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.