Portfolio Plug-in

The plug-in used to put up the photos in a slideshow view, is 

Evaluation

As a part of my group project, we were given a task to produce a website by working as a group. The purpose was to programme a website by using WordPress and produce interactive content to help engage with the audiences. Since we were working as a group, we had individual roles and aims. My role was the project manager, and I was responsible for the major part of the project. This involved controlling the group based on setting up meetings; provide everyone with tasks and ensuring that everyone completes their part of their role. Not only that, it also involved me gathering the content for our website, which includes; the logo, photos, music and voice-overs. But our overall aim was to produce a website based on travelling and ensure our website was informing, so that our audiences can gain knowledge from the content about specific countries in the world from our viewpoint.

During the process of producing the content, I managed to work with different software’s, which includes; Photoshop, Illustrator, Sony Vegas, Wave Pad and Audition. I used Photoshop to help me make the website’s logo and enhance all the photos to make it better quality. Illustrator was used to draw out the logo to make the geometric shapes. Sony Vegas was used to create the videos, by combining the recordings of the voice-overs, music and the images. As for wave pad, it was used to amplify the voice recordings, which increased the clarity and loudness of the voices as some of them were very low. Also, since the recordings were combined with music in the background, it would have clashed which would have made the voices very hard to hear. But with the simple use of Wave Pad, it managed to solve that problem. Audacity was used to crop out the voices and combined them for recordings that were divided. 

In terms of constructing the website, I was able to work with different plug-ins that WordPress has provided. The Google Plug-in was very effective with establishing the location for each part of the destinations.

However, I did encounter some issues whilst creating the videos on Sony Vegas as kept unexpectedly freezing which meant I have to close I kept having to close the program and restart it, which led some my work being lost. Time management was the main problem was time management, as I ended up leaving the most hardest part of the project, last minute which was making the video. 

In terms of a group overall we did well in terms of gathering all the content together and adding them to the website. 

Music for Video Editing

For the videos, I wanted it to have a music background along with the voice-over to make it more interesting. Therefore, I decided to pick some songs, where the song artist originated from. Most of the music used are commericalised, which means many people would know about them.

America, Florida


Canada, Toronto

France, Paris


The Netherlands, Amsterdam

 UK, London


Sweden, Stockholm


Syria, Damascus


To download the songs, I used http://offliberty.com/, which is a website where you can download songs from YouTube into MP3 files.

Contacts Page

The contacts page consist of details about our website. This includes; Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We decided to make an account for each of the social networking sites that is dedicated to our website. That way, it allows users to contact and follow us through various of methods. 

Map: 

I used the google maps plug-in to insert the map into this page. I placed the location to kingston penrhyn road because it is the only location that was easy to place in order to find us as a group. 

Facebook:

Catherine made a Facebook page which has all our information on it. I then inserted the page by applying the link to a Facebook icon so users can click onto it to direct them onto our Facebook page. 

Instagram:

Zara created a Instagram page which has our travel photos for users to engage with our photos. 

Editing Voice-Overs on Wavepad

Logic Pro - Music Editing for Background Music for Pages

As a part of project, we aimed to mash-up and remix music to make it our own. Therefore, I used a professional music software called Logic Pro from Apple. This software already had samples of instrumental beats, which I thought was useful in changing up a original copy of a song. We all wanted songs that suited along with each country's culture and background to help give users a cultural feel when they click on each location. Therefore, for the France - Paris pages, I decided to use the song; Maurane - Tout Faux and remix it on Logic Pro.

To create this I had to use my friend's keyboard to connect it with the programe. The keyboard allowed me to key in specific chords that went along with song. This was done by selecting a sample sound from Logic Pro and using the keyboard to key in the sound.        Click on the video below to listen to Maurane - Tout Faux         

http://offliberty.com/ 

Talki Forum Plug-In for Forum Page

Final Website

I created more pages on the website than I originally thought of doing.

Audacity

Fading In & Fading Out Effect

By using Audacity to fade in and fade out the songs for my videos because gives the video a more fluid blend in conjunction with the voice-overs from start to finish. 

What I done was open a song up on Audacity and used the effects 'fade in' and 'fade out'. I highlighted the start of the song and applied the 'fade in' effect. This made the song transition from quiet to loud from the start to the middle. After I added the 'fade out' effect to the end of the song which transition from loud to quiet, from the middle to end section of the song. 

Song Vegas - Edit Videos

Song Vegas was used to edit all of the videos. 

To make the photos blend well together, I added a transitional effect in between each photo. 

I did encounter a problem when I was making the Syria - Damascus video. This is because Zara's voice recording could not open onto Sony Vegas as it was a different file format. I did not have enough  time to convert the voice recording into another format because I was in a rush. Therefore, I just applied the song without the recording onto the song. However all the other recordings that me and Catherine done was fine and it suited Sony Vegas. 

After editing all the videos, I uploaded them on YouTube. 

Video

These after the final product for each of the videos I have created on Sony Vegas.

There are an overall there 7 videos of America - Florid, Canada - Toronto, France - Paris, The Netherlands - Amsterdam, Uk - London, Sweden - Stockholm, Syria - Damascus. 

Welcome to America, Florida!

Welcome to Canada, Toronto!
Welcome to France, Paris! Welcome to The Netherlands, Amsterdam! Welcome to UK, London! Welcome to Sweden, Stockholm! Welcome to Syria, Damascus!

Voice-Over

In order to make our videos for our website, we had to use voice-overs as a way to tell our stories about the places we have been to. The voice-overs were made by using our smart phones to record our voices. The voice-overs had to be done in a quiet room because the recording had to be clear without any distractions of other noises. Therefore, I asked the others in my group (including myself) to do voice-overs at home based on each countries we have each been to. That way we all had the time and space to record and re-record voices to make them perfect and precise. I suggested the time limit should be about 2 minutes maximum because the videos are only suppose to be an introduction for each of the countries.

During the process of recording my voice, I made sure that I wrote out what I wanted to say about each country. By doing this, it means that I was prepared and if I made any mistakes then I could go back and repeat what I said by looking at my notes. However, I experienced some difficulties, especially because of my noisy household. But even when I managed to find the right time and space to record, I kept stuttering and talking either too fast or too slow. As a result, I ended up re-recording most of my voice-overs and some of them were split into several recordings which I will have to combine.

Once Catherine and Zara completed their recordings, they sent me the files on my email. This is where I used it for the next step of project which is editing and adding them to a video.

My recordings:

Catherine's recordings: 

Zara's Recordings:

Enhancing Photos on Photoshop

I used the same techniques to enhance my photos that I previously used for my personal website. The same techniques used to enhance my photos is the Brightness/Contrast option on Photoshop. This is a very quick way to make photos look better than the original copy. I have already made a video tutorial on how to enhance photos. See Below.



Here is an example of how I edited my photos in this project.

Holiday Inspiration Page

Our holiday inspiration page is about places we recommend for others to go. I needed pictures to help make the website more interesting other than searching on Google for pictures. I knew that by simply going on Google and copying images, it would be copyright. Therefore, I asked one of my Austrian friends called; Yanni, to send me some of her photos. She has travelled to more than 12 countries so far, so I thought since she is a traveller herself, she was the right person to go to for sources. She managed to send me photos from her trip to; Malaysia, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Since she went to many different countries, it meant that her photos was not only intriguing but provide our website's audiences with a variety of choices.

I divided her photos into seperate activities she has been too. For example; she went to several locations in Hungary, Budapest. Therefore I made seperate pages for each location she went to in Budapest.