Software and technology used

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

BLOGGER• I used blogger to show all my

progress from planning to postproduction to the evaluation. This is where I drew all my information and coursework together. I chose to use a blog because it is like an online diary so it would be the simplest way to show my steps to my final product. It allowed me to apply pictures, prezis, youtube videos and slide share on to my post through embedding the code

WIKIPEDIA• I used Wikipedia for my research at 2 different

parts. Firstly I used it to research my artist as this helped me find what genre she is, her style, basically anything that could help me with the creation of my music video was partly influenced by the Lana Del Rey Artist Page. It also helped me when find out other artists from the similar genre.

GOOGLE

• I used google as this was the best place to find my research as it is the top ranking search engine on the internet. It helped me find articles around issues and themes involved in my video like drugs, alcohol, suicide, smoking, teenage sex and breaking societies norms and values. This is like the post of ‘stereotypes’ of crystal meth addicts. Google was also the place where I searched for all the images that are shown on my blogger as it helped me find the most suitable.

SLIDESHARE • Blogger wouldn’t let me attach a full

PowerPoint to my posts so instead I used a PowerPoint sharing website called slide share. This allowed me to post my full PowerPoint without me having to save each slide as a jpeg and having to attach several different pictures to one post which made it look messy. Slide share also added to my variety forms of media making my blog more creative.

POWERPOINT

• I used PowerPoint now and then to put my information together on a slide share. However the main use of it was how I could convert a slide to a picture. This helped me create collages of celebrity’s and imagery which I could easily post onto my blog and make it look creative. It also allowed me to have text and images together and group ideas together by each slide.

PREZIPrezi is a creative way to express my ideas and is different than me just writing on a post for every bit of my blog, by doing this it make it’s more interesting.

• I used Prezi to show the information I had researched on crystal meth addicts opposed to the normal people they can be and how stereotypes are not always correct which is like my video whereas the girl who is a drug addict is not stereotyped in her happy life to be one. I chose to use prezi because I had several pictures to put on which would flow if it was on a prezi presentation.

• I used several theoretical approached in my music video about narrative, genre, audience theory's, representation (stereotyping) which creates a deeper understanding of resonant and reflective media texts. I used prezi to show this because of the theme of a chalkboard. It made it more interesting and emphasised that it was something I learnt in lesson.

YouTube was used in my planning for several things. It helped me research conventions of my genre by enabling me to go and find music videos of

songs by Lana del Rey and also artists similar to her like Birdy.

MAIN FORM OF SOFTWARE WHICH I USED THE MOST

• • I uploaded all the videos I had filmed onto YouTube because that was the only way I could put them on my blogger. I also liked the idea of uploading them to YouTube as it meant I could get feedback from anyone as I didn’t set it to private. It is also an easy way for me to share it on social networking sites such as facebook, twitter etc.

• • I used YouTube to help me construct my initial idea through already made videos. I got inspiration from several to help me with storylines, editing, mise en scene, lighting etc. I chose to do this because every artist in this industry puts there music videos on youtube via vevo etc. who have paired up with music industry’s. Therefore this gave me easy access to any video I wanted by any artist. It also meant that I could upload these videos on my blogger so my audience could see exactly what I wanted to try and recreate through the video that I would make.

• • It helped me find videos of my artist that had already been created for her songs which enabled me to research and find the particular conventions of the genre and my artist herself by her costume editing etc. throughout the original videos. Especially when it came along to finding the original video of ‘Carmen’ itself, which I copied parts and themes into my video which was shown on my previous post for the first part of the evaluation.

• • Youtube helped me find tutorials on how to do hair and makeup. The main one I found was how to do a natural makeup look which is a convention of some of lana del reys music video and I wanted to make my actress look natural and innocence when she is an happy life which was opposing to her sad anger life of smudged makeup.

• • Helped me find elements of theorist perspectives in existing videos like Levi Strauss- binary opposites etc. This is to prove that their theories are incorporated into music videos.

• • Tutorials on how to use the mac. Before I began creating my music video I had never used a mac before. Therefore it was very complicated for me to get my head my round and learn how to use the video editing final cut pro. Youtube was helpful as it helped me to find tutorials to add effects etc. onto my video.

Software and technology used

FILMING AND POST PRODUCTION

APPLE MACS- FINAL CUT PROI used final cut pro to edit all my scenes that I had shot to eventually create a video. This was helpful as it enabled me to add several effects throughout the production and make my video flow. The tools are shown below and how I used them:

• The cut and Trim option- the cut and trim option allowed me to cut each shot to the length that I wanted it. It also allowed me to crop out bits that I didn’t need.

