Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Beth Emily Cooper

Research & Planning

Our research and playing away nearly all done online. We used websites such as YouTube, Blogger and Twitter and Google search engine to gather information for our task of creating a music video, digi-

pack and magazine advert.

Firstly we look at YouTube to look at Fall Out Boy (our artist that we chose to portray).We also looked at other bands such as Sum41, Hollywood Undead and 30 Seconds to mars to see how they are portrayed in their videos as a band. We found out that many of the videos contained high levels of energy and lots of shots of the band performing. These were all the conventions that we set about to use for our video in the first place as this is what the audience of the music genre (Rock) expect from a music video. As well as looking up the artists on YouTube we also researched album covers and studio photos online to help us with our ancillary tasks (Digi-pack and Magazine advert). We looked at different styles of

fonts and also what shorts of images they have on the front of their albums e.g. band photos, particular members of the band or if they have taken a more abstract approach to there album, for

example Fall Out Boy’s album “From Under The Cork Tree” and “Save Rock & Roll” do not show the band on the front. We decided after looking closely at the ways in which Fall Out Boy are portrayed and decided

to stick with one main singer and focus the audiences attention round him (Much like Pete Wentz).

Secondly we used Twitter to contact the band to ask permission to use their track in our music video due to copyright reasons. However we did not get a reply but we had the proof that we had attempted to

contact them.

Lastly we used Blogger to collate our work, this was particularly useful as there was four of us in our group. Blogger made it possible to categorize our work into separate tags, this meant that we were able to search for our own individual work on the blog rather than search through our whole groups. It also made it possible to post absolutely everything that went into our planning of the music video, digi-

pack and magazine advert including, videos from YouTube, Slide share (to post PowerPoint), links photos and also daily diary posts to keep us informed of what we have done each lesson.

Using Premier Pro

To create our music video we used Premier

Pro. This enabled us to be able to sort through and cut our clips down as well as dragging them

all into the right order. As well as this we were able to change the look of our video

completely. We achieved this by changing the

contrast and brightness of the clips and even

darkening the background so it didn’t daze our

audience

Layering On Premier Pro

We also used Premier Pro to add our unconventional scenes of laying within our video. To do this we simply select the clips we want and drag them on top of each other on the time line. After

this we then change the opacity so that we can fade on image more than the other

so the more important image shines through more. We can see this at the top, the drummer is the main focus

rather than the establishing shot behind of the tunnel. We decided to do this as we wanted to create a distorted feel to link to our digi-pack name “Distorted

Dreams”. I think this technique is very useful as it keeps he views interest

rather than looking at simply images of the band on screen. It meant that we could add a lot more clips into the

video to.

Speed Up, Slow Down & Reverse

We then decided to use more techniques on Premier Pro to fulfil our original ideas of

slowing down some clips such as the water melon scene. To do this we selected the clip then went to the tab at the top and selected “CLIP” and then “SPEED/DURATION” and clicked the speed we desired. This took quite a while as we

wanted to fit it exactly right. We also speeded up a few clips the same way. As well as slowing down and speeding up we also wanted to achieve reverse clips of the water melon being smashed and also the flour fight at the end. To do this it was the same settings but this time clicking the “REVERSE SPEED” box. This created great effects for a lot of clips that we used through out our video and also grabs the audiences attention

Using Photoshop

We used Photoshop a lot through out our ancillary tasks to manipulate photos to our idea standards. Firstly the image on the far left, this is a screen grab from Photoshop of our

magazine advert. The image in the middle shows how we manipulated it. Because we wanted an on going theme of pink that links all our photos together we changed the graffiti to pink on

Photoshop (as you can see from the spikes on the graffiti at the top are red and the edited are pink). Also we changed the brightness and contrast to make the image brighter and stand

out. Finally to this image we created an over lay of bokeh and glitter to make the image look dream like to link it to the name of our digi-pack. Secondly we edited all of the pictures for our digi-pack. The photo on the far right is a before and after Photoshop. A lot of work had

to be done to achieve this. Firstly the image was the wrong size to fit in the digi-pack template so we had to extend the legs first to make it feet and because of this I then had to put a smokey/flour look to the image to hide the bands long legs, secondly I created each one of the band a clone to continue the dream like feel, smoothed out the background and added the

same bokeh over lay.

Evaluation

Within our evaluation we managed to show a variety of skills by using a mixture of different digital programmes

on the computer such as PowerPoint (questions 1 and 4) Prezi (question 2) and Premier Pro (question 3). To create

question 3 we had to produce a directors commentary over the

top of our music video to explain audience feed back to our work. We all together made

a script and recorded our voices. To achieve this we had split the screen into 3 to add our video, the names of who was speaking and also a side clip/picture to back up what

we were talking about.

Using Prezi…

Another way that I presented my work was through Prezi.

Prezi enabled me to present my question in a bubble as the main focus point which then I created branches to different points of the question. I was also able to add pictures and

animations to back up my points. I especially enjoyed using Prezi as I could add my

own style to it and could easily link all my points

together using paths to one and other. This is definitely a programme I would use again

in the future.

Bibliography For Q3.

Sum 41 – In Too Deephttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emGri7i8Y2Y

Fall Out Boy – This Ain’t A Scenehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNm5drtAQXs

30 Seconds To Mars – Up In The Airhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9uSyICrtow