QUESTION 4HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

Introduction

Throughout the whole of this project I have used a wide range of media technologies. Each stage of the process used the media technology that was best suited to it. For the planning and research stages there was a lot of visuals so we used visual based software such as Prezi. For the construction we used Final Cut and Photoshop as these were made to edit and cut and change elements within the music video and the ancillary tasks. For the evaluation I had to make sure that all my answers were presented in an easy way, which was clear to people reading and/or watching.

I incorporated all of these innovative forms of media in the following stages of my work: Research & Planning Construction Evaluation

By getting more familiar with all of these types of convergence and digital technology, my skills have improved vastly and I have been able to produce my own music video and ancillary texts.

Here I will be discussing the software, hardware, web 2.0 sites that I have used in the different stages of my work.

Research & Planning Google: I used Google by using a filter search to find specific and correct

definitions of certain terms such as definitions of different genres of music. When looking at Star Construction, I also used this filter search to find official websites for our artist ‘Tamara Laurel’ to avoid fake or false websites that mimicked facts and correct yet unofficial information. By using a filter search with Google Images I was able to search for items of female clothing to get ideas for the type of clothing that our artist should wear. This allowed me to look at quality pictures from the genre which helped with my decision on the clothing conventions I wanted to use.

YouTube: YouTube was vital for our research as it’s where all music videos are located on, YouTube allowed us to search for conventions of music videos of our chosen genre and all the popular artists with our genre to help us gain ideas on what to include in our video. From watching real media products, we gained ideas for Mise-en-scene, locations and different camera angles that we could use.

Camera: I used my personal camera to capture images of possible locations and different camera angles to use. This helped develop my planning so I knew what angles were good to use before the construction process.

Finding a song

The first stages of our research was finding a suitable song to make a music video of. The song had to be upbeat and have clear lyrics so we can have a narrative. To do this we went on a popular site where unsigned artists showcase their music. This site was called Jamendo.

Jamendo allowed us to browse for songs under specific genres such as rock, pop, indie etc.

Blogs

We used Blogs to show all our research and our process of construction, productions and post production. We used it as our visual planning stages, so that we were able to look back and ensure we used our research for our final product.

Blogs was good as it was easy to use to keep track of our progress while working. We posted every step that we went along with, from introduction to our project to the evaluation of our project. Blogger was useful as we could embed pictures and videos to show where we were getting our ideas and inspiration from. We could also embed all of our planning documents – such as our target audience call sheets, risk assessments and shooting schedule. We constantly updated our blogs with ideas and progress, after filming shoots and final products. We also used the calendar to plan our filming dates, so that everyone in our group was aware of all the filming times and locations.

Presenting our ideas

PowerPoint - To present our research and ideas so that we were able to look back and reflect on whether we used conventions of our genre and whether we in cooperated our research into our actual video.

To embed our PowerPoint onto our webs page, we uploaded it to Slide Share, which made it easier to access and didn’t take up any of our capacity space on webs.

I used Prezi present some of my ideas, it is visually different from PowerPoint which made it nicer.

Microsoft Word

We used Microsoft word to make our risk assessment and to create our call sheet where all member of the group were aware of all the contact details of everyone involved.

We printed the lyrics out for different uses, e.g. to make notes about what we wanted to film beside particular lyrics and for the performer to memorise lyrics. Word was also used to create a plan of our several filming days, we decided to do a detailed plan of what we were going to do at certain days to ensure that we were organised.

Construction

The construction of music video and ancillary texts was the main part of this

task. The two main programs that were used in the creation of my product were Final Cut Pro & Photoshop CC. These were best two ways to create a professional music video

and Digipak & Magazine.

Filming

For the main filming and digipak and magazine we used the Nikon DSLR D3200 camera with two different lenses, a macro sim for close ups and a 18 – 55mm lens for long shots. We used the DSLR camera as we wanted high quality footage and pictures in order to great professional work and increase our standard of work. We filmed and took pictures in different locations and we took it form a variety of angles so when it came to editing we had a large selection to chose from.