• The effects tab gave me lots of options when editing my video. I used several different effects throughout my production. The first was 50’s TV which gave my scenes a black and white effect and also made the video look like it was being watched on a Television set from back in the 50’s by adding an aged effect. Also what helped me add an aged effect was ‘aged film’ this made it look realistic like it was filmed many years before now by the lines that would come over the shot every now and then. This helped with my conventions of the editing as a lot of lana del rey videos are set back in the 60’s using 60’s styled cameras even though she is living in the present day. Therefore it creates my video in the same style as a lot of hers by using these effects. I also used the effect Gaussian blur on part of my editing for when the actress is drinking the alcohol . I wanted this to represent that the actress is drunk because an effect of alcohol usually gives people blurred vision which is happening at this point in the video for the audience. On my first draft I used ‘frame’ I did this to represent the actress being on TV explaining to the audience that they don’t want to do drugs etc. I did this because the frame means that this is what she wants the audience to actually see and not her doing drugs. Again I used another effect like frame which was ‘camcorder’ this gave an effect that actress was being videoed on a home camera, so this shows to the audience that even to her family and friends she acts happy.

• There was also a tab for transitions which moved one shot from another. The main one I used was the fade shot. For the transitions from the scenes with the white background to the scenes where she was doing all the bad things that society would disapprove of like slitting her wrists. The reason I did this was to show that when the actress is saying all this stuff the camera like ‘you don’t want to be like me’ she is flashbacking to the reasons why people shouldn’t want to be like her and reminding of herself the bad things.

FINAL CUT PRO CONTINUED• I also used the slow motion/speed up option on parts of my video. The slow

motion effect was used on her pouring out the drugs onto her hand to emphasise the fact she was doing this. I then used the speed up button for the scene when she was walking the streets at night to show time passing by, again emphasising the fact that this happens throughout the full night.

• To create more of an effect and help the audience clearly identify the happy and negative scenes I used the colour adjustment option to make the bad scenes darker and the happy scene lighter and brighter. To do this I used the exposure tab for the negative scenes I put the shadows at -8%, the midtones at -4% and the highlights at -55%. This helped the scene look a lot darker and help set the atmosphere to represent her life being dark and scary for her when she is alone. The happy scenes were most adjusted to 100% for the highlights to really help show a clear contrast between her 2 different life's.

• I used the reverse option in my second draft at the end to show her backwards doing the drugs to creating emphasis and add a bit to the narrative.

• The opactiy otpion allowed me to overlap to moving images at the same time to create an effect thatv two things are going on.

MEMORY CARD • I used the memory card to save all my footage and

photos for when I began my post production. With the memory card it meant I could easily insert it into the memory card slot on the mac and import my footage and shots onto the computer. However I had a few complications with this technology because I had too much footage which meant I had to delete some off it which ended up deleting my shots of the mac to for some odd reason.

DAFONT.COM• Was a website on the internet that I used to

find fonts for my ancillary texts, for example for the titles. I chose to use this website because there is thousands that look conventional to cd covers especially lana del reys. However the fonts off this website were very difficult when trying to get rid of the white background around each letter as there was still the white glow. Therefore Photoshop helped with this.

CAMERA- SONY HANDY CAM HDR 250• I used this camera for filming my footage.

It created a clear picture and several key components that was useful in the filming process. The main one being the zoom button. This camera was used mainly with cinematography. The camera along with the tripod allowed for a smooth movement of panning and shots that were still. This is important for my video because the still shots emphasised that her life was also still. The tripod legs also allowed me to get the camera at different levels.

RIBBIT.COM• Ribbit.com was only used to add the many

effects over the image like the brown texture over the image, this helped make it look more conventional to the lana del rey cd covers and would catch peoples eyes.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP• Adobe Photoshop helped me edit my images for my digipack and construct my magazine

advertisement. The tools I used to create my product are explained below:

• Magic wand tool- This helped to remove the white backgrounds of any images I put onto Photoshop.

• Brush tool- When removing the white background on the text from dafont.com it left some white and removed parts that I needed. I used the brush tool with the zoom button to fill certain parts of the text which had been removed with black so it looks stronger and bolder.

• Eraser- The eraser also helped me with the same problem as it meant that I could get rid of any white left over background colour that the magic wand didn’t completely get rid of.

• I also learnt last year how to airbrush my actresses face and add effects such as eye shadow etc. This was from a tutorial on my AS blog.

• Photoshop also allowed me to play around with images. For example their contrast, colour, overlapping images over one another (opacity), saturation etc.

FUJI FILM FINEPIX S2980 CAMERA• I used my camera to take images for the

ancillary texts. The camera I used was a fuji, it created very clear and strong images as it was a 14.0 Mega pixel camera. It also had a variety of features on it such as being able to make my images black and white although I stuck to the orginal effect as my editing would come after on photoshop. I also found out from using this camera that without the flash it created very poor quality pictures so it was important to have the flash up every time I used it.

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EVALUATION• For my evaluation I will use all the software and technology used in my section for

research techniques to present my information and findings for the questions.