Question 4

(CANT GET ONTO PREZZI AT HOME WILL TRANSFER TOMORROW)

Whilst I was creating my products, I used many different technologies in order to help myself research, plan, construct and evaluate my project. My brief was to create a three to five minute long music video as well as creating the ancillary texts of a magazine advert and digipak to accompany the music video.

The first process that I took in to creating my project was to research into music videos in order to gain ispriations into what  genre I could chose to base my products on. In order to do this, I used a Mac Computer in order to go onto the website YouTube in order to watch and analyse music videos. This technology device was important for me as I could then decide on what genre and artist to go with in which I decided to go with the indie genre with Ellie Goulding’s ‘Burn’ I chose this genre as from my research, I found it would be the most entertaining and succeful genre to pursue. Whilst I was using the Mac Computers, I also used the internet to research about chosen artist, Ellie Goulding, in order to find out more about her. Using the internet was a strength for my group and I as we were able to receive all the information needed in order to create convention indie music video products. However, the internet also proposed some weaknesses as sometimes the interent would be down, meaning the Mac Computers were not in use, setting us back in our research delaying our project. We over came this by using our mobile phones for internet and researching what we needed to on them. I also used a site called Blogger.com. This is where I was able to record the progress my group and I were making and I could also keep updated on what we had research and what i had found for example. Blogger was useful as it was easy for me at any point along the process of creating my music video to go back and check anything I was unsure about or needed help with. However, because Blogger was on the internet, sometimes, it was a difficult task to access it and get the correct information I needed.

When planning for my music video, i again used merely the same technologies as the research stage. However, the only thing that had changed was the websites that I used. I used different websites in order to get the lyrics of my song to make the planning process much quicker and more efficient. With the research and background knowledge that I already had about the indie genre, technologies such as the internet and my mobile phone were not needed as much. Yet, came useful when wanting to know something quickly.

Once the planning process of our project was completed, the creation of the ancillary texts began. The ancillary texts included a magazine advert and a 6 sided digipak. To create these texts, I used a laptop which had the Photoshop software on it. I had never used Photoshop before therefore I found this a weakness and a difficult task to complete as the software was new to me. As this was a first experience for myeslf, I found it challenging to get to know how to use it, however, after practise and teaching, I was then able to create my ancillary texts successfully. Strengths using photoshop were that it allowed me to add colours and filters over existing images. For example, the use of darkening images to make it more suitable for theme and to create low key lighting which creates a night time effect which then makes the audience understand the rebllious side to the artists personality. This is seen throught all of the images seen in my ancillary texts as I wanted to create a theme of rebellion and mystery in which would captivate the audience. However, some weaknesses using photoshop were the cropping of the images. For example, the lasso tool which allowed me to crop an image for the back page of the digipak was a difficult task. The image was hard to crop precisely which meant for it to take a longer time than expected. This is because the image seen is a ripped piece of paper and for it to be successful; the cropping had to be precise. However, I overcame this by taking my time with it and therefore the end result was successful. 

The next process was for the music video to be created. The equiptment I used to film my clips were a camera and a tripod. The tripod came very useful for my group and I whilst filming as it enabled us to make the shots steady and clear, creating a professional and serious look for the video, meaning the audience can see what is clearly going on and make it more serious for them. The camera was very efficient for my group and I as it enabled for the image quality to be of a high definition, which again enhances its professional look. These equipment also had weaknesses, this is because of the settings that mt group and I filmed in. We filmed in Camden which caused a problem with the tripod as it was in the way and highly inconvienient as this restricted us getting more naturalistic shots as we would have to stop and set it up when we needed it. Whilst filming, my group and I used two HD cameras. We did this as we wanted to fully capture naturally the emotions that are shown in the video. This is seen when the artist is outside drinking alcohol. By using two cameras here, the distressed emotions of the artist are captured fully with a wide range of camera sots making the audience engage in the scene more. This was a strength in the video as it allowed for it to become much more professional looking, therefore creating a wider audience. However, it became a weakness as the two cameras became difficult to handle with. It was a difficult task to accurately set up the cameras in a position that would capture the body language and feelings of the artist. We overcame this however by filming certain clips and watching them back to see if they looked successful, if we wasn’t happy with these shots, we would re film them.

Once the filming process had finished, I then imported my footage onto Final Cut Pro X and then began to edit my clips. Using Final Cut Pro X allowed me to be creative with the filters and transitions that I wanted to use. As I had used this editing software previuosly, I was able to efficiently edit my video allowing for a smoohtly running process. However, because of the genre of my video, this required me to add certain colours to my video such as yellows, blues and greens to enhance a naturalistic and stereotypically indie video. This became difficult as I had to make sure the colours I were adding looked professional and only subtly meaning that it took me longer to do this than expected. 

Lastly, for the evaluation of my project, I used a variety of new media technologies. I had to use a range of new technologies in order to portray my understanding of the wide range od technologuies and accessible today. These included, digital video, Blogger and a website named Prezi. Firstly, I used a word document to construct my evaluation and to make it to the best of my abilty before beginning to add each question into its certain format. Blogger allows for my examiners and teachers to view my work and easily accessible for them to see. For another part of my evaulation, I had to film myself answering a question. This was a downfall in myu evaluation as this made all of my work into sepeate sections making it less easily accessible for my examiners and teachers.