We used the camera to film a variation of shots to make sure we conformed to the conventions of a music video. We filmed close ups, extreme close ups, mid shots and full shots of our actress lip syncing to the song.

Along with the camera we used a tripod to hold the camera still in order to get the perfect footage, avoid getting shaky footage and wonky camera angles.

We also used a reflector to brighten up some of the shots. Some days it was very cloudy and therefore we used a reflector in order to get good quality footage and picture with bright lighting.

We also used a GoPro to record P.O.V shots as we wanted the audience to be in the actor’s shoes, see things from her perspective and feel her emotions. However, we didn’t end up using these footage as the music video was very short.

Editing – Final Cut Pro

I used a lot of advanced, acquired and practical skills through Final Cut Pro which were the frequently used technologies. Initially, I didn’t expect for the technical skills to be complex because I has used Final Cut Pro before (for AS) however, I realised that it all was a lot more complicated than simply cutting and applying transitions. This year, I feel like I have done a lot of micro editing where little sections had to be edited bit by bit which required a lot of time and patience and by the end of it, it was difficult to realise what the difference was.

The elements of this software allowed us to expertly edit our music video. The cut tool made it possible to cut the shots in time with the music. The transition effects allowed us to create smooth transitions between the scenes as most Indie Folk songs have smooth transitions.

The most important aspects of editing this year was organising the vast amount of footage, I did this by sorting them by first location, then scene and shot type. Lip synching was one of the important things I did in editing. I hade to match the clips of the actress singing with the music and ensure I cut to the beat.

Footage Organisation

We organised the footage by the scenes and locations i.e. Café, Park.

Final Cut Layout

This was our layout in Final Cut when editing.

9 Layers

Drama Studio Performance Scene

Dream Scene Graphic Match Scene

Locker Scene Cafe Scene

Mile End Park Performance Scene

Riverside Scene

Thames Barrier Performance Scene

Riverside, Park & Maze Scene

Winter Wonderland Scene

Maze Scene Riverside Scene

Riverside Performance Scene

Drama Studio Performance Scene

Photoshop CC

Photoshop was the main editing software that was used to edit both Digipak and Magazine Advert.  Photoshop is very useful with its amazing features to crop, slice, heal, change colour, font and anything you could think off to change to an image. I used Photoshop in many different ways to edit my Digipak and Magazine Advert.

To make the images stand out I made it brighter and increased the saturation and vibrancy, whilst also desaturating the outside to make it less noticeable and darker so that the text stands out more on top of it. I used the quick selection tool and layering so that I was able to edit different pieces of the prints separately.

I spent ages trying to edit out acne on the artists face to make her look flawless, this had required a lot of time and by the end of it didn’t seem like I had done much editing on it. The same could also be said when I edited out excess hair from the digipak shots. This also took a lot of time but when I was finished with the final product, it did not reflect the amount of time I had put into it. 

I was unfamiliar with the software and didn’t know how to use the tools that the program offered. However, with the help from other students in my media class, and by looking at YouTube tutorials I improved vastly and was able to create very effective print tasks.

iMovie

iMovie was used to edit all of our set pictures as it is a fast and easy-to-use program that allowed us to add inserts, text, transitions and effects over various set photos. The program also allowed us to speed up or slow down any pictures we wanted to. Using it was very simple as I was experienced with the software.

Web 2.0

We used Google images to search for Digipaks and Magazine advert formats of artist from our genre, the images found helped us when creating our digipaks and magazine adverts as we had something we could base it on, and also ensuring it fits within our genre. I found that logos and additional information are placed on a music advert to promote the artist to make it look professional and factual.

We used google to search for similar artists to our artist Tamara Laurel, and we found artist within our chosen genre which allowed us to gain inspiration for our ancillary task, and what we should include to conform to conventions of that genre.

