EVALUATION QUESTION FOURHow did you use media technologies in the

Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation stage?

The main piece of technology that I used for the construction of my music video was an Canon eos 600D, due to how good the camera is it allowed for me to film effectively as I was able to use features such as such as zoom, flash, HD and creative filters . I also used a tripod to help me film, which helped massively as it stopped me having to hand hold it and therefore I did not have any shaky shots which were obviously hand-held.

After firstly editing my music video I decided I needed some more shots but I’d already given the camera back for other groups to use so therefore I had to use my IPhone 4s camera which although does not sound professional, its camera megapixel was really good and therefore came out really clear and you could not tell a difference between the shots taken during the first filming and shots from the second. Although, of course if I were to do it again I would have tried to get the Canon camera back because an IPhone you can’t edit the settings for lighting etc. whereas a proper camera you can.

CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTIONAnother piece of technology I used was iTunes, I used this to buy the song I was using – LaserLight by Jessie J. Once I had brought the song I converted it onto another technology – Final Cut Pro – the editing software I used for my music video.

When using Final Cut Pro I took full advantage of it using editing features such as: fades, ordering clips and cutting their times,

colour cuts, mirror image, flash cut, transform and crop, slower and faster motion and brightener. And that’s only a couple!!

Both of these helped my video looked the best it possibly could have!

CONSTRUCTION

Although I had used Final Cut Pro last year for my opening sequence media product, I still struggled to grasp it as last year I worked in a group so therefore most of the time If I wasn’t sure how to use the software, someone else in my group would. Therefore I had to do research on how to use it again to refresh my memory. The only problem I faced is I obviously picked a dodgy mac as I froze a lot on the software – which sent me into a panic each time but never crashed so I was lucky – very lucky!!

For the promotional advert I used Microsoft word to create it. I use this software all the time and therefore am very

confident when using it. I also did not need to add any special effects as I was using my album cover as the image on the

advert. I know how to change sizes and move things about on Microsoft and also change fonts etc. I’m happy with my final

product of the advert as it is exactly what I wanted it to be and I feel it still captures the essence of the song – fun!! Therefore

If I was to do my advert again, I wouldn’t change anything about how I did it.

RESEARCHMediaMagazine was one of the main Secondary Sources that I used.

This was a really useful source because it allowed my to access a range of both past and

present magazines and their articles about music videos. This was also a reliable source

because all the information in the articles had been published and registered, and they

wouldn’t of had unless it was useful and true information.

I found smaller sources such as: Andy Beckett – ‘Videos go to the Wall’

Andrew Goodwin's – ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’

But I also found some more useful sources…

RESEARCHSuzy Davis

‘a well-known award-winning music video editor’

The article I read for Suzy was very useful as it gave an insight into her transition from an A-Level Media Studies teacher to becoming the “editor of a number of the most acclaimed and inventive music

videos of recent years”. This source helped me as it made it clear that when making a music video, the

best thing you can do during filming is capture lots of angles for all the

shots because it gives you so much more to work with when it comes

to editing and can make your piece stronger just with a change of

angle.

Simon Frith‘Editor of Sound and Vision: A music video reader’

This piece helped me more with my terminology and learning more about the conventions and trends of a music video. Textual

‘schizophrenia,’ and the post-modern disappearance of reality and the erosion of authenticity are all contemporary trends when it

comes to music videos.

Pete Fraser‘Chief Examiner for Media Studies OCR board’

Top Tips Shoot the performance minimum of three times, making sure

to get a different set-up each time. Lots of Close-ups

Experiment with different lightings and angles Shoot more then you think you need.

RESEARCHI made sure to use Media Technologies in my work. I used lots of Secondary Research in order to figure out more about music videos and what is used as a structure. The 3 main types of music videos are performance, narrative or concept based. I used Google and Wikipedia to research what makes a good music video and I used it to gather information on music videos as a whole. The problem with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit answers and therefore it is not really a reliable source.

RESEARCH

Another form of research I used was YouTube. This piece of media technology allowed me to find old music videos such as Pop-up videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFsK1EcAEtI

Although the problem I found with YouTube was the copyright and the fact that sometimes I could not use a video I wanted on my blog so I had to search more for something else that I could use.

PLANNING

My initial way to plan for my music video was going onto YouTube and playing the song over and over. I printed the lyrics and when I listened to the song I wrote down next to certain lines what I envisioned to happen during that part. This helped me to figure out ideologies for the song.

When I had decided on my Location and how I wanted to work my music video I made a mood board featuring the common themes I wanted in my music video.

PLANNINGFor my Location I was originally going to film at Maxey Lakes and I had been down to take pictures of where each scene will happen. But, after visiting and thinking more and more about my song, I realised that filming by a Lake would not fit the song and genre at all therefore I decided to use the bar in my Garden that my Dad had just finished building. This was also an advantage because all my friends like close so can easily get to mine and it meant I could set up everything I needed during the day. I was also able during the day to write in my notepad where each shot needed to place and which lighting could use for it, therefore when my friends arrived in the evening I had a clear list of which shots I needed and where people needed to be.

EVALUATIONFor my Evaluation I also used media technologies. When my music video was complete, I uploaded it onto YouTube so that other people could watch it and I could get a wider variety of feedback. I put my video onto my Facebook page as well so I could find out from people who know me personally what they thought of it. A lot of the comments were that the video represented me – fun! Other ways I got Evaluation for my music video was through Interviews and questionnaires.I turned these into Pie chart on Microsoft word to visually represent my feedback.