Evaluation 4

How did you use media technologies in the

construction, research, planning and

evaluation stages?

Research To find inspiration and ideas on how to film the scenes for our music video I had to look at existing media products as this required me to use YouTube, which is a video social networking website that existing artists use to publish their music videos. This was an easier task to carry out at home because YouTube is blocked on our school users and therefore we couldn’t see the videos at school.

When completing research for the ancillary products I had to carry our research for finding existing digipaks and posters we used the well known search engine Google, because this search engine is the most likely search engine to store pictures of existing artist work that has been published on the internet. It was however difficult to carry out this research at school due to many websites being blocked so we were unable to see a lot of images and therefore I carried out most of this research at home through searching on Google via my laptop.

Another method of research was using music channels such as MTV and vevo because this enabled me to watch music videos and also see how they were introduced with the name of the song and the name of the artists coming up on the screen at the beginning and give us ideas on how to incorporate this into our own music video.

Filming the Music VideoTo film the music video we used a Lumix dmc-fz50 camera to capture all the actions from the shots. This is a high quality camera therefore allowing us to capture high quality videos that we could piece together to create a successful music video that would be able to be shown in line with existing high standard real media products. The camera has a 12x zoom, which allowed us to get closer to the action when necessary instead of having to walk towards the action holding the camera as this would have made the shots too jagged and unprofessional looking. By using our own camera this allowed us more flexibility around the times that we were able to film, as we did not have to book out the camera in advance. This was useful because a number of our filming sessions were decided very short notice depending on the weather forecast.

When filming the scenes for the music video we mounted the camera onto a tripod as this enabled us to get smoother looking shots because it helped the camera stay still and pan around the action horizontally and vertically in a smoother, swifter motion and this also made it easier for us to control, getting more professional scenes with ease.

We also used a set of two lights when filming to brighten the areas we were filming in to avoid getting shadows and dull scenes as this would have lowered the quality of the music video making it less realistic. The equipment also gave us a white sheet to use as a white background which we needed for a lot of the scenes in our music video, however we experienced quite a few issues with this because the sheet kept getting creased and looking dirty therefore giving us poor quality videos. To fix this problem we chose to light a white projector screen instead of the sheet, giving us a smoother backdrop and therefore more professional looking scenes.

Planning When planning what we were doing with the music video and ancillary products our group were not always together in the same place and same time, therefore we found it easiest to have a group chat via iMessage as we all have iPhones. This made it easier to discuss opinions on how to edit the video, where to meet to film etc.

For example in this print screen from our group chat it shows me showing the rest of my group what the scenes in the video look like when adding brightness to them. Ellie and Maisie are then giving feedback the images I have sent them showing what the scenes now look like. This helped speed up the process of editing as we would not have to wait until we were all together to make decisions, meaning we could move on to other tasks quicker.

Another way in which we planned what to do was by making filming schedules. When all three of the group members were together we discussed what needed to be filmed in order to get all of the footage needed to complete the music video, so we wrote down where we needed to film and put a date we would film next to each location. The locations highlighted in blue are the days we needed to film Frances, the main character in the music video. As she was not in our group and is a friend from outside of school, we had to inform her of our schedule in advance to make sure she was available.

Editing the film Serif Movie Plus x5 was the best programme available to us to edit all our shots together in order to produce the final cut of our music video. This programme has many different features that we could put to use to give our video a professional feel and look able to compete with existing real life media products.

Movie Plus works by using a timeline, giving the ability to insert different videos that we have shot and piecing them together to create an appropriate sequence of shots. The use of different features such as being able to split the videos we have inserted into the timeline and deleting the parts of the videos inserted that we do not want was a useful feature as when we were filming the video we filmed for a longer amount of time than we needed to for each shot to get the best possible scenes and pick the best part from each video to put into the sequence. We were also able to speed up the clips or slow them down making it easier to make the action fit with the pace of the song.

Serif Movie Plus also has the feature of adding effects to each of the clips. We put this feature to use by adding brightness to each of the clips in the music video sequence to make the music video look more bright and plastic which was the look we aimed to create. And by setting the scenes to all of the same brightness it made the music video look more consistent as it made the scenes flow together more smoothly because they all looked similar with the same level of lighting. We also added effects such as motion blur to the scene where the Barbie falls from the roof because this was an effective way to create the impression that Barbie and the model were 1 person and merged together.

None of my group members had used this programme before creating this music video and therefore we had to be taught how to use it by our teacher, however, I was the person that did most of the editing for the music video and luckily I picked up how to use the features of the video quite quickly, making the process of editing a lot easier. We did not have access to this programme from our home computers so therefore I spent a large amount of my time in school editing the video and applying the appropriate effects to the clips. There was an issue that occurred with the amount of space available on my school user, as we had a lot of footage to ensure we has a wide variety of shots to choose from when making the video and we had to keep asking the school technicians for extra space on our users in order to store and back up all of the footage.