I used Wikipedia to find out about artist albums and track lists so we would know what to include in our own digipacks.

After I had completed my draft and final versions of my video I exported the file then imported that onto my own YouTube account. I was able to embed these videos on my blog and also share it with others. I also used YouTube so if any comments were made I could include them in my feedback.

WhatsApp We created Group Chat on a

WhatsApp in order to keep touch with each other. We included our actress and actor as well. We used the group chat to organise the actors, filming schedule, costumes, to take pictures, check the weather(if the weather wasn’t right we wouldn’t be able to film for example if it was raining we wouldn’t want those types of scenes or shot because the continuity would be different form the rest of the shots). and pass on other important information.

Evaluation

In our evaluation stage, I had to make sure that I used a variety of ways to answer the questions. The media technologies that I have used in the evaluation are mostly the same as what I used in my research & planning phase. I have created Prezis, to display some of my evaluation in a more creative way than simply blogging. YouTube has been used to display videos of me answering questions on the project. Blogger was a very useful tool in consolidating all of my work into one place as it allowed me to embed YouTube videos and Prezis.

Question 1 – For this question I used PowerPoint presentation for this question as it gave me the tools and room to place annotated pictures on them to explain my technology use. I could have possibly used Prezi, however, for the amount of technology I have used, the path may have been a bit complicated to use and I found that for this question PowerPoint was a better layout programme to use due to the explanation and analysis of technology use.

Question 2 – I used Prezi for my question 2 on the evaluation. This was so I could use pathways to show how effective the products work together and to emphasise the links I have made. This is also very interactive and a modernised version of PowerPoint which has animated and energised my presentation.

Question 3 – For this question I did a voice over video. I first used PowerPoint to plan my answer, then I used the internal audio recorder on mac to record audio of me talking. I used Final Cut pro to edit the audio and added pictures and titles with Pontoons to make it more interesting.

Question 4 – As part of this question, I used PowerPoint and Slide Share to allow me to upload my presentation to my blog. I did this by including both text and images to show what technologies I have used throughout the process of creating a music video and promotional package.

Blogger & YouTube - YouTube was used when presenting videos, screen shots were also taken through YouTube to show what I am trying to present clearly. Blogger was used to present organise my work accordingly so my teacher and the examiner will know where each task is.

SlideShare – I used SlideShare to upload two of the evaluation questions. SlideShare allows the viewer to easily go through a presentation and it also looks presentable.

Reflection Looking back at creating my last year’s coursework, I have realised that

the technology that I used was very basic and it didn’t require much effort to use. However, looking back at the technology I have used for this year’s coursework, I can see that a lot of effort had been made to use a vast range of technologies throughout the research and planning, construction and the evaluation stages.  I transferred the skills from last year and used it to create my coursework this year.

During the research and planning of this year’s coursework, I have gained a vital insight into the importance of web 2.0 for media. It is a platform where various media products can be stored and gained access from. This platform had allowed me do a lot of research and enabled me to gain an insight on other music videos which I took inspirations from. 

The editing of the music video was more complex as the pace of our video had to match the pace of the song which was quite upbeat, so our scenes needed cut back and fourth quicker. Also it was more challenging as we had to match our actress lip syncing to audio of the song, we had to be precise to make sure that the lip syncing matched as close as possible.

Last year I didn't use Photoshop as we didn't have to create an additional task. This year we had to learn how to use Photoshop and advance our skills to make our ancillary task look as authentic as possible. I soon realised after starting to edit our magazine advert and digipak that the editing was time consuming and required a lot patience and precision, and the end results was very good. The change we made to the picture however, were hardly noticeable by others as we were just trying to polish and perfect the picture, for example removing spots and hair strand on the face.

Overall, I can say that I have improved a lot in using media technologies during my research and planning, construction and the evaluation stages of my music video which I hope is reflected in my final products.