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

In this evaluation question I will be discussing the media technologies that helped me to create my music video and the planning that led up to it for my final A2 production.

I wouldn't be able to produce a good music without making sure I researched music videos and payed attention to the key conventions that make a music video one that audiences enjoy and to capture their attention. For this research method I use laptops and computers to complete deconstructions of music videos I enjoyed and ones that I may relate my own production to. After finding my chosen song and after emailing and messaging attempting to get permission from artists I then had to find the lyrics for the song and think of my target audience that my music video would be aimed at, this research was also done on the computer and laptops.

Once all the vital research had been completed I then had to start to do test filming for my production, trying different angles and techniques, I used a Nikon D3100 to complete this test filming and once this was done I placed these clips into iMovie on the Apple Macs to set the clips up and to crop or trim them down.

After completing the test filming I then went onto filming the production, I still used the Nikon D3100 to film the different clips, I had to ensure that I used the techniques that I researched in the planning stage. The used techniques such as the way I used the focus on the camera with sometimes using automatic focusing and other times manual to get the best quality shots, times when I used the manual focus is with the phone as automatic focus wouldn’t focus in properly to get my the best quality shot which was what I needed for my video to be a success. I also used the different settings on the camera with some of the clips that I captured, the settings were mainly portrait mode as to capture a good close up of the characters in my music video.

After completing all the filming for the music video, I then placed it all into iMovie on the Apple Macs like I did with the test footage. By placing the song in as well that would sit behind the clips I then needed to remove the sound from the clips as it was only miming that I needed. Once this was done I then could set up the clips and place the together to ensure that the singing clips were synced in with the song and that the other clips that created the storyline fitted in with this syncing so that the storyline wasn’t ruined. I then went onto editing the clips itself by looking into the settings of effects, I then decided that the effects iMovie had didn’t look right for the video and ruined the clips so instead I adjusted the setting myself so that I could be precise with the editing by adjusting the exposure, contrast and saturation, once this was done it looked so much better than the

effects provided. I would slightly adjust both the exposure and contrast up to just give more definition to the clip by amplifying the brightness and darker areas in the footage. I then adjusted the saturation all the way down to give the urban feel which would relate to the artist of my choice, also by adjusting the saturation down it was able to give the upsetting feel to the song. I did experiment to see whether the music video looked better in colour but I then decided it didn’t and that the audience could relate more and find it more appealing if it was in black and white.

After the music video was completed I then went on to creating my digipak design, I first researched digipaks on the laptop that related to my genre that my music video was based on. I also researched different types of fonts that I could also use. Once I had my basic idea of what I wanted my digipak to look like I went out to the TV studio in school and took a picture on a timer using a Nikon D3100 to capture a image of myself, this would be the front cover for the digipak, I then placed this into preview on the Apple Macs and used the adjust colour, I tampered with the exposure, contrast, saturation and sharpness to create a better and more appealing image. After doing this I then placed the photo in photoshop and slightly blurred some of my face but made sure it wasn’t obvious to get rid of small spots so that the photo looked a lot better. I then placed text into the photo and with the position of myself in the photo it looked like I was staring at the text. I couldn’t get a font or it was very hard to attempt the font I drawn up in the planning stage but I used the distortion tool in photoshop to distort the letter T in the text to make it look more interesting. I then went onto take more photos using the Nikon D3100 and took photos such as the brick wall which was a standard photo just for the CD to be placed on top of, I then took over photos such as the microphone using a manual focus which connotated the type of music and artist and photos of my against a wall and walking down a long road by myself. I then placed these photos on to an iPad and used Snapseed to edit the photos using different effects which would further connote the idea of urban area and music. I then got a standard six slide template off of Google Images and placed my slides onto the correct areas using photoshop.

After this had been completed I went onto the poster for my production, I took another photo simular to my digipak of me against a wall but at a low angle, I placed myself on the side of the photo so that I could get my front cover of my digipak to line up in the background behind me, I used photoshop to distort the photo which made it look like it was against the wall and then carefully selected myself and removed myself from my original position and layered myself slightly on top of the digipak front cover to make the poster seem more realistic and to make it look more like it was on the wall behind me. I then added some slight effects to the photo to bring out the colour of the poster stand out more. Once this was done I then layered text onto the poster saying ‘out now’ and also some fake Facebook, Twitter and website links to make the poster seem more realistic.

Altogether the production challenged me with a lot of different types of media technologies and taught me a lot with the different types of technologies and softwares that I used to create the three products for my production.