Evaluation 4-How did you use media

technologies in the construction and

research planning and evaluation stages

By Ellie Wooding

Research and Planning-

CommunicationIn order to create a successful music video, we believed that working well as a team should be made a priority. Communication is key and once recognising this to be important, we took advantage of the use of our smartphones and created a Whatsapp group in order to keep in contact and share ideas when we weren’t altogether. Prior to this we had our regular meetings in school to go through initial ideas and what needed to be done.

Research and Planning-

CommunicationWe also just simply used iMessage as another form of communication as it may have been easier at the time. Fortunately we all have iPhones therefore when it came to texting, it would connect automatically to an iMessage group. We could send pictures, video and share different ideas in the easy connect of our mobile phones. Both iMessage and Whatsapp were used to keep any vital pictures, information or arranges in order to make the process easier for us all.

Research and Planning- Weather

• Weather was another issue we had to deal with throughout our time filming as we had to make sure the weather was roughly the same outlook on each other we filmed, making it look more professional and lifelike. While Ellie was in Miami, she arrived there in big thunder storms and rain, causing big problems when it came to film for example coming off of the plane or in the airport. However when she woke up the following day and for the rest of the week the weather was sunny and blue skies, allowing her to film more on the beach for example, to make up for lost aeroplane shots. When filming with Max and Grace up London we used to technology of our iPhones by using the weather app to keep update weather condition in the area to see how long we had left to film with the same conditions.

Research and Planning- Initial Ideas

While creating our moodboard we found it essential to do a thorough search of the different images portrayed across Google and social media. For example, we took advantage of our iPhones, iPads and computers to explorer the most effective photos that fit our ideas best. We used the website ‘Tumblr’ which is a site where members will post photos and shot video clips to express their opinions and thoughts. From this we were able to see that the ideas we had matched other users mentality, allowing us to discover that our brainstormed ideas will be very successful. We also watched different types of TV Programmes such as The Only Way Is Essex and Geordie Shore to see different types of behaviour that the viewers found so attractive. After doing so, we recognised from Twitter and Facebook how popular the ‘party lifestyle’ really was. From this we then scoured a variety of music channels to discover what is so distinctive in this period.

We used Adobe Photoshop CS4 to create an effect moodboard would attract the eye. We found it very useful to familiarise ourselves with the software as we then used it later on for our digipak and magazine advert.

Research and Planning- Artists

WebsitesWe decided to think outside just TV itself to search for ideas and from this we took to the internet and got inspiration off of successful, well known artists that influenced our music as a whole. Tinie Tempah was a main influence of ours as he gives off a confident, cool vibe. We searched through his website to see different events he’d been to, wardrobe choices and his persona alone.

Another influence was Calvin Harris, as he is a similar DJ to Shift K3y, the original artist of our song. Calvin Harris has created songs such as ‘Summer’, giving us inspiration as most of our filming was done in Miami, a holiday City. Calvin Harris’s website allowed us to discover different colour schemes that we could use for our blog. His website involved an effective layout with gave us ideas for our own blog.

Research and Planning- Props and

CostumesThe use of the internet was Used to our full advantage When ordering different propsAnd costumes, for example We discovered the new inventionOf the ‘Selfie Stick’ in which we used a lot when we filmed the dancing scenes of Grace and I, it creates a fun effect when putting the editing together to realise the angles we could use. We bought the Selfie Stick from an app called ‘Depop’ an app where you can buy, sell and exchange items of clothing, shoes and accessories.

Research and Planning- Travel

Travelling to and fro our decided locations caused much complication when the day came. As Grace and I chose a friend outside of school, we had to find days together that suited all of our needs. However by the use of our smartphones we could communicate with ease. We had to travel to London a number of times with Max and to guarantee an organised day. We downloaded two app’s to help with our planning. One of which was TubeMap, an app that allowed us to see a map of all train lines and names for us to get to London Bridge, as we weren’t familiar with the area. Another app we downloaded was National Rail Enquiries as we wanted to ensure we were on time for all of our journeys.

