Media Production and Technology Unit 7 - Exploring Interactive Media

Today we was asked by our tutor to complete a new unit called 

EXPLORING INTERACTIVE MEDIA 

Task Brief : In this task I want you to look at different ways that we interact with digital platforms.

I decided to choose the two social media sites Facebook and Youtube.

Facebook is a social network profile which allows you to communicate to friends, family and people around the world. On Facebook you can do variety of things such as:  

• Send photos to each other
• Share Videos 
• Post your thoughts on your profile or also know as your timeline 
• Promote your business 
• Play Games
• Add photos and create an album for memories 
• Watch videos 
• Be updated of when people post things on their timeline

And many more things. 

The History of Facebook

Mark Zukerberg

Facebook was established on February the 4th by a man called Mark Zukerberg along with his Harvard roommates, Eduaro Saverin, Andrew Mccollum, and Dustin Moskovits. 

Facebook restricted the website memberships at first to Harvard students but then it later branched out to different colleges in the Boston area, It also branched out to the Ivy league and Stanford University. After this it was then seen as a website that gave a vast amount of universities and later high school students support.

On the 26th of September, 2006 was when anyone the age of thirteen year old was able to become a registered member of the website.

Before Facebook

Before Facebook was even established Mark Zukerberg produced a website called FaceSmash on the date October the 3rd 2006 when he was a second year student at Harvard University. 

The Harvard Crimson said that the website was very similar to the dating website Hot or not and said that Facesmash used photos placing them next to each other which gave users the opportunity to rate which student is hotter. For Mark Zukerberg to produce Facesmash, he hacked into guarded areas of the Harvard computer network and duplicated private dormitory id images. The website was reached to different campus group list servers and was ceased by the Harvard Administration. This resulted in Mark Zukerberg facing exclusion and charges such as breach of security,violation of copyrights, and individual privacy, but the charges were dropped. 

This made Mark Zukerberg try and develop more on this project that semester by forming a social study tool early for an art exam. He uploaded approximately 500 Augustan images to a website with a comment section present, he then presented it to his classmates and they began taking notes.

That following school semester, Mark Zukerberg began writing a code for a brand new website and on February the 4th 2002, Thefacebook.com was launched.

First glimpse of thefacebook.com once produced.

Mark Zukerberg faced another charge where Harvard students stated that he lied to them and made them believe he was producing a website called Harvardconnection.com. They stated how he used them for their ideas. The three students made a report to the Harvard Crimson and it was investigated. He faced a lawsuit in 2008 for 1.2 million shares of his site. 

The name facebook was taken from the sheets of papers produced to freshmans (1st year students) and staffs. In 24 hours 1,200 Harvard students had signed up to the website, and after one month over half of the the university students who have been taking their first degree or have completed it  had created an account.

In August 2005 the domain was edited to the Facebook.com after the address was bought for 200,000 dollars. US highschools gained access to sign up and the website branched out worldwide even reaching UK universities. In 2007 this was when the site had increased and users were able to do a lot of things on the site such as, giving gifts to their friends and communicating. It begin to be a site that was not just used by university students. 

Facebook Controversy 

A story on the mirror about a girl who ended her life and received hurtfull messages on her Facebook and Snapchat page by two boys.

Generally there has been some controversy when it comes to using the social media site Facebook. Some people use Facebook and start to abuse people through it also known as cyber bullying.

Pros & Cons of Facebook

People tend to do a lot of negative things on social media such as make :

Hates pages 

People may use Facebook to express their hatred for a certain person. Most people that create these sort of pages have only intentions to ''troll people'' and be to an internet troll. They do this with blatant intentions of trying to make people feel bad about themselves.

People who are ''internet trolls'' tend to post un-related topics on people's social media pages in order to cause an argument, or a fight, they do this as they want a reaction to happen from the person they have trolled, as it amuses them all this drama and attention. 

Revenge Porn  

Revenge porn has been a topic that has been in the spotlight for quite a long duration of time.

Revenge porn is the action that takes place where someone posts someones nudes over the internet or on a porn website. People who normally do this activity, do this in intentions of harming someone and embrassing someone through the internet. In most cases it is normally the woman who is the victim, you rarely see cases of men who have been a victim of revenge porn.

