The Changes in Technology

The changes in technology

 

 

 

 

The changes in TV

The technology of television has changed a lot since it's invention by Paul Gottleib Nipkow in 1884.

 

The elements of a simple television system are:

An image source. This is the electrical signal representing the visual image, and may be from a professional video camera in the case of live television, a video tape recorder for playback of recorded images, or telecine with a flying spot scanner for the transfer of motion pictures to video).
A sound source. This is an electrical signal from a microphone or from the audio output of a video tape recorder.
A transmitter, which generates radio signals (radio waves) and encodes them with picture and sound information.
A television antenna coupled to the output of the transmitter for broadcasting the encoded signals.
A [television antenna to receive the broadcast signals.
A receiver (also called a tuner), which decodes the picture and sound information from the broadcast signals, and whose input is coupled to the antenna of the television set.
A display device, which turns the electrical signals into visual images.
An audio amplifier and loudspeaker, which turns electrical signals into sound waves (speech, music, and other sounds) to accompany the images.

TV when it was first made was in black & white and not much could be done with now but now we have 3D TV's and you can even access the internet via your TV.

3D TV
3D-ready TV sets are those that can operate in 3D mode (in addition to regular 2D mode) using one of several display technologies to recreate a stereoscopic image. These TV sets usually support HDMI 1.4 and a minimum output refresh rate of 120 Hz; glasses may be sold separately.
Philips was developing a 3D television set that would be available for the consumer market by about 2011 without the need for special glasses (autostereoscopy). However it was canceled because of the slow adoption of customers going from 2D to 3D.


The biggest change to happen in the technology was the digital switchover in 2008. Between 2008-2012, the television services in the UK went completely digital, Region by region the old analogue television signal got switched off and viewers needed to convert or upgrade their TV equipment, whether it was through their aerial, by satellite, cable or broadband.



On-Demand Viewing
Life is getting busier and faster so because of that On-Demand TV is being used more and more with companies like Netflix and Love Film popping up. On-Demand is the ability to select from a library of stored  TV shows and you can watch it whenevers most convenient for the individual and is in no way controlled by a TV schedule.


Social Media
Social Media has been a massive boost for people who may of otherwise been unheard of. The internet is an amazing place to share your work with the world.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Private messaging and Video chatting have changed the world for both good and bad, from the touch a button you can contact almost anyone in the world.
The internet has a massive amount to do with the media industry. Due to the internet, audiences are noe able to watch their favorite TV shows & films online whenever they want. However, due to this update in technology audiences are now able to download films illegally without paying. This has affected the film industry hugely because they lose box office sales. The internet has boosted the television and film industry because of the ability to stream online, watch programs on-demand and pay to watch exclusive events.


CGI
CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) has become more and more popular over the years, it began with films such as Pixar's 'Toy Story' due to the recent increase in 3D films they have reformed into a 3D format in films like 'Finding Nemo' (2003) and 'Monsters Inc' (2001). CGI animation is increasingly being used for making high quality visual effects and realistic images. CGI software has become increasingly accessible and this has enabled smaller production units to come up with decent content without the use of actors, props or expensive set pieces.
IMAX cinemas are also become more and more popular, they are far from your usual cinemas, they enhance your experience dramatically. The screens are large enough to fill your field of vision, this enhances the motion, there have been incidents of people feeling ill because of that emotion. Producers from films they made over 10 years ago are still making profit from them because ticket prices will be more expensive but audiences will pay the extra money to get the full 3D experience.

Soundtrack Development Blog

Soundtrack Development Blog

 

 

 

6/11/13

First of all i wrote a blog on two films and how they use soundtrack to create certain moods and how they make you feel. I also wrote about Diagetic & Non-Diagetic sound, the two films i chose to write about was 'Titanic' and 'Apocolypto'  I wrote about the fact that James Horner did the soundtrack for both of them but switched his usual orchestreal style for something much faster with more drum action rather than violins and such.

2/12/13
On this day i recorded my voice over using a Tascam DR-40.

