EVALUATION: Question 3

How did I use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To plan, design and create both our music video and ancillary products, we had to use a wide variety of technology. This was done consistently during the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of my group's music video and the associated ancillary products.

YouTube was greatly used in order to view real examples
of music videos and see what conventions and theories
them apply to them.

Firstly, in order to conduct research for us to then plan our music video, we had to use a PC or MAC to gain access to the internet to see a few examples. YouTube played a big part in the research we had conducted as we had used YouTube to see examples of real music videos and the conventions they have. Access to a fast broadband connection was needed here so when we watched/analysed real artist's music videos, the video played smoothly with no buffering screens interrupting playback. Other websites included Vimeo. Vimeo, like YouTube, is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share their own videos. The difference between Vimeo and YouTube is that Vimeo is more associated with planned and constructed videos (e.g. short films, user created content etc....) whereas YouTube has both amatuer unplanned videos and constructed videos. Vimeo was used to research and analyse past student's music videos from within our college and other colleges. As we were to be creating the same type of media product, Vimeo proved useful as it allowed us to see what worked well within past student's music videos and what didn't work well (what to avoid).

Blogger also played a big part in the construction and research of my work. The college's own blog on Blogger (which all media students had access to) contained links to past students music videos as well as past students blogs. The web URL candipop11.blogspot.com allowed us to access this blog on any internet connected device. This included any internet connected PC or MAC, my iPod touch as well as my Blackberry smartphone.

Blogger media homepage. Accessible on any internet connected
device.

These important links which is on the homepage of the college's blog
allowed us toview useful content which would
help us in the research, planning and construction
stages or our work.

As blogger is internet based, I was able to also access it on my smart phone. When ever I needed to add information or gain information from past blogs, I could easily load up blogger on my mobile phone.

The blogger website on my Blackberry Bold smart phone.

The homepage of my groups blog on blogger on my Blackberry Bold
smart phone.

The internet played a huge part in the research, construction, planning and evaluation stages. This was because we were able to use the internet to for all our media needs. For example, before we began planning our music video, we had to use the internet to look at and observe real artist's music videos so we can get a general idea what a general conventions music videos have. Without the internet, the only other source of being able to watch and analyse music videos would be music channel's such as MTV and Kiss on the television. In terms of planning our music video, the internet was used do conduct more research on the music conventions of Carol Vernallis and Laura Mulvey. Both people have separate theories to what a music video contains and how certain perceptions are shown and perceived. With this information in mind thanks to the internet, we could plan our music video accordingly knowing the conventions we have seen will be found in our music video.

Digital cameras were used by us in order to take images of possible locations we may consider to record in. The use of digital cameras allowed us to take images and then look back on the locations we visited, to see what we could record if that place was part or our plans. This piece of technology was used many times by us. This was because the camera was used during the planning and construction stage of both our music video and ancillary products. We had taken images of our locations, then took images of a little figurine (representing the artist) in front of those images to see what the shot would look like. The camera was used while recording our music video; the resulting images are what we have used in our ancillary products.

This was the main digital camera we had used in order to take images
of the locations we had visited and capture the
images of our photoshoot.

Here is an example of the use of a digital camera. The image captured using the digital
camera was the image also used in the digipak.

To record our music video, we were lucky enough to have access to brand new state of the art HD video cameras. These camcorders are worth well over £1300 and had all the features that were capable of doing mostly everything we needed to do.

This JVC HD camcorder was the video camera we had used in
order to record our music video.

The camcorder was only used during the construction stage or our music video and was not used neither before or after. This was because the video camera was not needed into order to research, plan or construct our ancillary products which included our digipaks and advertisement. The camera itself was able to record 1080p high definition video. This I feel was a brilliant piece of technology as the HD recording looked amazing. As our music videos were to be shown in the cinema projected to on a large screen, the video needed to be shot at high definition or the final quality would look severely poor when enlarged for the cinema.

Settings allowed us to have the option to record in may different
formats. Although we didn't change this setting, it was nice
having this setting available to us just in case we needed to
make some altercations. The camera was set to record in the
best possible video quality which looks stunning.

Most conventional video cameras record their content onto a cassette or tape. The fact that these video cameras were able to record straight onto memory cards meant they could be much smaller in size which allows ease or use. Also, memory cards are a form of digital memory, so therefore each recorded clip is saved on the memory card as a separate file. This proved to be extremely useful during the construcution of our music video, as if this was to be recorded on to a cassette, some footage can easily be recorded over as the cassette can not distinguish between individual clips. The memory cards also meant that it can easily be replaced for another memory card of another size (e.g. changing a 32GB memory card to a 64GB card).

Final Cut Pro was the one and only video editing software we had used. Final Cut Pro was only used during the construction and evaluation stages of our work. As the planning and research stage did not need use of this program, it was not used during those stages. The software itself is capable of doing every single thing you could need and ask for a video editing software to do. The software was mainly used during the construction stage of our video. This involved putting all the necessary clips together and syncing them with the music. As some of our shots were recorded in low light areas, Final Cut Pro was also used to alter the colours of some of the shots used in the video. Below is a video of that process in Final Cut Pro:

We as a group did think about using a green screen in our music video which we will then chroma key the footage using FCP. However, as we were not too experience using the software to that context, we stayed away from that idea. Changing the colour of some shots in the music video in my eyes are not seen as using/adding any effects. This is because the colour altercation we done on FCP was to make the footage more clear and viewable to the audience. We did use one effect in the music video, however, this was as an experiment to see what the capabilities were of the technology we were using.

The use of Apple MAC's was a huge boost and helped us in every stage of our music video and ancillary products. This is because the Apple MAC's are made for multimedia use and as such, are designed to allow the user to do what they want easily and seamlessly. For example, the MAC's were used during the research stage of our music video to watch videos on the internet via YouTube. They were then used when we were evaluating our images and begun planning our music video. During the construction stage, without the MAC's, the project would be impossible to do. This is because the MAC's were then used for Final Cut Pro, in which we edited and produced our music video. During this time, the MAC's were still being used by students to update our blogs via blogger. Even during the evaluation stage, blogger was accessed via the MAC's as the large display screens and elegantly flat keyboard made blogging much easier and much more enjoyable.

For the ancillary products, the MAC's were used to research and construct the digipak and advertisement we had created. Google was used a lot on the MAC's to conduct research into how general digipaks are designed, what they contain and what conventions they follow. After doing all this research and after planning the designs, Photoshop Elements 5 (and Photoshop CS5 at home) was used in order to create the designs. Below is a video of me editing my digipak on my home PC using Photoshop CS5:

We did use another piece of technology which was needed in order to construct our music video. This was the group's video drive. This external hard drive allowed us to save our immense amount of memory intensive work which we could use on any MAC within the college.

Although this is a relatively basic piece of technology, it was a necessity in order to create our music video. This was because each group had their own individual hard drive; this allowed us to take our work from one MAC to another without being inclined to using one specific MAC only. Also, it prevented everyone saving their work on the same hard drive which may result in some work being overwritten accidentally.

Below is an animatic my group have created using a digital still camera and Final Cut Pro. The song was added on to the timeline and the images were placed and trimmed accordingly in sync with the music.