When the person posts the unclothed picture on either a social media site or a porn site, this gives the chance for anyone to see the picture and comment on it. Most of the comments I have seen are quite awful, people would say things such as '' I would rape this person'' or say they're coming to this persons house to kill them. Making the victim feel depressed and uncapable of moving forward from this suitation. This could ruin the victim's reputation, what is on the internet stays on the internet so this picture could be seen by her boss, family and friends, and even criminals.

Fake profiles 

Fake profiles have been present a lot on social media websites. In most cases some people are unaware of who they are talking too. Their is even a hit tv show called Catfish where people are helped out to find out wether theyre talking to are really who they say they are.

 

The word Catfish means someone who is pretending to be someone they're not. They do this by using fake images stolen by someone elses account. Many people Catfish other people for various reasons such as 

• They're embrassed to show their true self to a person
• They want to intentionally harm a person 
• They want to troll someone 
• They are in love with someone but they are scared to show their real identity.

Pros of Facebook

Most of the pros I already listed in the introduction of Facebook but ill list it again and develop further on them.

Promote your business

Facebook is a great social media website where you can promote your business! People can promote their business by making a Facebook page and they can even gain some supporters through paying a small fee for advertisement. Once your page is produced you have a variety of an options and ways you can gain attention towards your business.  Along with promoting a business, you could also promote yourself if you are an aspiring singer, actor, or dancer by making  a page.

Communicate to people from different countries 

Facebook is good for long distance relationships and for speaking to relatives who are abroad. The website allows people to :

• Send messages to one another
• Video call each other
• Send pictures to one another
• Send videos to one another

In my opinion Facebook is perfect for communication, as that is what it was built for, for people to communicate to each other.

You can share your thoughts and opinions

Facebook is a place where you can express your thoughts and opinions towards others.  You could find that you have similarites towards someone else on Facebook and this could transiton to you joining a group or a club on Facebook. You could be yourself on Facebook and share and like anything you like from your profile without being ridiclued for it

 

Youtube is known to be a website that allows users to share videos to one another.

You could say that Youtube is a social network website as on the site, people are allowed to leave comments on videos and messages to other users of this site.  But other than Youtube is highly used to just upload videos.

The different between Youtube and Facebook

 I decided to make a chart and to write the different features that these websites had and also simmilarites that it had. What I discovered the most  is that Youtube is a website that is mostly built of video sharing and making, its more of a site that promotes video making and helps people to promote  themselves  through a channel. Whereas Facebook is a social networking site where people just want to to communicate to people, add photos, and even videos on their timeline.

Facebook consists of a lot of communication,  Facebook is just one big chatroom where people interact,whereas Youtube consists of the circulation of clips. You could reply to things on Youtube however you would not use Youtube as a form to communicate to people. You would just use Youtube to brand yourself, watch videos, and upload them.

Of course they were similarites such as you can send people messages etc and that you can share videos but it is very generic for websites to have some sort of method where you can share things.

The History of Youtube 

Youtube was produced in February 2005 by three Paypal workers

  Steven Chen

 Chad Hurley                                                 Jawed Karim

Date Published : April 23rd 2005

Interesting fact : Jawed Karim was known as one the first peope to upload a video on youtube in 2005 once Youtube was produced. His video was 18 seconds and in the video he was just talking about his trip at the zoo.

That is the original video that he had uploaded and if you visted the video now you would see that it has 30,046,428 million views.

 

 

 Layout of Youtube in 2005

The content of this website varies from people publishing music videos, video diaries, educational videos and even movies along with their trailers. 

People have the freedom on youtube to comment on videos, thumbs up or thumbs down on a video basically stating if they liked the video or not. Reports say that Chad Hurley one of the co-founders and Steven Chen expanded the concept of youtube during the early days in 2005, This was mainly because they had problems sharing a video that had been recorded at Steven Chen's Apartment, However Karim said that he never showed up at the party and stated how the idea was not formed like that. 

Karim stated that the idea of Youtube came from events that could not easily be seen online such as the infamous Janet Jackson super bowl performance in 2004 with Justin Timberlake, where he touched her breast and it fell out of her attire.

and the tragic incident in 2004, where an indian ocean tsunami occured in Indonesia.

 ↓

He wanted to create a website where you could find this clips which resluted in the idea of a video sharing website. 