6/1/14
I put a soundtrack on my documentary, i did this by using a file i had on my computer with lots of samples and loops, i used a few seconds of chimes for the opening sequence, i then went on a royalty free site and downloaded an acoustic guitar to put on throughout the whole documentary.

14/1/14
I handed in my assignment.

Development Blog: Goosie Gander

Development Blog: Goosie Gander

 

 

11/11/13

On this date I started my idea generation, i made a flow chart writing down the two ideas i had. I had first wanted to make a documentary about the double-dip recession and how it had affected businesses both local and national. I realised that i wouldn't be able to cover much in 3 minutes. I was talking to to some of my friends and they were telling me about the Greylag Goose trying to attack them so i though that would be a good idea to make a documentary about that, it would also be much easier to cover in the time space.

13/11/13
I had chose which idea i had wanted to go with and that was the goose, so i started to research about it, i also started to think about how it was going to be carried out.

18/11/13
I started on all the pre-production for this documentary, this included risk assessments, the vox pop questions i wanted  to ask & also did more research.

1/12/13
I started to think about a script so i made a couple of drafts and thought about what i wanted to say.

2/12/13
I decided to write to type up the final version of my voiceover script, i decided to record my voiceover using a Tascam recorder, once i had recorded my voice over i then saved it on my computer.

5/12/13
This was the first day of production, I wanted to get shots of the goose and some vox pops. Dale came out to help me with the shooting and we got some good shots of the goose and got a vox pop.

6/12/13
I took the camera home with me to get some more shots of the goose and also to get some more cutaways, i also managed to get another vox pop.

6/1/14
I started editing, i put together a version really quickly to decide where i wanted the shots to be, once i had decided what i wanted i made a small title sequence in Adobe After Effects, after that was done i started to look for soundtracks, i had a file on my computer that had lots of samples and loops so i chose a few seconds of a chimes for the titles, i then went on a royalty free website and found an acoustic guitar to play throughout the documentary. After all that i made a real version of the edit including the titles & soundtrack. After i had finished the edit i exported it.

13/1/14
I burned my exported edit onto disc.

Unit 23 Multi-Camera Production Blog

Multi-Camera Production Blog

 

 

27/11/13

Today was the first production meeting our group had, we decided on what job roles each one of us were going to undertake. I decided to undertake the job of Sound Recordist, a Sound Recordist records all sound both on set and on location. Shemar will take the role as director which means he will make sure that we are all in the right places at the right time. Jordan was the Vision Mixer, the Vision Mixer basically edits the recording live as it is happening. To prepare for the role i researched what a Sound Recordist does.

11/12/13
Today we decided to go to location and do pre-production, we did risk assesments and a location recce. We then drew camera plans to decide what camera was going where. We decided that there were a few hazards that we had to address on the risk assessment such as trailing wires and falling down the staircase.

16/12/13
Today is the day of dress rehearsals so were going to go down to the theatre and look at how the actors cover the sides where the cameras are planning to go.

18/12/13
Today is the day that we go and film the show. Me, Shemar, Dale & Jordan will go to set an hour early to get everything set up in time for the doors opening, I will be taking on the right hand camera for the first act then switching to the middle camera for the second act.

13/1/14
Today we captured 3 of the 4 tapes we had, Jordan had the other tape at his house so we had to wait to capture the other tape.

14/1/14
Jordan brought in the last tape so we captured that then we started to edit the live event. Dale set the project up and did the 1st half of act 1, I then did the 2nd half of act 1, Jordan did the 1st half of act 2 & Shemar did the 2nd half of act 2. Looking back over the footage I am happy with what we shot, also with me taking the role of Sound Recordist i was listening out for what the sound levels were like and I am also really happy with that too, overall the production was successful.

15/12/14
Today is the hand in date, the production has been edited and just needs exporting to disc.

 

Development Blog for Motion Graphics

Development Blog for Motion Graphics

 

 

 

In this blog i will be tracking my development throughout this project. Everything from pre-production and post-production.

