Whilst editing, I have been thinking of what media encoder to use for our artefact video. When displaying videos in browsers, there are a number of encoders that can be used. These include:
Windows Media Player
Apple Quicktime
Realplayer
Adobe Flash Player
Depending on which one we use, it will affect the audience no matter what. There are two factors which affect this:
Computer Requirements
Quality of video
Students either have a Windows computer, or an Apple Mac computer. Windows Media Player is already installed on a Windows PC, and Apple Quicktime is already installed on an Apple Mac. If we decide to use Windows Media Player, then Apple Mac viewers will not be able to view the video, unless they download the Apple Mac plugin for Windows Media Player, and vice versa if we use Quicktime for Windows. This narrows down the option to either Realplayer and Adobe Flash Player, as it will not give any advantage to any viewer. Most websites allow you to choose the player you want to view the video in. The BBC used this service, but now due ever increasing use of Adobe Flash Player, they use that instead. Flash Player is simple to download, and I noticed when converting video to flash in the first lecture session, the quality was much better than any other media encoder. Most websites now use Adobe Flash Player for this reason. If the user does not have Adobe Flash Player, a link is provided to download. I think that the user should be given more than one choice when wanting to watch a video, because it should not be forced on the user to just use the default. If the user already has a player installed, then it shall be easier for them.
I conducted some research on this by creating a survey on www.SurveyMonkey.com. The two questions I asked 13 people were:
What do you use? A Windows PC or a Mac?
AND
What do you prefer to use when streaming media? - The options being, WMP, Quicktime, Realplayer and Flash.
The results for the first question ended up being 12 people using Windows PC's, and 1 person using a Mac. This doesn't determine every single student as I only asked 13 people, but it proves that certainly more people use Windows rather than Mac's, and maybe because Windows has always been the most popular. This study was not biased in any way and I did not know what computer's any of the users used.
The results for the second question ended up being 7 people using Windows Media Player, 1 person using Quicktime, and 4 people using Adobe Flash Player. These answers matched the first question, as the Apple Mac user probably would have chosen Quicktime, as it is already installed on the Mac's. Most of the Windows users would have chosen WMP, and the rest of the users chose Flash, because they had it downloaded on their computers. This proves that more people prefer using Windows Media Player, as it seems the default and common player. However, I was impressed that people chose Flash Player. I think as websites move from using Windows Media Player or Quicktime to Flash Player, then more people will prefer this. If people can see just how much difference in quality Flash Player produces, then I think they would certainly rather use that.
Regards to our video, in my opinion, Adobe Flash Player should be used, as the quality is much better. If users do not have the player, there will be a link for them to download it easily. It also means that our player is not biased towards Windows or Mac viewers, as it is not a default player. It is a popular choice, and so we shall stick with it. To get the flash player to work, we will need to install an FLV player on our server so the flash video can be played, but this will be simple to download. I think for our video, other media encoder links should be included, just incase users don't want to download Flash Player. I shall suggest these to the members in my group.
Friday 12 December 2008
Monday 8 December 2008
Filming the video
The previous friday, we booked out a camera for us to use for this filming session. We ordered:
- Camera (P100)
- Shotgun Microphone (required 1 AAA battery) - These type of microphones are good because they are the most highly directional, and used for professional recording
- Softie - This is useful as it stops the wind interrupting the audio when filming outside
We collected these on this monday, and set off to film. We went to Jon's house first to set up and test the camera equipment. When filming, the focus, and white balance must be checked. These can be controlled on the camera itself. To white balance the camera, means, you have to use pure white, instead of picking up other white's in view. To do this, a sheet of A4 paper, which is pure white, must be held up to the camera, focused on, and the white balance button must be pressed. Once this is done, we noticed the colour we saw through the camera greatly improved, and gave a better picture.