It has been said that Chad Hurley and Steven Chen's ideas was to make Youtube a video online dating programme which was inspired by the dating website hot or not. Which is kind of similiar to Mark Zukerberg idea, as before he made facebook he made Facesmash which was said by The Harvard Crimson that it resemble the website hot or not.

(The website hot or no)

The domain name www.youtube.com, was finally launched on feburary the 15th 2005 and since then the website has progressed over the following months and has developed into a video sharing website rather than a dating site.

Pros & Cons on Youtube

Along with Facebook this website also has some pros and cons when using it.

The cons of Youtube is that:

Publishing of fights on it

People tend to post violent videos on Youtube, which could consist of people having fights, people having arguments and many more. Nobody wants to be published on Youtube without consent so one of the cons is that your personal moment could be published for the world to see if you're not careful of who is in your surroundings.

Anyone can see your videos if you publish it on Public (Con & Pro)

When uploading a video on public on Youtube, it gives anyone the permission to see it, comment on it, and rate it. This means that people can write what they want negative or positive. It is very common to see Youtube comments with a lot of comments that are bad or indecent. So if you're a sensitive person i recommend to put your videos on private or unlisted.

The con is that anyone can see it from any country and you can get views, because of that.

Vulgar videos 

On Youtube you may stumble or actcidently get a video that recommends you to watch it. On Youtube they are alot of videos that are quite vulgar and not for teens or children too see.  These videos consist of people :

• Harming Animals - (ripping their fur off or burning them)
• Females acting in a provocative way - (Stripping or dancing)

 The Pros of Youtube is that :


It had Educational aspects to it 

On Youtube there is a range of videos you could browse and view if you needed help on different types of subjects, you were studying. They are tons of Youtubers (Youtube users) who provide educational videos and tips to their viewers wether it be makeup tips, DIY tips, or weight loss tips.

 It could be your source of income 

If you gain a lot of views on your videos and a certain amount of subscribers, you could get paid for every video you make. They have been many youtubers who have made a huge income of Youtube, enough to the point where some of them have quit their jobs. If you are quite entertaining to watch and popular on Youtube, Youtube will start paying you.

Bibliography : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3043651/Parents-teen-committed-suicide-suffering-vicious-bullying-Facebook-demand-greater-protection-kids-online.html

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawed_Karim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckPPOpqNVc

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=janet+jackson+superbowl&safe=active&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=1273&bih=809&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwig6t7zl9TLAhVKaxQKHS4KCtMQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=d2iZ04MewSOthM%3A

https://hotornot.com/

https://www.wow247.co.uk/2016/03/21/leafy-youtube-bullying-controversy-whats-happening-and-why/

http://www.surfnetkids.com/tech/1197/pros-and-cons-of-youtube/
http://puresight.com/Useful-tools/the-pros-and-cons-of-facebook.html

Dear Diary - Disability Awareness Project Completed + Evaluation (2nd final major project)

I have finally completed my final major project! I have managed to get it completed around the same time of the STC show as I had planned to and I edited it on FCP ( Final Cut Pro)

Promotional Disability Awareness event at South Thames

Evaluation :

I have finally completed this project, at last! The duration of my project is 1 minute and 18 seconds long, and I am quite pleased with this time as I wanted to provide my audience with a snippet of my video, simply because I wanted to gain the attention of my audience by enticing them with some of the highlights of my video.

As for my song choice, I decided to use the instrumental of pumped up kicks by the band foster the people, merely because I believe that the song gave the video a nice and playful vibe especially when the clips were present when students were taking part in the athletic activities. 

Their has been some problems with publishing this video, which is why when you play this clip it would say that the duration of it is 5 minutes and 3 seconds long. This is a problem that I have tried resolving but I thought I should just publish it and state here the right time the duration is, instead of re-uploading it and editing it again as I have other stuff to plan such as my 1st final major project Drug culture in lyrics.

My experience with Final Cut Pro

I believe that Final Cut Pro was very easy to use. Since learning about it with Nikki, the research that I have done since then has really helped me to adjust to it. I know how to cut clips in half, add transitions, make clips fast and many more. I do see myself in the future using Final Cut Pro more often and I feel comfortable using it to produce my 1st Final major project Drug use in lyrics.

