Evaluation Question 4

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in research and
planning, construction and evaluation?

The internet contributed a lot to the research and planning stages of my production, especially google. As google has a vast amount
of websites at the world's disposal, it was easy to research the codes and conventions of music videos as there are many websites
that feature this information. It was important that I used many websites when conducting research so that I could gain information
from many sources, rather than just one or two, enabling me to gain a lot more information than I would have if I only used one
website for research. I first made use of google when I researched into the history of music videos. I did this to see how music
videos have changed over the years and how their conventions have changed. I wanted to see their development over time. Back
when some of the first music videos where released, often they where more like short films as a lot of them was from films. Others
were very simplistic such as Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues music video in which he held up cards with the lyrics of the
song on, throughout the whole video. Back then music videos where not that important as not everybody had TVs and so it was
more about the song itself whereas now the music video is very much a promotional video, and so I tried to follow this newer
convention and promote the song with the video, keeping the audience interested for the whole of the video, so that they listen to the
whole of the song.
I also used it when coming up with ideas for my music video. There are many reviews of music videos on the internet and from
looking at these and looking at the feedback an audience gives to a music video, I was able to see how an audience responded to
certain elements of a video, what worked and what didn't. This helped me to know how others think a music video should look,
rather than only using my own opinion, I was able to incorporate both my opinions and others opinions into the production of my
music video, hopefully creating a video that many will enjoy. I also used google to research existing Digipaks and magazine adverts
in order to gain inspiration for my own work and also to research the codes and conventions of both products. I mostly used google
images when researching existing products as there were a vast amount images of Digipaks and magazine adverts to look at.
Because of this, I was able to look at the products that are of the same genre in order to create a digipak/magazine advert that is
conventional of that genre. It also enabled me to compare Digipaks of different genres to see how the colour scheme, images used
on the digipak etc. effect how an artist is portrayed. This helped me to know what images would be suitable and what colour scheme
would be suitable in order for my artist to be portrayed on the digipak/magazine advert in the correct way.

I used YouTube in all stages of production. In the research stages I watched many
music videos in order to find out what is conventional of a music video, especially
those of the same genre as the song I chose so that when I made my music video, it
would be clear to see that it was a dance song. I also watched many music videos to
see what types of camera angles are used and how a video is conventionally edited
e.g. with jump cuts or fade cuts. I also used YouTube for tutorials if there was
something I didn't know how to do on premier pro or Photoshop. This was very useful
as it allowed me to find a solution to a problem straight away so I could carry on with
my work as soon as possible. I also used YouTube to post my completed music video
onto. This enabled people from all over the world to be able to view the video and
possibly give feedback on it. From posting the video on YouTube, I was able to
embed it onto my blog so that I could present my work all together, showing the entire
music promotion package.

Throughout the whole of the production of my music promo package, I have updated the blog I created on
blogger regularly to show the progress that I was making from research stages, to planning stages, to
construction stages and also the evaluation stage. Posting on blogger allowed me to show all the work I have
been doing over the past year, from posting my music video and ancillary texts and all the work I have done
leading up to that. Posting on my blog also allowed me to see my own progress and come up with ways to
improve my work.
As I used blogger last year in AS Media, I knew how to use it and because of this it was the best way to
present my work. However, I did have some difficulties in the way I wanted to present my work are it is hard
to position images in the place where you want them, especially if you are using many images in a post. This
was the only limitation to using blogger to present my work.
Presenting my work on blogger enabled me to organise my work accordingly, adding work and adjusting
work as I progressed. It provided a clear display of my work and, as I could see what work I had completed, it
also enabled me to see what work I need to complete. I could monitor my work whenever and wherever I
wanted as blogger, as well as being able to use it on a computer, it is also compatible on smart phones,
tablets etc. so if I was out somewhere and I came up with an idea of a post that I could do, I could create it
and post it onto my blog, from my phone, instead of having to wait until I got home, or got to college, to use a
computer.