We decided since it was 2pm, we must make use of the light, so we decided to film the bottle bank scene first. We gathered the equipment, helped by Becky and Helen, and took it to the bottle bank on _______ road. Once we had chosen an appropriate angle to film at, and once Ed was prepared with his white lab coat, and waxed hair, we could film. We gave roles of Jon to direct, with me semi-directing and giving my opinion on what looks best. Because Ed was a TV and Film 3rd year student at the University, he was able to help us know what we were doing as well, since we hadn't filmed since year 1 of our course. A couple of practice runs, and Ed learning his lines, and we were able to film. Because Ed either got distracted or forgot his lines, we had to do many takes on getting the filming right. We also had distractions behind us, as it was now the time of day the school children finished, and they were gathering behind and shouting at us, asking what we were doing. Luckily, they didn't distract us too much, and soon moved on, thus allowing us to film the rest of the bottle bank scene. My other role whilst filming was to hold the microphone, which was plugged into the camera, with the softie on top, to avoid the wind affecting the audio. I had to hold the microphone, so it was just off screen, so that Ed (Dr Colm Beeny) could be heard clearly. I had to make sure the microphone was held as still as possible as any movements would make a noise and ruin the audio. We tried two different shots, a medium shot, for most of the scene, and when Dr Colm Beeny had to place a glass bottle in the bin, we used a close up shot, to show the bottle going in the hole in the bin. This looked effective. Although students should know how to recycle glass, this was just an extra scene we added, to prove that there were bottle banks around Portsmouth.
After filming, we packed up and headed back to Jon's house. We immediatly got to work to setting up the recyclable materials and non recylable materials that we had collected and brought to Jon's last week. After a short break, Ed was back in place, and we began filming his lines. Due to us not including every fact from the leaflets that we recieved in the script, we gave Ed the job of 'ad-libbing' his role as Dr Colm Beeny, as he seemed to do well at that, and was entertaining for us watching and filming him. This added to the cheesyness and entertainment value of our film, which is exactly what we wanted.
After a lot of takes, and getting lines right, we finished filming, and found it took just over 3 hours to film everything, which we were impressed with. We sat down, watched the tape back, and approved! All the scenes apart from one scene in the lounger were filmed, and we had a thought that this scene could be animated in flash to give a bit of diversity, and I said I wouldn't mind doing the task as I was good at using Flash. The other point that we didn't follow exactly to the script was not showing the wheelie bin and the recyclable materials going into the bin. We decided that Dr Colm Beeny should just throw down the materials in anger, as his role was a character on Community Service, which he was not meant to be happy with doing. We thought it was necessary to show the wheelie bin, so we will just animate this, so the materials appear in the bin. Now the filming was finished, editing could be started.
- Camera (P100)
- Shotgun Microphone (required 1 AAA battery) - These type of microphones are good because they are the most highly directional, and used for professional recording
- Softie - This is useful as it stops the wind interrupting the audio when filming outside
We collected these on this monday, and set off to film. We went to Jon's house first to set up and test the camera equipment. When filming, the focus, and white balance must be checked. These can be controlled on the camera itself. To white balance the camera, means, you have to use pure white, instead of picking up other white's in view. To do this, a sheet of A4 paper, which is pure white, must be held up to the camera, focused on, and the white balance button must be pressed. Once this is done, we noticed the colour we saw through the camera greatly improved, and gave a better picture.
We decided since it was 2pm, we must make use of the light, so we decided to film the bottle bank scene first. We gathered the equipment, helped by Becky and Helen, and took it to the bottle bank on _______ road. Once we had chosen an appropriate angle to film at, and once Ed was prepared with his white lab coat, and waxed hair, we could film. We gave roles of Jon to direct, with me semi-directing and giving my opinion on what looks best. Because Ed was a TV and Film 3rd year student at the University, he was able to help us know what we were doing as well, since we hadn't filmed since year 1 of our course. A couple of practice runs, and Ed learning his lines, and we were able to film. Because Ed either got distracted or forgot his lines, we had to do many takes on getting the filming right. We also had distractions behind us, as it was now the time of day the school children finished, and they were gathering behind and shouting at us, asking what we were doing. Luckily, they didn't distract us too much, and soon moved on, thus allowing us to film the rest of the bottle bank scene. My other role whilst filming was to hold the microphone, which was plugged into the camera, with the softie on top, to avoid the wind affecting the audio. I had to hold the microphone, so it was just off screen, so that Ed (Dr Colm Beeny) could be heard clearly. I had to make sure the microphone was held as still as possible as any movements would make a noise and ruin the audio. We tried two different shots, a medium shot, for most of the scene, and when Dr Colm Beeny had to place a glass bottle in the bin, we used a close up shot, to show the bottle going in the hole in the bin. This looked effective. Although students should know how to recycle glass, this was just an extra scene we added, to prove that there were bottle banks around Portsmouth.