So generally speaking my experience with Final Cut Pro has been great and very helpful.

Strengths and Weaknesses 

Throughout my major project it was evident that the variety of shots that I had produced were one of my main strengths, It allowed the video to have a smooth transition and added a professional appearance towards it. Another strength of mine was the quality of the pictures in which I had taken, I managed to get a lot of good pictures that captured the true happiness of the students that were taking part in their activities. 

My weakness in this project is that although I feel as though I produced and captured some high quality clips. If i had more time i believe that the final project in which was created could have been of a higher standard.

Dear Diary - Disability Awareness Project Schedule

This project was something that occurred unexpectedly, I was chosen by my teacher to do so and we got assigned to help a lady, we began shooting right away! and did not really have a Schedule, we just had specific days that we had to shoot. Me and my partners in this project shot this project in a very small time brief. In only 3 days we had to get a lot of footage and even some vox-plots. We chose when and where we wanted shoot things, we was free to do what we wanted.

Due to how this project opportunity came to us quickly and out of the blue we did not have an official schedule, However I will list the days that we worked on and roughly the hours we spent on the days in this production which was :

• MONDAY - 8hrs
• TUESDAY - 8hrs 
• WEDNESDAY- 8hrs

Disability Awareness Project (2nd Final Major Project) Risk Assessment

Dear Diary - Day 5 of editing the STC show (Completion & Evaluation)

Today I have completed the deadline! My experience with this was quite stressful, I've tried my best to alter the clips so they're not any blatant mistakes present on the final edit. My show lasts for 15 minutes and 6 seconds which is what i aimed for it to be, I didn't want my show to be something that is just continuous and boring.

The final edit of my clip is below!

Evaluation :

(Talking about the experience with my role mostly)

This project was a great experience! We was given 2 weeks to do this project and we booked the studio for that duration. Everyone was involved in this project and had different roles that they had to do. On the 1st day of shooting, my role was the lighting director, I had to make sure the room was lit perfectly and bright enough as in the production we was using a green screen. The 1st day was also the day we began our test runs.

The crew members:

• Brenda Canas - Floor Manager
• Raheem Horne Green - Camera Man
• Wehlia Kahin - News woman / Director
• Simon - Camera Man
• Daniel - Camera Man
• Sherene Blackwood - Host
• Elijah Campbell - Host 
• George Dymond - Producer
• Inna - Director 
• Oltjana Bardhi - Outsider Broadcaster Witness
• Jazire Nakitende - Gossip Host and Camera person

On the second day of shooting, my role varied from being the lighting director to checking on the sound in the control room. I had to ensure and let the floor-manager know whether we could hear our hosts and presenters through their microphones. I found this role, very easy and faced no difficulties doing so.

On the third day of shooting it was mostly the recording of the segments on the show such as

• The Interview with James Edmund
• Jazire Gossip Section

On the 4th day of shooting it was the day where we went through some bits of the show that needed going over, such as Jazire's gossip section we needed to film a part two it and they were sometimes moments where she wanted to record again due to the mistakes she had made on the recording.

Jazire's gossip section. 

On the 5th day we began recording the performance of our guest singer Rodrigo, This took a lot of time due to sound problems, we could not hear him from the computer when the recording was finshed or through the speakers.


We also managed to get a last minute interview with an actress called Shaye Poulton. 

On the 6th day of shooting, It was mostly the recording of my outside broadcaster role. Me and Oltjana went outside near St George's park to get a recording of a park pond that we found, we wanted some footage of a pond so the report would be more realistic. The third day of shooting, was also the day where we shot Oltjana's part of the recording, which was her being a witness.

 

 The outside broadcast shooting, did have a lot of re-takes. This was mainly because I felt the camera person Oltjana was not holding the camera in a good angle. Unfortunately I deleted the outtakes so I can not present them on my blog. They would be some recordings where the camera would be shaky and out of focus, but eventually we managed to secure a recording that was quite decent. In my opinion I believe that the clip that was used could have been better if the background was more present in the scene and if i was not speaking to fast.

My Strengths and Weaknesses.

