By Alice Ellie and Emily

Software

To edit our video we used Adobe Premier Pro. We decided to use this software as it is more advanced than the ones we have

previously used, for example Serif and iMovie. Although we had never used this software before and had to spend some

time learning to use it correctly, we decided this programme would be the best to use because it would help us to

achieve a more professional finish to our video as well as providing more advanced

editing techniques which were not available on iMovie or Serif, for example

a wider variety of ways to adjust the lighting and colour of the shots.

Adobe Premier Pro…

WordPress…

For our blog, we used WordPress. We chose to use WordPress because it has a professional, but simple and effective aesthetic to it and the wide variety of themes

allowed us to design the blog to accurately reflect our artist and her genre. WordPress also allowed us to add more specific touches to the design, for example

the picture of our artist as the background and tagline below the artists name which helped to give the blog a more personal feel and create a connection between our

artist and her audience. The tag line also gave us an opportunity to reflect our artist through speech and give the blog some of her personality. WordPress is also simple to use and edit as well as allowing us to embed other forms of media, for example PowerPoint, YouTube video’s, Slideshare and Sound Cloud. This helped to make our

blog more interactive and visually appealing to the audience.

YouTube…

YouTube was the main software we used to do our research. YouTube allowed us to view videos from any genre at any time. We were also able to watch tutorial videos for Adobe Premier Pro when we were learning to use it and tutorials on how to set up and correctly use the steady-cam we used to film most of our video. We also used YouTube to look at

A2 music videos from previous year groups which allowed us to learn from their mistakes and get ideas on how to improve our own. Also the comments on YouTube videos meant that we were able to get feedback from other students and our target audience, and see

what people thought of videos from our genre, what appealed to them and what they didn’t like. The feedback from the public meant that they were completely honest and we

could hear the opinion of people who were not involved in the making of the video, or media students which gave us a more accurate idea of how the video would be received

by our target audience.

To design our digipack and advertisement we used Adobe Photoshop CS6. This software allowed us to

create the design exactly as we wanted it. The features on Photoshop CS6 meant we could adjust the lighting and colouring on our images, as well as add the layers of out of focus fairy lights, we

could also edit each one individually to create the theme we wanted without distracting or spoiling

the main image. For example we slightly faded out the lights that were over the face of our artist, in order to ensure her image was the main focus of

the design. Photoshop also has a good selection of fonts, as well as a tool which enables you to alter the font by hand, which we did by stretching out the curls on the first letter of each word to add a feminine touch to the overall feel of our artists name and logo. This also helped to reflect the

genre of her music. The crop tool on Photoshop meant that we were able to neatly refine our

images and paste them onto the background once we were happy with them. To inject more contrast

and feeling into the look of our design we used Photoshop to alter the lighting and brightness of

the colours within the main image and background, this helped to bring the picture to life

and reflect our artists personality and musical genre.Adobe Photoshop

CS6…

Google…Google has been the main software we used to conduct our research. The main example of this is google images, which we used to search for images of other

artists from our indie/folk genre in order to get ideas for the dress sense and overall look of the artists. We also

searched for the promotional material and digipacks of other artists to get

inspiration for our own and make sure that our design was similar to those of other artists within our genre. This is where we got the idea of layering the

lights over the image of our artist, after seeing a similar design from the singer Ellie Goulding. Google was useful right

from the beginning of the process when we were deciding how to design our

blog, as we could use Google to look at the websites of artists similar to ours

and gain a clearer idea of how the artist reflected and promoted themselves and their music through the visuals of their

website.

Microsoft Word…

Throughout this process we have used Microsoft Word in several ways. In the

beginning when planning our shots and what props we would need, we used

word to list what shots we needed and what props we needed for each shot. This ensured that we did not forget

anything important and we had exactly what we needed for each shot. We also used Word to plan what we needed to

get done each day we filmed or edited. This meant that we would always be on schedule and we would not spend too

long on each shot or run out of time. In order to take screen shots of our work, to track our process, we used Word to paste and save the images.This was a quick and easy way to document our work as well as making our blog more

visually appealing. In the early stages of designing our digipack and

advertisement we used Microsoft Word to find a font style which we thought most suited our artist and our genre.

Brainshark…

Using BrainShark to display our research made it clearer and easier to read, it meant we could display all our feedback on one page, focusing on the main points whilst

dividing it into categories such as ‘camera work’ and ‘repeating motifs’. The concise and clear way in which BrainShark displays information means that it is easy to

understand and quick to read. It is also has more effect and is more memorable than reading a block of writing. We could also add images to help illustrate the meaning of

what we had written, this makes the information quicker and easier to absorb. The neat and comprehensible structure of the BrainShark means that as well as being easy to read and understand it helps to give our blog a tidy and professional feel.

Wordle…

By using Wordle on our blog, it allowed us to collect all the

main points from our feedback and research into one place,

this meant it was easier for us to remind ourselves of what we needed to do to ensure we were

doing all the right things to appeal to our target audience and reflect the genre of our

artist and song. We could also quickly and easily refer back to

the Wordle’s to see what we needed to do to improve at each stage. The colourful designs available when

designing a Wordle meant that we could additionally add to the aesthetics of our blog, making the information easy to read

and more attractive to look at than a written post. The bright

colours also helps to differentiate the information

from the rest of the blog.

Soundcloud…We used SoundCloud several times

throughout the process, firstly to record feedback from our teachers and also to

record a phone call to a lighting specialist who gave us advice and tips

on filming in our different locations. Recording these and using SoundCloud

to embed them onto our blog meant that we could listen to them limitless

times, pause them and take in everything that was said. This was

especially helpful in terms of the phone call as it meant that we could listen

back to it afterwards and take detailed notes without missing anything that

was said, whereas it would have been harder to take notes as the call was happening. It was also helpful being

able to listen again to the feedback as it meant we could refer back to it and use

it to improve other parts of our work. Using a recording of someone speaking

their feedback rather than writing it down meant that the speaker was able

to go into more detail and describe exactly what they meant, rather than writing, which is often, less thorough

and can be a bit vague.

PowerPoint and SlideShare…

Power Point provided us with a way to present our research, feedback and planning. The nature of Power point meant that we could display lots of

information in one place rather than writing a long written post. We could also include pictures and annotate the slide with arrows or specific picture placement to better illustrate our point. Using Slide Share to embed our

Power Points on the blog meant that our blog became more interactive and a large amount of information could be viewed in one place. The visual

aspect of Power Point meant that we could use it to illustate and compare our digipack and promotional poster to those of other artists. This helped us to ensure that we were accuratley reflecting our artists genre. For example,

the image on the right where we compared our own design to Ellie Goulding’s.