Question 4

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

During the construction stage of creating my music video, I used Final Cut Pro on an Apple Mac computer which had many benefits but also drawbacks. I chose to use the Final Cut Pro to edit my music video together because I found that it had a lot of features and tools which I could use to make my music video effective. For example, there were many tools at my disposal that I could use to change the appearance of the video which I found was beneficial. I felt that it was a more professional choice of software as well due to the amount of feature available and was much better than any other type of video editing software such as Windows Movie Maker which I felt was more inferior.  However, some of the drawbacks with the software were that I had a complete lack of experience using it before  and  such as experience as I had not used one professionally to create a music video. This made progress slow at the beginning when I was inserting clips that I had filmed and editing them, however I eventually got to grips with the software after I used it for a while. From using the software I learned a lot about how to edit video clips together and add effects to make the video effective. I think that I definitely benefited from using the cut tool as it allowed me to edit long shots to become shorter which fit the song I chose much better. 

Final Cut Pro

The screenshot on the left shows a clip from one of the narrative moments in the music video. I edited this shot quite a lot by changing the brightness and contrast and by adding a vignette to the frame which made the corners slightly darker whcih helps focus in more on the content in the video. I did this for all the narrative clips in my video as I thought it helped draw more attention and focus to the story in the video and also adds adds to the grungy genre of music.









This screenshot shows the edits I have made to this clip and other narrative clips in the video. For example, we can see edits I have made to the brightness/contrast, adding a vingette and adjusting the settings on that and also adjusting the colour balance as the woods appeared to be quite vibrant and colourful.





Cameras

During the planning stages of my music video, I used my Canon 700d DSLR camera to take pictures of the locations for where I would be shooting my music video. I also used the camera to take pictures for my ancillary tasks such as my digipak and advert. Due to the camera being quite mid ranged in price, the quality of pictures taken were very good which led to a good looking digipak and advert. To record my music video I used a Sony HDV camera filming footage onto tape. I chose to use these cameras as I did not own any cameras that would be able to produce the same quality as these cameras. Although I had no previous experience using this type of camera for recording a music video I quickly got used to it through practice. Using this camera, I was also able to attach a tripod to it to create different types of shots such as panning. This camera was very easily accessible for me as I would be able to borrow the camera from the school to use for filming whenever I wanted.


Serif software

The software I used to create my digipak and poster was Serif PagePlus X9. I decided to use this software and not any other because it contained the essential tools and editing functions that I needed in order to create both ancillaries. By using PagePlus I was able to insert a template digipak layout which I could use to place the images I would use onto. I was also able to edit the photos I inserted onto the different panes through the colour, swatches and transparency. I also use SerifPhotoPlus to edit my photos for my digipak as it had more options for editing and manipulating images.

For example, the image of the trees on the front cover and disc side I changed the colour so the text was more easily noticeable. PagePlus also allowed me to add text onto the images I inserted such as the band name and album name, also the track list and some other text. Once I had finished editing the images I was easily able to export the image to Blogger.

Here we can see my digipak advert created in Serif PagePlus. I decided to use PagePlus to create my poster because it gave me many tools and options to help construct a professional looking advert for the album. I was able to add images and adjust their colours and transparency. I was also able to add text and manipulate the text.







Presentation software

I used Google Slides to present my digipak advert analysis. I decided to use this because it was different to any other type of presentation software I had used before but I was able to present the different adverts I was researching. I used this and not PowerPoint because I had not used this software as much as PowerPoint which also shows that i'm using a broader range of ICT to present my research.

I also used Prezi to present my research on band homepages and other tasks in my planning and evaluation stages. This free, online software allows me to create a more interactive type of presentation with a variety of different designs to choose from. I think it is a more creative way of presenting research than just a standard PowerPoint. I was also able to embed these Prezi presentations into my Blogger to receive feedback from my teachers about them.



YouTube

I used YouTube in my research and planning stages to find videos for my research on music video conventions. This helped me eventually plan out my music video. I have also used YouTube to upload different versions of my music video to my Blogger which enabled me to receive feedback from my teachers and other people on how to improve the video each time.

Blogger

I used blogger to present my research and planning and my ancillary tasks such as the digpak and the digipak advert. Blogger enabled me to post and embed different links to research I had done or to rough drafts of my music video which could then be viewed by my teacher who could then respond with constructive criticism and helpful feedback. This feedback was very useful for me improving my video and ancillaries to ensure I achieve my target grade. Using blogger I was able to also write progress reports on what improvements I had made each lesson whether it was editing my music video or conducting more research or working on my ancillary tasks.