After filming, we packed up and headed back to Jon's house. We immediatly got to work to setting up the recyclable materials and non recylable materials that we had collected and brought to Jon's last week. After a short break, Ed was back in place, and we began filming his lines. Due to us not including every fact from the leaflets that we recieved in the script, we gave Ed the job of 'ad-libbing' his role as Dr Colm Beeny, as he seemed to do well at that, and was entertaining for us watching and filming him. This added to the cheesyness and entertainment value of our film, which is exactly what we wanted.
After a lot of takes, and getting lines right, we finished filming, and found it took just over 3 hours to film everything, which we were impressed with. We sat down, watched the tape back, and approved! All the scenes apart from one scene in the lounger were filmed, and we had a thought that this scene could be animated in flash to give a bit of diversity, and I said I wouldn't mind doing the task as I was good at using Flash. The other point that we didn't follow exactly to the script was not showing the wheelie bin and the recyclable materials going into the bin. We decided that Dr Colm Beeny should just throw down the materials in anger, as his role was a character on Community Service, which he was not meant to be happy with doing. We thought it was necessary to show the wheelie bin, so we will just animate this, so the materials appear in the bin. Now the filming was finished, editing could be started.
Monday 1 December 2008
Writing the script
On this monday, me and Jon met up, and went back to his house to write a script. Since we wanted to write a proper script set up professionally, we used professional script writing software, called Celtx, which we downloaded online from their website, for free. This allowed us to create a professionally written script, so we could easily follow it when it came to filming.
We used the leaflets given to us by the council, and part of my script to come up with the final script. Since we wanted the video to be slightly cheesy and funny as well, we decided to use Jon's housemate, Ed, as the presenter, as we knew he likes messing about and would make the perfect actor to play the role of our quirky presenter. Since Ed had a good sense of humour and thought of jokes, we got him to help us think of quirky, funny lines to add to our script, and this would make it better when coming to film, because he has written them out himself. We allowed Ed to think of how he'd like the character to be like, and we came up with the name of Dr Colm Beeny, a guy who is on his community service, being told to tell the students of Portsmouth how to recycle.
Ed knew how to use the script writing software, so taught me and Jon just how to create a script, and this benefited us, as we did not have to learn, and we could get on with writing the script as soon as possible. It took us a while to get to grips with the software but after practicing for a little, then we soon got the hang of it. It took a whole afternoon to write, but in the end, we agreed that it was an effective script, and we will now send the script to Helen and Becky to get their approval.
The script can be downloaded here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/41dbd3/n/New_Final_Script_doc
We used the leaflets given to us by the council, and part of my script to come up with the final script. Since we wanted the video to be slightly cheesy and funny as well, we decided to use Jon's housemate, Ed, as the presenter, as we knew he likes messing about and would make the perfect actor to play the role of our quirky presenter. Since Ed had a good sense of humour and thought of jokes, we got him to help us think of quirky, funny lines to add to our script, and this would make it better when coming to film, because he has written them out himself. We allowed Ed to think of how he'd like the character to be like, and we came up with the name of Dr Colm Beeny, a guy who is on his community service, being told to tell the students of Portsmouth how to recycle.
Ed knew how to use the script writing software, so taught me and Jon just how to create a script, and this benefited us, as we did not have to learn, and we could get on with writing the script as soon as possible. It took us a while to get to grips with the software but after practicing for a little, then we soon got the hang of it. It took a whole afternoon to write, but in the end, we agreed that it was an effective script, and we will now send the script to Helen and Becky to get their approval.
The script can be downloaded here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/41dbd3/n/New_Final_
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