the editing process wont take a long duration of time, due to the fact that I had already edited some of the scenes this is why I set my deadline for the 30th of April

Further more I will begin to still do diary entries where I update you guys about how the process is going on my documentary Drug use in lyrics.

DEADLINE EXTENDED - FINAL MAJOR PROJECT

Dear Diary,

My deadline of my final major project has been extended, due to the fact that I was not present in school on the 18th of April to the 24th due to a personal family issue. The 24th of April was supposed to be the day where everything was expected to be finshed. I have now had to extend my deadline of completiting my final major project to the 30th of April.

I believe that by the 30th of April, that everything will be completed and edited. So far all I have to do is more research on my final major project and shoot some voxplots and some scenes of me informing my viewers about these types of drugs.

Unit 7 - Blogs (Interactive work) + Homework

UNIT 7 BLOGS HOMEWORK

What is a blog?

A blog is a website in which a person owns. A blog revolves around people making entries and posts which could be about entirely anything. You could say that a blog is your own personal diary and outlet where you have the ability to express yourself and gain followers whilst doing it. A blog has various features such as it allows people to post pictures, make posts, and also allows people to network with other people.

Many people use blogs to their advantage and start to make an income of it, by placing ads and by recieving sponsorships. Some bloggers even get products sent to them for free by companies, companies do this in hopes of getting their product out their in the market and reached to a bigger audience.

Are blogs interactive?

Blogs are very interactive as they give people the freedom to communicate to each other and comment on other peoples posts and pictures on their blog. For example, I own a blog and so far it has allowed me to submit work on posts and has given people, worldwide to see my posts and comment. You may think that just because you live in london and have a blog that only people from london will see your posts, but their has been many cases where people abroad have seen my level 2 media blog.

Here I present to you the different audiences I recieve on my blog.

Another way a blog can be interactive is through forums, Many people tend to create a forum blog, which is a blog where people can discuss various topics and leave their opinions. A forum gives people the chance to make friends and debate on loads of different subjects. In forums a community of people are made and sometimes events are created in order for people to meet up and connect with one another.

Guru Gossip

A very popular forum blog where people talk about famous Youtubers, some tend to talk postive about these Youtubers and some negative. 

Youtubers are people who have a YouTube account and make videos. 

As you can see at the top of the website it says ''TRASH A GURU'' - This shows that their is a specific post where people can talk negatively of a person. 

Another forum blog Lipstick Alley

Where people discuss topics about anything and anyone it could be about a celebrity or a personal issue that a person needs help on. 

The Main Functions of a blog 

The functions of a blog are endless, blogs provide a lot of features.

Such as :

• Customization choice

It gives people the permission to customize their blog to their specific taste. So if a person wants their blog to be all black they could just change the color or if someone wants a wallpaper as their background they could upload one. 

They are thousands of headers and free themes online that people can download and use to give their blog some personality and style. 

For example on Wordpress you could purchase different themes. You could purchase a magazine  personal theme where your blog will appear in a magazine format and have magazine style fonts which would be bold fonts and colorful. Or you could purchase a clean and minimal theme where your blog will consist of the colors black and white and would appear to be very neat and organised.

On blogger you would just have to go to settings and you would have a choice of different types of themes that you could apply to your blog. You could also purchase themes online if the themes that blogger have are to plain and dull.

• Being able to share posts

A blog allows users to share their blog and posts to a wider audience that is not only national but also international. You could share your blog through big social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more known more social media platforms. 

We are now in a era of technology that allows people to share their interest through a number of social media platforms to thousands and millions of people. Just by the touch of a button an indivual can share anything to a variety of social media platforms that have a wider audience unlike the days where we used to communicate and share things through letters that took days to have to be posted. Social media platforms are something that are instant. 

• Can edit your blog anywhere!

Most blogs now have the feature where you download a mobile app where you can enter your blog making it easier for you to edit and alter your blog when you're outside rather than at your home on a computer.

This function is great as it allows users to have the opprutunity to edit their blog even if they're in a different enviroment or in a place where their is no computers avalible.

• Quick posting & publishing 

When posting things on blogs it publishes  immediately and can even be published at atime schedule you have set, making people access up to date information that can go to audiences quickly so they never miss a update. 

Webography:

https://www.google.co.uk/?client=safari#q=what+is+a+blog&gfe_rd=cr
http://www.slideshare.net/sadmanprodhan/functions-and-features-of-blog-twitter-wikis-google-ad-words-and-bitcoin