 

8/10/13

First of all i am focusing on the pre-production element of this project starting with some basic research on the 80's, i researched everything from music to what the important news storys were. I started reading newspaper articles from this decade and looking at  to get a better feel for the project i was about to undertake.

22/10/13
On this date i started to come up with ideas of how i wanted my title sequence to look, i took inspiration from a TV show called 'Big Fat Quiz of The Year'. I liked the way that they had cutouts of the famous people from whatever decade they were covering popping up on screen so i decided to go with this approach, i then created a mindmap to get all the ideas down. I decided i was going to change it so it wasn't exactly the same as 'Big Fat Quiz of The Year' instead of using full cutouts i would use pictures of the face and have them fly across the screen then let all the pictures pile on top of each other.

19/11/13
Once i had decided what artists i wanted to have on my title sequence i searched for pictures of them on Google Images, i then saved the pictures onto my computer. I then searched for 80's headlines on Google Images and saved a few of them too. After i had all the pictures i wanted to use i constructed a storyboard for my title sequence. I simply did this by drawing on paper the pictures i had saved of the artists in the order in which i wanted them to appear.

20/11/13
After i decided on what order i wanted my pictures to appear i started to write a script for the presenting element of this assignment. I used the research i had obtained and used that to help shape the script. I used facts like what the biggest selling singles of the 80's were and the death of John Lennon. Whilst writing this script i decided i wanted to have clips of videos in there, i decided to put Band Aid- Feed the World and Jennifer Rush- The Power of Love.

4/12/13
This was the start of production, we filmed us presenting. We all helped each other in the filming and autocue, we used clip mics to capture the sound but when it came to capturing the footage the sound wasn't as loud as we hoped it would be so the footage was useless, we then had to go back and film it again, it turned out much better this time and was usable.

10/12/13
I started to create my motion graphics sequence, i opened up Adobe After Effects, then i imported in all the pictures i was using and began to keyframe them and moved them over so it would create the effect of the pictures moving across the screen, after i had done that i decided i wanted to make a soundtrack for it too. I opened Adobe Audition and started to create a soundtrack using samples. After this was done i went into premier and brought it all together into one production.

9/1/14
On this day i burned my production onto a disc and handed it in.



Unit 64: Motion Graphics & Compositing Video

Unit 64: Motion Graphics & Compositing Video

 

Task 1

 

In this blog i will be writing about the current use of motion graphics and compositing video in film and television production and analyse them.

TV idents

TV idents are when you are watching a TV channel and a little motion graphic sequence comes on with a voiceover introducing the next programme, The BBC in paticular use a lot of TV idents due to the fact that they do not use adverts.TV idents have changed a lot over the years, this is mostly due to the changes in technology and the new ways to make motion graphic sequences, back in the 70's or 80's it wasn't possible to make the CGI effects you see in films such as Avatar or Gravity.
Here are some examples of the BBC's first TV idents.

 

Here are some more recent TV idents, you can see a huge difference between the two.
 



 

 

 

In the first ones they feel very stiff and if they were to be played on TV today people would look at them and wonder what is going on but when they see the idents that are getting played today they wouldn't look at it any differently even though it is much more advanced and technological than ever, no one really looks at the actual effects and how much work goes into each one. Another thing about TV idents these days are that the graphics usually have some sort of relevance to the programme that is being played next.

For example the Big Brother TV idents of this year include the iconic Big Brother eye with a camera then the icon for channel 5.

http://www.theidentgallery.com/player.php?id=FIVE-2014-ID-CBB-1

ITV seems to use less motion graphics than BBC or Channel 5, they tend to actually film there idents, for exaample the 'Surfing Lesson' that was being shown in 2013 featured only one special effect which was the 'ITV' title being shown and it changing colour to match the background.

http://www.theidentgallery.com/player.php?id=ITV-2013-ID-BEACH-1

 



Titles & In-Programme graphics (music related programmes)

For some music programmes such as Channel AKA, Starz TV or Chart Show TV the motion sequences used for them are quite simple because they aren't inroducing any programmes they are just playing music. When you are watching a music channel and a title comes up on the screen telling you what the song is called, this is in-programme graphics.

