How Did You Use Media Technology in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Evaluation Question 3

Rebecca Ankrah A2 Media Coursework

RESEARCH

When creating both my ancillary product and my music video, I first began by researching my ideas. I used a variety of online tools to help display my results.

Google

Google was by far the most beneficial online tool we used when beginning the project as a whole but was specifically resourceful in the beginning stages as it aloud us to explore UK artists on a larger scale, giving us basic background details on the artists their genre of music. Once we’d decided on the type of music video we wanted to create, it made it easier for use to narrow down our research title and begin searching UK artists of, in our case Dubstep/Urban artists.

In terms of my ancillary project, I also felt Google was exceedingly helpful because I was able to looking up a various album covers and magazine advert for inspiration.

Email – Hotmail(Outlook)

By using my Email during the research process, I was able to contact the artists record label about using the artist song for our coursework project. It also came in useful for a future enquiry I made, asking permission to shoot Euston Underpass at a higher level from inside UCL hospital.

Youtube

Youtube I feel became most useful once we were sure of the artist we wanted to use as it allowed us to not only hear but view official music videos from the artist. This I feel was helpful as it allowed us to get a feel of the type of video we could potential make. Not only this but because we as a group had decided we wanted to give our music video an Urban feel as it allowed us to more creative and portray a narrative, Youtube also came in handy when looking up more Urban styled video for inspiration.

PLANNING

When planning our music video, we used a substantial amount of different media technology and equipment to help present all our ideas and any changes we had made as we progressed further in our project.

In terms of my ancillary project, I took the same approach when planning, using the Internet for example, to get some inspiration.

Brainstorm/Moodboard, Timetoast, Vlogs, Prezi, Hand draw illustrations, Flip camera, Still camera, Blogger

Song Choice

Our final song choice is: Skream & Example - Shot myself in the foot again

Firstly, out of our top three songs, there was a unanimous decision to select this song as our final choice. The reasons for this is because we all thought that this we would be ideal for creating a video structured on fast pace base track editing, as it has quite an aggressive Dubstep beat.

The song can be interpreted in many ways and we thought, because the song is quite 'busy' we could use simplistic backgrounds, but a range of camera shots to enhance the images. For example, stop motion blurs could be used to either assist the narrative, or distort the video to accompany the different sounds that make up the Dubstep soundtrack. 

Brainstorm/Moodboard

Timetoast

We used Timetoast, an online presentation app, to help map out our Production schedule… (complete)

Location, Props and Costume

Here is a print screen shot of the vlog my group and I made on the Location, Props and Costume we planned to use in our project. In short, we discussed, for example our four Locations which were Euston Underpass, Liverpool Street, Shoreditch and a Kitchen Room. We then went on to explaining the reasons behind our ideas. Although we made some changes, I don’t feel it took away from what we’d initially planned visually. Bellow, I’ve also added a screen shot of potential Costume wear from our pitch presentation.

Pitch We used Prezi as a way to present our pitch as it allowed us to both

illustrate and bullet point our ideas.

Plans For My Digipak/Advert Here I’ve posted a copy of my mock-up, illustrating my initial ideas for

how I’d planned for both my Album Cover and my Advertisement to look.

Blogger

Blogger was used to post all our ideas and finds throughout the entire processes of creating both our music video and ancillary work.

CONSTUCTION

When constructing our music video, we used a variety of editing software and recording equipment to help piece together our music video and ancillary work, as well as using it to record feedback.

Flip Camera, Sill Camera, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Blogger.

Plans (Filming)

Flip Camera/Still CameraWe used both the flip camera and still camera to film behind the scene as we recorded our music video. We also used the flip came in the planning stage to film our pitch presentation and again in the evaluation stage to collect audience feedback.

Behind the Scenes – (Photos taken during Filming)

Final Cut Pro

Rough Cut

Photoshoot for Ancillary Work

Short List

Ancillary Work – Photoshop

Doing refection posts at the end of every stage of the project I think was helpful as it explains how we’ve improved throughout the project and also, what we hope to achieve as we progressed further. This came in handy when planning for our evaluation questions.

EVALUATION

Doing posts from the beginning of the project helped me to reflect on my progress and see how I’ve improved. The ability to go back and check logs is what makes blogger such a useful tool. I also found blogger to be useful because it allowed us to add pictures, video, ect. to help illustrate our ideas and present the in a way that’s visually appealing. The fact that we were able to tag our names on our posts also proved to be useful as it made searching for our previous blogs easier.