Ancillary To take the shots for the ancillary task we used the same equipment that we did for filming the music video. This was the Lumix dmc-fz50 camera, a tripod and a set of two lights.

The camera enabled us to capture still shots of the artist and using the flash as well which opens up from above the lens allowed us to make the images brighter and more professional looking. This was the same camera that we used for shooting the music video and therefore it makes all of the products of a consistent quality.

The tripod allowed the shots to be kept at the same angle and helps take the pictures with more ease as you can balance the camera while looking at the shot being taken on the digital screen.

The set of two lights were useful for the ancillary shoots because they reduced the shadow behind the model being shot and they made the images produced brighter and more professional looking. If we had more lighting equipment we could light the scenes a lot better however we did not have the access to extra lighting equipment so we produced the images to the best quality using the equipment we had to hand.

Creating ancillary productOne of the programmes we used to create the ancillary product was Photoshop. This is a programme that is used to edit images using a number of different features. We picked the images we wanted to use for our ancillary products and edited the images to make them look more professional. The changes we made to the images consisted of using the magic wand tool to select the background and then making the background a crisp white colour to increase the quality of the image. Another way in which we edited the images was by adding brightness/contrast, exposure and other effects to make the image more eye-catching and striking to make it stand out by editing the colour and brightness of her skin. Photoshop also gave me the ability to edit the artists lips by making them larger and changing the colour of them to a darker red to make them more seductive and a main focus on the front cover of the digipak.

InDesign was the programme used after editing the images in Photoshop. InDesign was the most useful programme available to piece together the front cover, back cover and poster. Once the image had been edited in Photoshop, I used this programme to place the image in the blank document and then insert the appropriate text in the correct place and other features such as the parental advisory sign and the barcode. The fonts used were also decided in InDesign and therefore this made it the best programme to use to create the ancillary products because it meant that the font would be available.

This is a Photo editing app that we used to edit the pictures as well as using Photoshop. This was a useful way to give the artist smoother skin in the image and remove any blemishes. The app has a feature of ‘remove acne’ and by applying this all over the skin in the image It gives an all over smooth effect and was used to remove the hair on her skin and also any blemishes on her skin. This was a better method of editing the blemishes from the image as opposed to the clone tool in Photoshop because the clone tool can sometimes give an uneven surface.

PresentingBlogger is the way I present all of the work completed in the process of creating our media products. It is a useful way to publish all of the filming we had done and all of our research and planning. Blogger publishes for everyone to see, so therefore my other group members can see the work I have been completing and also my teachers making it easier for them to see which part of the project I was currently doing.

I found blogger a lot easier to use this year than when I did when completing AS media because I knew what features were best to use, for example by putting things on my blog via posts and not pages, because you are only entitled to a limited number of pages which was a problem last year that I encountered.

An issue I have with blogger is that it is sometimes very time consuming and temperamental, because the videos take a long time to upload and you are only able to upload one at a time, making it easier for me to do this at home and not waste valuable lesson time of editing the video.

Evaluation process Prezi was the programme I used to create my evaluation question 1. This was a useful method because it allows the user to easily click through the prezi bit by bit and read the information in sections, as the information is split up. There are also pictures in my prezi to provide visual information to back up what I am evaluating. I have used this programme before in other subjects and also for the evaluations for my AS media coursework so I was familiar with how it worked and what features to use to present my evaluation in the best way possible.

Slideshare was the programme used to complete evaluation question 4. This was a useful method because it allowed be to break up the information segment by segment explaining the process of the project bit by bit and how I created the products. Slideshare is a programme I have used previously on my blog to present infromation and also used previously in other subjects and therefore I was aware how to use it. The programme requires me to make a powerpoint presentation to start and then upload it to slideshare which then allows me to embed the code of the slideshare into my blog so everyone can see it.

iMovie was the programme I used to complete evaluation 2. This was a useful method because it enabled me to add a voiceover to explain how my main product and the ancillary texts combine together, which is a good way to present this evaluation because if all the evaluations consist of people reading, they will get fed up and bored and loose interest. Therefore by just having to listen while I explain the answer to the evaluation question to them, it gives them a break from reading and more likely to understand what is being explained through the evaluation.

For evaluation 3, I used Glogster to present the information gathered from my audience feedback. This was a good way to present this information because you can add in different features such as arrows and images to break up the text and make it more interesting. I used social networking sites twitter and facebook to post our music video and ancillary texts and gather the audience feedback to find the strengths and weaknesses to our products.