I believe that now watching the show now, that the editing has been completed there is some areas in the show in which the editing needs more work on. I had a problem with the way the news was edited, the news woman would sometimes appear in and out of the scene in a jumpy motion, and I tried my best to do it so it would be in-sync but I failed trying. The editing was a hard process, I struggled a bit but I tried to edit the imperfections but they were still a bit present. However at the end of the day I am still learning and believe that I will surely be more confident in editing pieces of work! it will all take a matter of time.

 I believe that some of my strengths were Jazire's gossip section, I got a lot of praise in that section by my peers, people would say that the way I edited her section looked quite similar to gossip shows on TV, which is what I aimed for. I'm absolutely pleased with the way i edited her gossip section, however i believe they are some bits that need some improvement, such as her voice when doing voice-overs, it could be a lot smoother and in-sync. Other than that I am satisfied in the way I edited her piece.

What I have learnt from this process

Generally I have learnt a lot from this process, it had taught me the importance of team work as we all had to communicate to each other within this project. Another thing I have learnt in this process is to be patient and to have a flexible schedule as they could be potenional technical difficulties we could face in this project.

Dear Diary - Day 4 of editing the STC show

Editing has generally went really well! all I need to do is edit the news section, make an intro for the show, and a outro clip for the show. My teacher said that we should all  finish on Wednesday and I believe that I would definitely be done by that deadline.

When it came to editing the sound, I did have some difficulties with adjusting it. The host Sherene spoke very softly and low which made it hard to hear her voice. I had to increase the sound levels to 400 and also click the auto button in order to hear her voice more. 

In one clip I even had to shorten the interview with Shaye and Sherene due to not being able to hear   Sherene's voice at the end of the interview. I experienced the same problem when Sherene was interviewing James Edmund and had to alter that clip too.

Dear Diary - Outtakes of the STC Show

Here is one of the outtakes that we had when recording the weather man Uzman

 As you can see by the clip you can't hear the weather man speaking which resulted in us not using this clip in the final edit of our show. Other than that we never really had any other outtakes. 

Dear Diary

Today is the day in which all of us will start the editing process of the STC show. So I've decided to get some images related to the different segments of the show.

THE GOSSIP SECTION 

In the gossip section the host talks about 3 different subjects (in no particular order list):

• Rumours about Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth getting engaged.
• Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna hooking up.
• Chelsea Handler on Justin Bieber.

In the Miley Cyrus segment, i made sure to add photos and videos of Miley herself and her fiance Liam Hemsworth. In the gossip segment, the host Jazire Nakitende also talks about how her brother is the one revealing details about their relationship, so I thought that it would be necessary to add some photos/clips of him too as he is involved as well.

When it came to the Rob and Blac Chyna part of the gossip section, I decided to get images also related to what the host was saying, for example, Jazire said that Rob ''Dmed'' Chyna so I added a picture of Chyna's Instagram where the ''DM'' allegedly took place, and included some clips of the Kardashian Sisters who were apparently outraged by Rob's actions.

The Chelsea Handler section was easy to do, as there were loads of clips online providing me with evidence on how Justin Bieber was being flirty towards her on her show. Along with the other segments I got clips and images that were very relatable to the topic in which the host is talking about, so overall I have no worries with providing good images and clips to my edit.

THE NEWS SECTION

When it came to the news section, I was very confident in what I was doing. I had decided that I was going to get a clip of a green screen header saying breaking news, just to add a more realistic outlook to my piece that I have recorded. It looked really well in my opinion and it did make the outside report look very formal and professional. I added the green screen header to the clip where the witness stated that the python was huge too.

The green screen header that I have decided that I will be using!

Unfortunately due to technical difficulties we had a problem with retrieving the other clips, but the problem will be resolved as soon as possible. I have completed the gossip section and I have been now focusing on the news section. 

The gossip section was something that I found hard to edit, mainly because the host stuttered a lot and frequently made mistakes, so I tried my best to edit her voice so the mistakes were not occurring so frequently, my tutor told me that it was acceptable to add some mistakes as in the industry people do tend to stutter on live television. That is why when production phase is done and I present my magazine show, the full edit will present some of her stutters in her segment.

It was difficult to do voice overs too, as you would have to edit her voice and then have to synchronize it when you wanted her to just be speaking on the green screen rather than over a picture, This problem happened when I was editing the news section as well, but this is just a learning process and hopefully I will have no difficulties when doing this next time.