4. How did you use new technologies

in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

Research• During the research stage of our production

we looked existing music videos on YouTube. We found that this was an easy way to look at different music videos because we had access to a whole variety.

Research• Also during the research stage of production

we looked at different music video theories and theorists such as Andrew Goodwin and Vladimir Propp and we found that the internet helped us to understand their concepts a lot more easier with access to websites such as slideshare and Wikipedia.

Research• During the whole of production we have been using the

website blogger to upload posts, links, photos and videos onto the internet. We found that Blogger is a very easy way to share information and post up work from the lesson. All information is kept in chronological order and split into different months so we could easily access different pieces of work. We also had the option of following other people so we found this very useful when comparing our work with each other and our teachers could comment on our posts telling us what needs improving.

Planning• During the planning stage we practiced different techniques

that we could use in our construction of our music video. We tested the green screen out to see how it would work in our music video but found it hard to generate a good picture due to creases in the green cloth and placement in the shot, either being too close to the camera or too far away. In the end we decided not to use the green screen because we found that it didn't produce the outcome we wanted it to.

Planning• During planning we did a lot of storyboarding and brain storming and

some audience feedback. We wanted to show this on Blogger so we decided the best way was to either take photos of our work or scan the images in. After taking photos we found that the quality of photo wasn't really the best so we decided to use the scanner which produced a better quality of picture and was really easy to do. For audience feedback we filmed our results and spoke into the camera then uploaded our video into iMovie, edited the piece and then uploaded it to blogger. After using iMovie in the previous year we found it a simple task and only took up a lessons worth of time.

Construction• During the construction the main technology that we

used was the video camera. We found this this piece of technology was very easy to use, the playback is easy to work and we could use different features such as night mode on the darker shots. We found however that the frame of the shot was wider than it shown on the camera so when we uploaded our footage on iMovie we found that there was more in the shot than what we wanted.

Construction• For our ancillary tasks we had to make an album cover and

poster, and for this we used Corel Draw and Corel PhotoPaint. We acquired our images for these using the still camera that produced a high quality image. We found these easy to upload onto a computer, we just plugged in the transfer cable and dragged and dropped the images into a folder.

Construction• After that we imported the images into Corel PhotoPaint and then edited

them by either changing the saturation or increasing the contrast and intensity to give them a sharper finish. We then resized them to the required specifications and then put them together to create the album cover. For our other ancillary product we created a poster and we thought that we could use graphic design to create something that looked retro, reflecting the genre of music we chose for our video. We found it relatively simple to do this, combining simple shapes together to create a tape and then we used contrasting colours to give it the “old school” effect we were looking for. We played around with different fonts and printed several versions for audience feedback so we knew what looked best and then we picked the elements that our audience preferred to create a poster appealing to everyone.

Construction• After we had done all our filming we used iMovie to

edit what we had filmed. We found that after using the same software the year before it was easier to use in A2. We imported our footage easily and then starting putting the best pieces of footage together to create our final piece. To acquire the track that we used for our music video we had to find the song on YouTube and then use a website called video2mp3 which converts videos into mp3 format, and then able to import into iTunes and then into iMovie to use as our backing track.

Construction• We found that some of our shots that we filmed were a

bit dull due to wither lighting or setting, filming on a dull day and in a dark setting so we used the clip adjustments tool on iMovie and edited the brightness and the intensity to make the shot look sharper and clearer. We found it easy to take clips and trim them down using the precision trimmer, we could trim the shot down to the split second and then easily drag it into our project. Also we could trim our shots so that anything we didn't want in the shot we could crop out, making it easier to focus on one thing.

Evaluation• For the evaluation section we have used iMovie to create a

montage of existing media contrasting against ours for question 1 so that we can answer the question. We used QuickTime to take screen recordings of existing media from YouTube and then exported them into iTunes which we then imported into iMovie. We then used the voiceover option in iMovie so we could speak about the different conventions used and then we placed them over the appropriate footage. We then took clips from our music video and spoke over them so we could explain how we used the conventions of a traditional music video.

Evaluation• For question 2 and 4 we have decided to use

Microsoft PowerPoint as we found this to be a easy piece of technology to use and we can upload our presentations easily onto websites such SlideShare or Screenr. We found that PowerPoint is easy to copy and paste images and the layout is easy to work with, adding as many slides as you desire and editing them easily.

EvaluationFor question 3 we have decided to use the inbuilt camera on the

Apple iMacs which is accessed through iMovie. We thought it would be best for our audience to view our music video, full screen on iMovie and then to give us what they thought was good, bad and what needed improving. We found this very effective as we got positive and negative feedback. We then edited the footage from each person together to create a Montage of opinions and then we summarised at the end what we had learnt from our feedback.