Evaluation 4 -

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

Below is a list of applications and technologies we used to create our music video;

• Youtube
• Video Camera
• Digital Camera
• iMovie
• iTunes 
• Garage Band
• Photoshop
• Da font 
• Facebook

Youtube

Once we had picked our brief as a group and decided on the promotion package for a music video, we all gathered round and used youtube to look at past A Level music videos and current music videos in the professional industry to get an idea on what we had to do and what we'd like our music video to be like. Whilst researching we found it most useful watching previous A Level music videos as we were able to list what we thought were the positives and what we thought were the negatives so in the end we knew what we wanted to include and what we wanted to make sure we didn't include. Also after watching a few professional music video's we realised we liked the ones based on a Narrative and thought that it would be the best if we done the same as we liked the idea of it having a story line for our target audience to relate to. 

Video Camera

First of all to create our video we filmed our footage on a Video Camera (Canon Legria). As filming was one of my roles within the group I was quite wary as I hadn't used a video camera to as much as an extent as this. I was able to practice by filming draft footage before we began to film our music video which allowed me to get used to working with it. One thing I did wrong when practising was holding the camera the wrong way. As I was focusing on fitting the actor in I turned the camera so the shot was portrait therefore when watching the footage back on the Apple Mac I became aware that I wouldn't be able to use any footage if I filmed this way as it wouldn't work on screen. The biggest challenge for me was trying to keep my my hand steady as I was walking with the camera. I found that after a few practice runs I was able to sustain a steadier hand than usual and was ready to film the footage for our music video.

Digital Camera
After we finished filming for our music videos we took the opportunity to individually take pictures in one of the set locations for our digipak and Magazine Advertisement. I used a range of different angles for mine personally. One of my images consisted of the two actors standing back to back but I only took a picture of their shoes. Another image consisted of a wide/long shot of one of the actors leaning back on a wall in facing one way and my last image was of my other actor leaning on the same wall facing the other way so that when my digipak is put together it will be like they are looking at each other but on separate sides of the digipak. As I had used a digital camera many times before I did not find it difficult to use unlike the video camera.

iMovie 

After we filmed all footage for the music video we then had to transfer the footage onto the apple macs and then onto iMovie. iMovie was our main application to edit our footage and as I had never used iMovie before at first I was worried but once I learnt how to navigate my way around the application I became more comfortable using it.
Another one of my roles within the group was to edit the footage I had filmed. I uploaded the footage onto iMovie and began to place the footage in order structure based on the narrative we created. I was able to take out the background noise out of the footage we had taken so that there was no distortion in sound over the music that we were using. I inserted a range of transitions in between the clips when the scene changed to give it a professional slick dynamic throughough for example; cross dissolve, cross blur, fade to black, cross zoom etc. I was also able to edit the speed of clips which was really helpful when it came to a point in the narrative I wanted to focus on to make the video look better. For example, when the male character looks up and see's the women character for the first time I thought it would be more effective if that was slowed down! And again when they knock shoulders in the street.   I also used it to speed up clips like when I film a full rotation of the actors faces and reverse it at a faster speed to suit both the music and the narrative.

Garage Band 

We downloaded the song we are using "Latch" off iTunes ready to place it into garage band. We made the effective decision to edit the song to make it suit our footage and also cut out bits of the track that we didn't need as it was a 4 minute and 30 second song and that was longer than what we wanted. I simply split the track and deleted parts of the track that weren't needed which was the easy part. The hard part was having to match the separated parts of the song to the specific beats which was challenging. Eventually I was able to match it up accurately to the specific beat allowing the track to flow through with no distortion, or unwanted pauses or obvious changes. It did take me a while to get it right and I probably did it the hard way but having not used Garage Band before I wasn't fully aware of the tools and their uses so I just navigated my own way around the application and did it my own way.

Photoshop and Dafont

Using the images I had taken for my Digipak using the digital camera, I opened them up in Photoshop ready to fit them onto a canvas size of 11 by 10 inches. This is the allocated canvas size stated on the Digipak template. I had taken my images using a background that I wanted to keep so they didn't really need much editing.

I just simply resized them to fit the canvas and got to work on the conventions that I needed to include. Before we started the project we had already created a production logo so I made the background transparent on that and added it on each page of my Digipak. With the Iogo being black it was quite hard to see on the background so I added a white circle around it for a professional look and so it stood out.

Next I went online to 'DaFont' to get different texts to suit my Digipak images. I used 'steriodifelic' in the distorted section to create the text for my band name. I then used 'blacklisted' also in the distorted section for every other bit of text used on my Digipak. I knew that the texts had to be different for my band name as I seen this on many other style models and also because if I stayed with the same text throughout it would of been abit boring. I differed my text from black and white keeping a consistent colour scheme. I was able to change the colour of the text quickly and effectively by using the paint bucket tool located on the left hand side of the photo shop application. Following researched style models I knew I had to add the bar code and small print. I created my small print by using the text tool also located on the left hand side of the Photoshop application. I researched the small print on different digipaks in order to know what to include within it. I then positioned it to where I'd like it to be giving it an over all professional look. Next I downloaded a barcode to include on the back of my Digipak also as this was a vital convention and my Digipak would not be realistic if this wasn't included.

Facebook

I posted my finished digipak covers to Facebook to get some audience feedback. It is very important to get audience feedback as you are able to see from others point of view whether you have attracted your aimed target audience and what they would like to be different and what they think you can improve on. Overall my audience feed back has been pretty positive but there is always room for improvement. A couple of people have said to maybe not have the production logo on 3 pages which I agreed with so I have just kept it on the back page. A few people have also said about the album name on the front cover being a bit too close to the edge so to maybe move it slightly over. I have also made this change. Over all I am very pleased with the audience feedback and very pleased with my digipak.