Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To overcome to issues of copyright we had to use the website ‘unsigned.com’ to find an artist and a track from them to which we would use to produce a music video from. The websites layout was very helpful as it had drop down menus to what genre of music was there so it was easier to find tracks that we liked. This helped us find a track quickly and start planning what to do next. As well as this, information was listed about artists as well as the tracks available which we were able to listen to freely. Using this site meant that we were able to use the song freely and have a better chance of contacting the artist for their permission, soundtrack and lyrics of the chosen song.

We used the social networking site Facebook purely for the fact audience research had to be done to what people thought of our music promo within the pop rock genre. We thought this would be a good source due to this being a well-known site that most people use nowadays. We were able to post up our video and see what responses we got back, good or bad. We also used the site Windows Live Hotmail to contact the artist for his permission to use his song. This method was quick and simple to use and within a few days he had emailed back with the lyrics and soundtrack to the song we chose to use.

YouTube was a beneficial site due to us being able to research into different genres of music videos as well as those in our chosen genre so we would explore conventions that we could possibly use within our promo – watching pop rock promos gave us the chance to see what worked well and what didn’t in that type of genre. As feedback is given on YouTube videos we were able to see certain individuals responses to certain videos and whether or not they production was a success or not.

iMovie was the technology used when creating our music promo – this was a programme used within a Mac and what is used mainly in the media department. We were able to use this for copying over our footage, selecting certain bits and editing them together in the form of a music video. Certain elements like transitions and effects would be used when needed or necessary within promos

As well as this, Photoshop was also used in the making of our ancillary tasks of making a magazine advert and digipak. We were able to use this programme to create a professional looked product and different effects could be used on for example, cutting pictures, using the magic eraser tool etc. we were able to use this programme to the best of our ability and help us create our plans we had set to a professional finish. Although sometimes throughout creating our ancillary tasks we used the programme Paint as a backup for Photoshop – this is due to it having relatively similar elements so if Photoshop wasn’t working we had a simple solution to use.

From this piece of work I have learnt and developed new shooting skills while filming our final production. This has helped me have a clear understanding of what shot types work effectively and create a more successful production as well as improving the overall aspect of the promo for example; having various different shot types creates an overfull better production. This is something that I understood well and helped me create more effective shots to make the promo more effective. I have already learnt that having a high quality camera provides a high quality image – this is something important in a music promo as the shot needs to completely clear and how planned through research. This way the focus can be zooms of various aspects such as the location etc. This is something I learnt through my preliminary as we didn’t focus much of the location and more of the characters and story behind the lyrics. For our main production we made sure we focused on every aspect in detail including the setting so the audience had a better understanding on the whole promo.

From this piece of work I have learnt and developed new editing skills in an effective way so the final production didn’t go over the top in editing techniques. We used the editing technique of using stop motion within our promo as we thought it would work well within the lyrics. As well as this, we thought that we could make this music video a little humerous so adding this make it quite effective. By using these editing effects created a unique music promo that works well with the lyrics. Editing is something I feel I have improved on since my preliminary as we didn’t try any unique editing skills and worked effectively.

Through using the programmes on the Apple Macs I have learnt how to develop me three products successfully to a high quality standard. iMovie was used to create our music promo to a perfect finish with various editing techniques used with these. This was a way we could change our ideas easily and play around with different editing techniques to see if they worked well. Photoshop was also used for the usage of creating our digipak and magazine advert. This gave our products a high quality finish and also gave us the chance to play around with editing to see what worked effectively. By researching beforehand, we were able to see other artists promotional packages in the same genre to see what aspects were used effectively. This way we would use some of their ideas into ours. From looking at our promotional package, we used the same format throughout. We used the same images, text and overall appearance so the audience was aware that they all belong together. This shows a development in skills as well as using techniques that I haven’t used before – something the hopefully worked well.

We used iMovie to edit our final production as well as adding transitions that fitted in well – this helped our final production have a professional look towards it. We used the editing in this programme to change to past of some footage to a much slower use – this helped us create a longer, lasting effect that worked well.

We used Photoshop to create our two ancillary tasks – a magazine advert and digipak. This was used to prefect our products more professional as well as using various aspects of other artists promotional packages. We used the editing in this programme to create a professional finish to our production as we could crop, overlap certain images to create a style we thought suited the promo. With this in mind, we used several of the same images throughout so the audience had an idea that these products all work together effectively.

Some problems that we were faced with whilst filming were;

The use of props was an issue when filming as were unfortunate to not have a key prop that we needed. As many pop rock promos have a performer singing many with props of instruments we thought about having our performer singing along to the lyrics with a guitar. We asked a good friend of ours if we could use theirs but when we got to filming it was no longer in use. This caused a problem for us as we didn’t have time to replace it. To overcome the issues we just simply had the performer singing the lyrics with no props. Although this did put us down and make our production not as effective as it could have been, there was nothing we could do.

Other problems when filming was the issue with lighting. As we were filming inside for our location, there were various points were lighting would shine in the windows causing problems with the camera. This was then hard to film as we had to be careful where to film as the light was putting up the brightness contrast. To overcome the issue we simply just shut the curtains and put on a source of light, this was the picture contrast stayed the same throughout the production. However, when editing onto the macs we still had a problem with the lighting. This meant we had to change the contrast on some shots using the editing tools on iMovie. This gave us a better picture to work on and saved us going out and filming again.

The last issue we faced was the lip syncing through editing and how our performer would get the lyrics spot on with the track. We found for most parts this wasn’t an issue but some other parts were just so out of sync we couldn’t use the footage as it didn’t match. To overcome this issue we simply just slowed some of the footage down. As we already had certain footage slowed down purposely for the promo this wasn’t a problem as it fitted in well. This gave us a more successful clip and professional look as the syncing worked successfully. However, some bits are still slightly not right, but not too obvious to tell.

I used Blogger as a mean of writing down all our planning towards our actual production as well as our ancillary tasks. This helped us keep a clear track and order of everything we did so we were able to see what we had achieved when coming to the actual making of it – this was helpful due to it being quick to find as well as extra research into various aspects of these three products.

We used various search engines as a way of finding information for research and planning. Search engines such as Google was effective as it gave us thousands of reliable results which we could work from. We also used these search engines in a way of contacting our artist – this was useful as we were more aware of the artist we were producing a music promo around and how we might use his background of music a story behind the lyrics.

We used the programme iTunes for sourcing our chosen track. Once we contacted the artist and he sent us a copy of the track, we could easily copy it over to iTunes which gave us an easy access to the song at any chosen point while filming. We would then simply add the song into our finished production for better quality of the track.