Prezi is a web based software that enables you to present your work in a unique
and interesting way. Prezi was helpful in the research stage of my production as
instead of just listing the conventions of form and genre in a generic, and possibly
boring way, I used prezi to make it more interesting to read about as the
presentation of it was more appealing. Also, on prezi, you can save your work at
any time and go back to it at a later date which enabled me to progress at both
college and at home. Because of the intuitive zoom based interface, I could include
a lot of information without using many repetitive slides like I would if I created a
powerpoint. On prezi you can include text, images, videos etc. on your
presentations which proved to be very useful as I could present many different
formats of my work on one presentation.
I was introduced to Prezi last year and I used it in parts of the research and
planning stages of my AS Media work so I already knew how to use it. I believe this
made it a convenient software to use in this years work as I wouldn't have to spend
any time learning how to use it, I could just present my work in an interesting way,
quickly and easily.

Dafont.com is a website which features many different and
unusual fonts. It was very helpful as it enabled me to use unique
fonts on my digipak and magazine advert, rather than just using
average, common fonts that are found on Microsoft office. The
fonts contribute to tying my products together. I used the same
fonts on both my digipak and my magazine advert so it is clear to
see that they belong together as part of a music promotion
package. The font also fits in with the genre of the song, which is
dance, as I used quite a futuristic font, often seen on products
that are of the same genre. I used dafont.com for the fonts for my
artists name and the name of the digipak.

Slideshare is a web based software which enables you to post
powerpoint presentations online. I used slideshare to present the
storyboard for my music video to save a lot of space on my blog. This
made it easier to see the storyboard, which featured annotations of
what is happening in each shot, to make the storyboard easier to
follow.
I used slideshare last year in AS Media so as I already knew how to
use it, it made it convenient to use in my work in A2 Media. I did
however use slideshare more last year as I did a lot of my work on
powerpoint and then used things like slideshare to post powerpoints
onto my blog or converted the slides into images to post onto my blog,
whereas this year I did most on my work straight onto blogger. I also
discovered different software this year such as this one, Amazon
studios, I did more work on prezi too.

To create my digipak I first got a template of a six-panel digipak, put it onto Adobe Photoshop and also imported the
photos I took for the digipak onto Photoshop. I was able to manipulate the photos I took in a way that made them
look creative and professional. Although I used Photoshop a lot in my AS Media work, I had forgotten how to use
many of the tools on it. After playing around on it for a while though, I started to remember everything I had done
last year so the construction of my digipak didn't take too long. There are a variety of tools on Photoshop that
allowed me to make my digipak look as good as I could make it, to make it look professional. The layering aspect of
Photoshop was particularly useful as it enabled me to edit each photo on the digipak individually rather than as a
whole digipak, which made it easier as you had control over which parts of the digipak you wanted to edit. After
uploading the images onto Photoshop, I cropped them so they would fit onto the digipak template. For the front
cover, I had a photo of my artist and then I removed all parts of her face apart from her eyes and mouth using a
combination of the 'magic wand' tool and the 'eraser' tool. After, using the 'paint brush' tool I reduced the opacity to
around 20% and then I drew what looked like paint drips underneath the eyes of my artist to create a watercolour
paint dripping effect. I then used the 'blur' tool and the 'smudge' tool in order to reduce the sharpness, to make the
paint look more like water colour. I used this same technique on the back cover of my digipak. For the parts of the
digipak that have paint splatters on I used the 'paint brush' tool to draw various shapes and then I used the 'smudge'
tool to drag lines away from the shapes in order to create a splatter effect. I then again used the 'blur' tool to soften
the edges. For the inside cover, I used the 'shape' tool and chose a line to create a triangle. I then put the photo of
my artist on the layer below the triangle layer. Then using the 'select' tool I selected the parts of the photo I wanted
to remove, so that you could only see the photo inside of the triangle, and deleted them. Then, using the 'shape' tool
and selecting the line again, I increased the thickness of the line, turned the colour of the line to red and reduced the
opacity. I then drew two lines that met at the top centre of the cover to create a triangular shape. For the silhouette
shapes on the CD I had a photo of the artist and using the 'eraser' tool I removed the photo, making sure I kept an
outline of it. Then, I created the paint splatter, as said above, and placed that on a layer below the outline of my
artist. I then duplicated the silhouette three more times, and rotated each one so that they would go all around the
CD.

For my magazine advert I used the same photo and same text that is
on the front of my digipak. To make it easier for myself, rather than
creating the same image all over again, I copied the image from the
digipak onto my magazine advert, I then added the artists name and
digipak name. I created a border around the magazine advert by using
the 'shape' tool and selecting the line and I drew a line in my chosen
colour from the top to the bottom of the page. To ensure the lines
were identical on each side I duplicated the layer and dragged the
duplicated line to the opposite side of the advert. I then repeated this
for the top and bottom borders. I added the text using the 'text' tool.
Rather than writing all of my text in one text box I chose to do each
line of the text separately so that the size and colour of text could vary.

