Q4 evaluationMedia technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

In the research stage of our music video to help us develop ideas of our own we took inspiration from other artists. We

used both TV and the internet. We watched TV channels such as 4music to accumulate ideas for our video. However the internet enabled us to visit websites such as “YouTube” in

order to view music videos from any artist we searched for and gain knowledge on what codes and conventions suit the genre we were aiming for which was pop. We stumbled across the song Outside by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding through a recommended video option due to watching previous pop

genre videos. We decided to use the song for our music video and started to plan. I think YouTube really helped us as it

allowed us to view a large achieve of music videos at the click of a button and search for whatever music video you to view. We were also able to use it on our mobile devices such as my

Samsung galaxy S3 smartphone which enabled me to view while on the go, however its limit is that you must have a

strong internet connection otherwise buffering may occur.

Our planning was carried out both on physical and digital copies for example all the work we did towards research and planning was then put on an online blog through the website ”Blogger”. I created my own account on the blog which enables me to view other blogs within my media class and gain and develop ideas which I can manipulate and use in my own music video. For example someone in

my class had gone onto the band website of the artist which would play the music in their music video,

therefore I decided to do the same. On the Ellie Goulding website was many more of her music video which

seemed to continue with the pop genre we were aiming at therefore I used copy and paste and send the image

via Gmail (Google mail) to my mobile where I then send the image to the rest of my group on a chat set up on

the popular mobile app WhatsApp which enables large groups to all have a conversation within a chatroom.

When filming we used technology such as a Canon DSLR which provided much better

video quality than the 1080p HD Sony camcorder we used last year in our AS

thriller. The camera reacted better to high intensity light exposure and focused well

on the actresses face when doing panning shots due to the facial focus feature which

was not an option on last years camera. However the DSLR we used didn’t have a zoom option while filming as the lens had to be manually rotated which would have

jolted the camera. We used lighting squares while filming, these contain LED’s which have two settings, low and high. We used them in a dark room to highlight the actress and create shadows. The tripod we

used had 3 extendable legs in order to help us get shots from different angles and stabilise the DSLR. We used a 8GB memory

card to store the footage on in order to transfer it between devices.

When editing our raw footage we used a piece of software called adobe premiere pro. It was the same software we used last year in

our AS thriller. Therefore the editing techniques and effects we learnt were transferable into A2 as we used the same software.

However this year the software was updated which fixed a problem which kept happening last year which was that the programme kept

freezing and deleting random pieces of work which we had either added or edited. An example of an effect we used was fade out

which involved 2 characters in shot and one disappearing. We did this by overlapping video footage and then clicking on the effects

menu and slowly lowering the opacity of on of the images therefore meaning one of the characters would slowly fade out of shot. We

had trouble with the screen resolution as when the raw footage was imported it didn’t fit the resolution of the screen so we had to click

fit to frame and then physically drag the image so it fit in the parameters of the screen on the editing software.

Once we had finished editing we uploaded the music video to YouTube where it was available to view by the public. Which is useful as it allows us to tell how many people have viewed the video, how many have liked it and where in the world they are from, however we cant gain insight into the individuals themselves. We then used websites such as Prezi, SurveyMonkey and Slideshare to analyse our work. And Compare it to previous textual analysis’s made on other music videos.

When creating the CD Digi-pack we used adobe Photoshop in order to enhance the image, scale it to size of the CD cover and then to add text over the top of the image, even adding a shadow to the text to make it look 3D.We imported the image from photographs we took while out filming the music video in preparation for the ancillary tasks.

When creating the website we used Wix in order to get a template. Wix already has templates set up, for example we chose one which was originally made for a boy band. We then changed the colour scheme to match that of the CD cover and HGSC logo. Then we added images of our artist, information about her and links to social media websites such as Facebook , twitter and Instagram.