In-programme graphics have changed a lot over the years due to the changes in technology and the fact that music has also changed a lot and and now there are programmes dedicated to one genre, for example Channel AKA plays mostly UK Hip/Hop, UK Rap and Grime, there are instances where they will play American Rap and Hip/Hop but it is very much an Urban music channel, because of the genre of music they play they need in-programme graphics to go with it.
The video underneath is an example of in-programme graphics, before the video you see the short title sequence and througout the video you see the logo in the bottom right hand corner. Most of these channels use simple designs so you know exactly what channel your on. They weren't always that simple though, in this example of Top of the Pops motion graphics were just really starting out so they used weird and crazy ones during Kylie's performing 'Hand on Your Heart'.
 

Top of The Pops: Kylie performs 'Hand on Your Heart'

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x11WVz0HpTg

Titles and in-programme graphics for news and factual programmes
News channel title sequences can vary depending on what kind of channel it is as a whole, for example BBC use a very formal introduction to their programme because that's what kind of channel it is as a whole.
 

This video this is the BBC News intro from the 1950's, the difference between these two is massive. The old one would have been spectacular then but if this was showed today audiences would be really confused about what they were watching and this shows the expectations of audiences today.
BBC News had different theme music back in the 50's then it does today, music and the making of music has changed too, in the 50's intro there would have been musicians in a room recording whilst nowadays a producer would of been sat in a studio pressing buttons to make the sounds instead of playing actual instruments.




Channel 4 are a little less formal in the way that they introduce their programme, even the title sequences they use are more informal.

This link will take you to Channel 4's news intro in 1990 and there are also a lot of huge chenges regarding these two intros, this too would of been at the height of technology but nowadays it's nothing like what could be made today. Channel had the same music then as they do now and this is because music has changed less since the 90's than it has with the 50's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvvFAhmkh0M

 

 

 The use of virtual backgrounds in presented programmes
Virtual backgrounds in presented programmes are becoming more and more popular as time goes by, most of the presented programmes you see today are most likely to have a virtual background. The reasons for this is cost. It costs less money to make a decent looking background virtually than it is to go to a location and build a set, with virual backgrounds all you need is a greenscreen and you can film anywhere. Lots of news programmes also have virtual backgrounds, in the news the weather announcements are greenscreened anyway but some programmes actually have the whole of the background virtual too.

Film Titles
Lots of film titles also use motion graphics because it's alot cooler to look at and they keep people interested, Action movies are most likely to have motion graphics because they involve explosions and other things of the same nature. The Fast & Furious films are the probably the most well known films to do with cars so of course the title sequence will be full of cars, the motion graphics used are cars exploding, aeroplanes exploding, cars flipping and such, they have done that purely because it is a car film and straight away you know what film it is. End credits also use visual effects too, in the film 'Friends with Benefits' the whole end sequence is visual effects. The hands moving throughout the sequence are digitally made hands and refrence to the beggining of the film when Justin Timberlake is using a touch screen computer.
 

 

 

  Visual effects in film and television productions

 Visual effects are being used more often in the films of today and directors can express themselves even through film because of the effects that can be created however, CGI is expensive in films and that's why the budgets for blockbuster films are getting higher and higher every year but they are also still profiting hugely which co-insides with the fact that the younger generation have had this technology around them in almost every film and every new movie promises more and more in terms of the technology used to make it. Films that you wouldn't usually associate with using special effects still use a lot of digital effects, for example in 'Friends with Benifits' in the airport scene they digitally painted a plane in the background. TV shows also use a number of visual effects, 'Once upon a time' uses a lot of visual effects and even though sometimes i feel that a lot of films and TV shows don't need all the effects i think this is one of the shows that work better because of them, it's a fairytale story so you need effects to make it more believable, because this programme is so well written you don't look at all the special effects used in it which is for me more enjoyable.