I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit my music video. To maximise the time I had to edit my video, I decided to download the
software onto my own laptop so that if I had done some filming, I could edit it in the same day at home. It also meant I could
edit at night and at weekends, something I wouldn't have been able to do if I used the editing suits at college. I used Adobe
Premier Pro as it is a non-linear editing software which enabled me to be able to edit whatever part of the video I
wanted, without having to edit it in a particular order. I found this useful as on the days my artist was unable to do filming, I
could film the parts of the video she was not in and then edit those parts so that I could just add in the parts of the video my
artist was in on a later date. First I imported all the footage I had onto premier pro and I also imported the song which I had
bought off of iTunes. I added the song to the time line. I then went through each clip one by one, choosing the sections of
the clips that I wanted to use using the 'marker' tools and then I dragged it onto the time line, ensuring I only moved the
video and not the audio, and synced it up with the music, for example if there was a part of my video were my artist was
singing, I would make sure her singing was in sync with the part of the song she was singing. For most of my video I used
jump cuts however on parts of the song that faded out and then in I used the transition 'cross dissolve' which gave the clip a
fade out effect. I did this so that the video and the song linked together, to create a sense of submersion for the audience. In
parts of my video I used a layered kind of effect, putting one clip on top of another. I decreased the opacity of the clip that
was layered on top so that the audience could see both clip simultaneously. I did this as some of the clips were footage of
instruments being played and the other clips were of my artist singing, so doing this you could see the instrument being
played and the artist singing at the same time which helped the audience to know what was going on in the video and it also
gave it an interesting looking effect.
As I had never used Adobe Premier Pro, I struggled at first to work out how to use it. I got advice off teachers and other
students for some things I wasn't sure how to do but for the most part I watched tutorials on YouTube which were very
helpful. Once I had familiarised myself with the software, it became a lot easier and I found that I edited my video a lot faster
than when I first started. As there were a vast amount of tutorial videos on YouTube, any problem I had, I could watch a
video and solve the problem straight away so I could get on with my work straight away, reducing the amount of time it took
the edit my video.

The Digital Camera I used to take stills
The tripod I used when filming
The Camcorder I used when filming

I used a Vivitar DVR 992HD when filming my music video. I used this
camera as it was convenient as I already owned the camera and so I could
film whenever I wanted. I had the option of borrowing a camera from college
but I decided to use my own as I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of
signing the camera in and out and having to book it in advance and only
being able to use it for a certain amount of days. By using my own, I could
film whenever I felt like it, or whenever was convenient. My artist wasn't
always available due to work commitments and her work hours varied so
there wasn't days that I could schedule to film and I just had to film when I
could. I don't think I would have got much filming done if I used a college
camera and that is why I decided to use my own. I also used the camera as
it a high definition camera and so produced a good quality image, something
that was important in making my music video look professional. I had used
this camera several times before so I didn't have to spend any time working
out how to use it, reducing the amount of time it took to film my music video.

I used a tripod when filming my music video in order for my footage to
be steady which gives it a more professional look. I don't really have a
steady hand so using a tripod was important for me to film some
steady shots. I hadn't used a tripod many times before making this
music video so getting the tripod into the right positions to film the
shots how I wanted to film them was quite difficult. I bought a tripod
rather than borrowing one from college because I didn't a set schedule
of when I could film so I wasn't sure when I would need it, so if I
booked it out of college, I may not of ended up using it because of my
artist's other commitments. This is why owning a tripod was the more
convenient choice for me, it meant I could film whenever I wanted,
maximising the time I had to film.

I used the Vivitar Vivicam S529 digital camera when taking
photos for my digipak. I used this camera mostly for convenience
as I own the camera but I also used it as it has a 16.1 megapixel
camera and so produced high quality photographs. I chose to
use my own camera rather than borrow one from college as it
meant I could take photos whenever I wanted to rather than only
taking photos when I had booked a camera. Because I own the
camera, I have used the camera many times before and so spent
no time learning how to use it as I was very familiar with it. This
reduced the amount of time it took me to take all of the photos I
needed for my digipak/magazine advert.

Evaluation Question 4

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Evaluation Question 4