MobilesThroughout the research and planning stages of our music video we have used many media technologies to help us construct our music video, one of these technologies is a mobile. I have used my mobile on many occasions to contact my partner and actors, set up dates of filming, taking still shots of locations as the camera on my phone is relatively high quality, and looking up locations on the internet. I have also used my phone to see what the weather would be like on the days in which we thought about filming, we picked days which we thought would be best for the tone of our music video, e.g. Cloudy days, etc. I have also used Bluetooth to pair my phone to the computers and send photographs, etc, which I have then uploaded onto my blog.Below are some of the photographs that I have taken of locations with my mobile:

I have used Blogger to record everything that I have done, when we were filming, the designs of our digipaks, magazine advert and music video.This allowed me to edit existing posts and create new ones, Blogger is very simple to use and easy to access, it was a great way for me to keep up to date with my work.Also it was a great way for my teacher to look at my work and give me feedback on what I could improve and what posts were finished.

To the left is a screen shot of my blog: Below is a screen shot of comments by my teacher:

With this programme I was able to embed videos, upload pictures and screen shots, this made my work more organised as you could see the picture or video whilst reading my analysis about it.

To the left is a screen shot of my analysis for Paramore, The Only

Exception:

I have used Google to search for different products and research for our music video and ancillary tasks, I have got ideas for these from looking at others from the same genre as ours on Google images.We have also used this website to look up locations on Google maps, like the graveyard which we used in our music video:

We have used YouTube to look at various music videos, preferably from the same genre to get inspiration, we then embedded them into our blog so that I could analyse them. We have also used YouTube to display our video to gain audience feedback.

I have used this on many occasions as I believe that it is a great way to set out your work. I created a Prezi to display the lyrics for our song, this is a much clearer way to present the lyrics as you can zoom in and scroll around the page to view the different parts of information.

Microsoft Office - Word and ExcelI have used many programmes on Microsoft Office to help me with the research and planning stages of my music video, I have used Word to create my target audience questionnaire, to design my risk assessment and the shooting schedule. I then used Excel to put the results into graphs, the reasons for doing this was to enable us to compare the results that we had and to make sure that our target audience was correct.

Excel Word

Twitter

During the research and planning stages we used Twitter to contact our artist, Avril Lavigne, to ask for permission to use her song, My Happy Ending, this was so we didn’t breach copyright.

Still cameras

We used still cameras throughout all of the stages of making our music video and ancillary tasks, we used them to take photographs of location and costume ideas for our actors, I then placed them onto my blog so that I could update my progress.We used a more professional camera (Canon EOS 300D) to take photographs for our digipak and magazine advert, we also used this camera to take a photograph of our couple, which we have within our video.

The reason why we have used this professional camera to photograph our digipak and magazine advert is because they produce high quality

photographs.

Apple MacDuring the construction of our music video we have used Apple Mac computers, they have helped me a lot to create our music video and ancillary tacks. The main programmes on these computer that we have used is Premier Pro and Photoshop.

To upload the footage that we have filmed and the photographs that we have taken I connected a fire wire to the computer.

Premier ProThis was the programme in which we edited our music video, you can edit the visual footage and the audio to make sure that they sync. On this programme there are loads of different tools and effects that you can use to make your video stand out, also to create impact points, e.g. Fast editing, with a dip to white effect can be used to shock the audience or make them jump. From the screen shot below you can see the footage and audio is arranged in a sequence, which made it a lot easier to edit and place shots at the correct points.

Tools that I used on Premier ProClip speed/duration:

We used this to speed up and slow down some of our footage, also we used it to reverse some scenes, like the rose shots below:

We filmed Tom giving Kate a rose and then clicked on the reverse speed button and it

reverse the whole section for us, we then

only had to place it into the part of our music video where we wanted it.

Dip to black/white:– Within our music video we have used these tools/techniques to

make cutting from one scene to the next much smoother.– We used the dip to white on many occasions as we had

numerous flashbacks within our video, the white dip was to make our audience aware of this.

Dip to white Dip to black

Tools that I used on Premier Pro

Brightness and contrast:– We have changed the brightness and contrast on some

of our footage as it was over exposed, although the screen shot below is still quite bright but not as bright as before I believe it is a good shot:

Tools that I used on Premier Pro

Cross Dissolve:– This overlaps the footage that you have placed the cross

dissolve in-between, we have used this technique in our music video many times, it is usually after a section of narrative that goes back into performance shots, we have done this to create an impact and to link the

two pieces of footage together, as usually the narrative links in with the lyrics.

Tools that I used on Premier Pro

Tools that I used on Premier Pro

Additive Dissolve:– Within our music video we have used this tool to create

an ellipsis of time and to speed up the shots, we have used it mainly on the narrative shots which we have.

Video cameras The camera that we have been using throughout the filming process is the Panasonic NV-GS500B, this video camera takes high quality footage and is easy to use, it can also zoom in quite far in order for us to shoot close ups and extreme close ups of our artists. The aspect ratio on this camera is very useful because if the room is too dark or the location is too light you can always play around with the aspect ratio to get the correct lighting, instead of finding a new location.

Panasonic NV-GS500B

We have also used the HD camera (Panasonic HDC SD700) as it is much higher quality than the Panasonic camera and is best, from a technical perspective, for the slow motion shots that we needed of Tom pushing Kate.

Tripods/dollyWe have used these throughout the construction stage, we used these when we were filming to make sure that our shots were still and framed properly, they also allowed us to pan and tilt the camera smoothly. These came in very handy as we did not have many hand held or moving shots within our video as they did not fit with the feel that we were going for, they also helped create a professional look to our music video.

DollyTripod

PhotoshopThis programme has helped us to design our digipak and magazine advert. We downloaded the template for our digipak, and made changes the size for the magazine advert, this was so we got the correct size.Within Photoshop there were loads of font choices, colours and sizes to choose from, you can see from our finished magazine advert to the left that the font is all in CAPITALS and in a gothic style, as I believe it goes well with the mood and genre of the artist and song we are promoting.Photoshop has a variety of filters, effects and transformations that can be used on the image to make it stand out, also to present it to the audience that you are targeting.

Tools used within Photoshop

Bevel and emboss: – This tool was used to make the text, at the top of my magazine

advert and on the spine of my digipak, stand out more, this was because it creates a shadow behind the text which you can then move around, to the left or right for example. You can also make the shadow behind bolder or thinner depending on what type of effect you want the text to have on your audience.

Barcode and QR generator

These programmes were used to design our barcode and QR code that we placed onto out digipak, the reasons why we did this was too make our digipak as authentic as possible.

LightingWe have used a lot of different lighting throughout our music video, for example, when we were in the drama studio filming our puppet scenes, we used a spot light above Kate, this was to emphasize Kate as the main actress in our music video.Also when we were shooting the wall performance scenes, we used a flood light on the floor, to make it look as if she was outside at night singing.

Spot Light

EvaluationThroughout designing our music video and ancillary tasks I have used blogger to keep up to date with the progress that I have made.During the evaluation stages we have placed our finished music video on Facebook and YouTube to gain audience feedback and also created some questionnaires about our music video, digipak and magazine advert on word and made the results into graphs on Excel so that they can be compared. I have also used the SlideShare programme to upload my PowerPoint onto my blog.And finally me and my partner Sarah have used the recording studio at our school to provide an audio explanation to one of our evaluation questions.