A2 Music Video

EvaluationQuestion 4

“How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning, and evaluation

stages?”

Research • When doing research, on an Apple iMac, to find out more

about the genre we decided to do, we used Google as our search engine. Google helped us to easily find what we are looking for, as well as being simple to understand. It was useful finding out information about the typical conventions of the Indie genre and to find out more about what the artist of the song, Jack Johnson, is like and even to find the lyrics of the music video. Google images was good to have a look at what style people in the Indie genre are in too and should look like, as well as looking at other artists digipaks for inspiration.

Research • Another media technology that I found very effective

was YouTube. YouTube enabled us to look at other music videos for inspiration and ideas. Along with being able to search for the things you wanted, after YouTube would suggest similar things to you which is where we found multiple music videos that really helped with our research. You could search anything on YouTube and it is almost certain you would find what you are looking for which was really simple and easy for us to find what we wanted. This was one of the most helpful media technologies thatwe used throughout our research.

Research• Our mobile phones were also useful in the

process of our research. iPhone’s were the type of mobile phones that were used. We were able to research anything we were keen to learn about when we were away from the computer. This means we could just Google or YouTube anything we wanted at any time.

Research • MTV and other music channels were particularly

good when deciding what song we would choose for the music video. On TV you there are a variety of music channels for every genre of music. Knowing that we wanted to do Indie, we focused on those channels, where we found the current song we did for our music video: Jack Johnson ‘Better Together’.

Planning• We did all of our planning on an Apple iMac 2 GH2 Intel

Core 2 Duo Processor which has 8 GB and more of memory for us to play around with. These iMac’s are very easy to use and navigate around, especially if you are used to Apple products. They were much easier to use than if you were to use a normal computer, particularly because you can do things like drag and drop. This is where you can drag the file or image you want and simply put it anywhere. It was particularly useful on Wordpress.

Planning• For the planning side of our music video, the internet

was crucial. This was mainly used to access websites like Wordpress. Wordpress is an online blogging website that lets you crate a profile for free and post what ever you wanted to on it. This enabled us to create a whole page on our blog dedicated to the planning of our music video. We could simply type in any ideas that we had and post them on our blog so that they would be back there every time we went back on it. This worked to our advantage to make sure that we had the planning of our musicvideo exactly right, collectively bringing all of our ideastogether.

Planning• Once again, YouTube was a big part of our planning. It worked

in our favor when planning shots and scenes for our music video as we would look at other music videos for inspiration to develop our ideas.

• In the planning process, we developed storyboards of what some of the scenes would look like so that when we got to a filming day, we would know exactly what we had to do. Once the storyboards were completed, we used a Epson V300 scanner to put them on to our Apple iMac’s and then on to our blogs on Wordpress. This made our blogs more visual so that we could understand everything that we had to complete.

Planning• In terms of the Digipaks, to plan we used Google

to look at different Digipaks in order to find some conventions to follow. The Digipaks we found on Google Images were very useful, so we put them on our Wordpress blog where we could keep looking back at them and write notes on things that we could develop and challenge on ours.

Construction• Before we started creating our music video, we used Final

Cut Pro X to edit some test footage in order to get used to how everything works and things we could do to the video. We did this twice, one with footage of people playing tennis and the other was test footage that we had filmed with a Canon Legria HD camcorder. This enabled us to have a play around with Final Cut so that we knew what to do when it came to editing and constructing our music video. By using this camera, we could get inspiration for the type of shots that we might do and how to put them all together. We also did shots in our test footage with a tripod, this prepared and assisted us in how to use it as we had never used one before.

Construction• Final Cut Pro X was used in the construction of our music

video. We used it to import our clips and put them all together to make the music video. Once all the footage had been uploaded, we went through it to find this bits that we found we could use. When you find a suitable piece of footage, you select the part you want and drag it down to the timeline and drop it where you want it to be placed in your music video. This worked to our advantage so we did not have to place the whole clip of footage on the timeline and edit it there. We were able to highlight bits of the video that we could use and mark the parts that were no good to us. This made it simple to find what we wanted so we did not waste any time.

Construction• Final Cut Pro X makes editing and constructing a music

video a lot easier than anticipated. There is a wide variety of effects and transitions that you can add on to the music video so that it looks professional and not boring. Seeing as our music video is in the Indie genre, we established that the typical Indie conventions do not use many effects or transitions unless it is a really out there video. This is why in our music video, we only used the fade transition and effect so that we could overlap two clips of footageto look like the character is remembering something/having a flashback.

Construction • In Final Cut Pro X, we were able to edit some of the

footage that we did not feel was right. On some of the shoots the lighting looked fine, but when reviewing the finished product, the footage seemed yellow and discoloured. To solve this we edited it so it did not appear so yellow and added a white balance so that the lighting looked normal and bright. Also, with some of the footage we moved that camera slightly so it looked a little bit unprofessional but luckily with Final Cut Pro we were able to use the ‘Stabilisation’ tool which analyses the primary movement and stabilises the video to that primary movement, making it still and good enough to use.

Construction • The Camera we used to film our music video was the Sanyo

3m/10ft Waterproof Xacti Dual Camera. It is a very good camera that had lots of storage and memory to keep all of our footage on there. We were able to shoot many different things throughout the filming period without the camera dying or running out of space which was really useful so we could get a lot done in one day instead of separating all the filming days. This camera is also HD ready, so all the footage was shot in HD and looked really good.

• As well as this, we used a camera Tripod so that our footage was still and lined up where we wanted it. This made it easy as all we had to do was click play and it would film what we wanted.

Construction• When designing the Digipak, we used Adobe Photoshop

CS5. Photoshop is a brilliant media technology for producing things like digipaks. You can design it however you have imagined it by simply using the tools that are on Photoshop. What we found particularly useful was the use of effects and being able to play around with the images and colours to exactly what we wanted. We also were able to download new fonts from 1001 Fonts, which were then imported and put onto Photoshop so we could use them. We could find any font we wanted to fit in with our Indie theme, which we managed so completed our look for the Digipak.

Evaluation • Part of our evaluation was created on the new media

technology called Prezi. This is an online presentation website where you can create your own presentation in a new and creative way. It can be quite difficult to navigate around, however, once you get used to how everything works it is a really good way to be able to display information and present evaluation questions. On Prezi, you can import YouTube videos without it navigating away from the page which works really well especially when you are presenting it to someone. You can also import pictures very simply, by either importing them or dragging them from your desktop which is a useful technique.

Evaluation • Microsoft Powerpoint was also part of our

evaluation. Powerpoint allows you to display many different things on a number of slides. We thought that this was a good tool to use for doing an evaluation question as we were able to separate slides into subject areas so that is clear and easy for people to read. Also for us to navigate around. With Microsoft Powerpoint, you can import images and add effects on to them which makes the whole powerpoint more visual and interesting.

Evaluation• For the audience feedback question on our

evaluation, we used the Canon Legria HD camcorder to record the audiences reaction to our music video. This enabled us to get a clear image of what they thought of the music video and what we could do to improve it. It makes it easier to understand as it is a video of them talking, which is better than a written review because it is more visual and its like they are talking to you.

Evaluation• Slideshare was used to put our Microsoft

Powerpoint on to the internet so that it was accessible to everyone that needed and wishes to see is. This is a very useful tool as it would be very difficult and inconvinient to just post each slide on to our Wordpress blogs. With Slideshare we can just simply post the link and it will take you straight to the powerpoint.