Construction- Music Video

After our time filming and editing, we realised that our skills of using media technologies had greatly increased. We excelled by using a variety of different apps, software and being media rich overall. Specifically, we research different types of software that we could use to edit our video, we came to the conclusion to take advantage of the 30 day trial of ‘Final Cut Pro X’. We also used professional equipment such as a tripod to avoid any shakes shots and a selfie stick, to add originality to the video. We used iTunes to download the song ‘I Know’ By Shift K3y and we used the storage device of iCloud in order to have it on Ellie’s mac to add it into the video itself, and also on Ellie’s phone, for Max to listen to when he had to lip sync.

Construction- MusicWe discovered the modern app called ‘SoundCloud’ which allowed us to upload our song straight onto our blog. By doing this, other users on the blog to see what song we had chosen and could listen to it with no trouble of researching it. From this, other users could give us feedback of the song and what they felt would be vital to add to the video. This automatically gave us ideas and inspiration for particular parts of the song.

Construction- CameraGrace and I do not own a high definition camera that we could film on, therefore we simply used our iPhone and hoped that the quality would look professional. Grace owns an iPhone 4, however I own the iPhone 5c and this then affected the quality if we wanted to both filmed Max at the same time, but from a different angle. The iPhone 4 does not have as many pixels as the 5c and this showed when it came to looking at the filming at the end of the day. This slowed down the process of filming as we had to film only on one phone alone. However while one of the members were filming, the other would outlook what other angles would be effective, in order to make our video professional and to have a variety of different shots. We used a tripod that fitted especially for Ellie’s phone in order to ensure steady shots. For our digipak and magazine advert we used Max’s Instagram account to find original photos of him to create a digipak with a variety of different shots. We found photos from his holiday in New York which we created for the 3 panel inside cover of the digipak and a similar photo for the magazine advert.

Construction- Final Cut Pro X

From looking at previous music videos that other groups had created, we realised that Final Cut Pro X was the most effective and easy to use. When searching for the software we realised it was only compatible Apple Products, Ellie is lucky enough to have an Apple Mac computer so we therefore downloaded it at her house, from here we then discovered it was £200 to buy, however there was an alternative option to do a 30 day trial with the software and once the 30 days had finished, it would expire. We assumed a month would be long enough to finalise our music video. However while editing the music video we recognised how quickly we was using all of our filming up and had to redo some parts of filming as we as adding in new scenes. This took up a lot of time and we then had to pause our editing time and because of this our time with Final Cut Pro X had expired. This worried us greatly as we assumed we had lost all of our work. However when contacting Apple they explained there was a back up to all of our hard work. The software itself took a lot of getting used to as we were not familiar with how to use it, therefore we did example videos to capture the correct effect to match up with the lip syncing. We began only using basic tools until we discovered different transactions and the effects to change the speed of each clip, we used this continuously throughout the video as we believe it made it look professional and effective.

Construction- Photoshop

To create a professional looking magazine advert and a digipak we decided to use Photoshop, this is a well known piece of software onto all of the computers at school, we were familiar with it as we have used it in previous lessons and projects. For our digipak front cover we decided to create a similar cover to the original of Shift K3y’s album. With the black and white triangles and the writing changing from black to white, we had to spend a lot of time positioning the writing on top of the image in photoshop. We used different edits to the photo to look edgy, similar to Max’s look. With the magazine advert Grace created a photo taken from Max’s instagram and edited the photo itself to make Max look more important. We created the photo on the right with all writing on the left hand side we fonts to be bold and big to stand out with the New York skyline behind Max. We also used the retouch tool in order to make any additions to the photo that different fit and to also make Max look more flawless.

Evaluation and Feedback

Throughout making our music video we took advantage of the generations addiction to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We created accounts for all of these apps and adding all of these to every members phone, this way we were able to upload any new findings and ideas to keep our potential audience occupied before our final music video was released. We wrote status’s on Facebook about what we were in the process of doing, for example if we had found a new location we would update our Facebook account with photos and comments. Our Twitter account was mainly small teaser messages for our audience to see how long they had to wait for the completed video. Instagram was used mainly to upload small snippets of the video which were finished so they did not forget about what we were in the process of completing. All three apps was used to also gather feedback, as you’re able to comment or like on each app and from this we were able to pick up the advantages and disadvantages of what we had done so far. After the final video was completed we uploaded this to YouTube and then shared it to all of Facebook, Twitter and left promotional video on Instagram for all of our long waiting audience to see what we had created. On Youtube itself we were able to see how many views we had and what people thought specifically about the video itself. All from the use of todays technology we were able to make our video potentially viral.