4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

By Jessica Knights

We used a variety of new technologies and software throughout the planning, researching, constructing and evaluation stages of our Music video project. A large percentage of the technologies we used multiple times and were vital in completing our final products.

During the process of planning and making our music video and ancillary products we used Blogger to record our research and ideas. This enabled us to embed examples of music videos from YouTube which can easily be seen by the viewer of the blog and helped to look more professional.

We used YouTube to watch examples of professional and student music videos which enabled us to analyse and generate ideas for our own music video.

• Furthermore, Youtube was extremely helpful as a vital learning tool as we watched lots of final cut tutorials, which enabled us to create many of the dominant features in our music video.

• For instance we learnt how to use colour corrector, as well as how to change the Green screen background. This allowed us to use our Andy Warhol influence and ideas in our video which became highly significant in the outcome of our project.

This is the Final Cut Express Green Screen Tutorial

which helped us create our music video….

http://youtu.be/liQlc7cVriM

This is the Colour Corrector Tutorial that enabled us to use our Andy Warhol influence and ideas….

http://youtu.be/dYJ2YN2lhzc

We also used Youtube to upload our preliminary tasks as well as the rough cut and final version of our music video. This enabled us to share our work and embed onto our blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebAhZdi7X_U&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qHvTm5VRJw&feature=plcp

Rough Cut: Final Version:

By using YouTube to upload our films it allowed us to get peer feedback which was really helpful when improving our rough cut.

Here is our Peer review feedback for our rough cut and final version. We watched the videos from YouTube, and write down answers which we uploaded onto the blog…

During the making of my evaluation (for Question 2) I used the internet software, Prezi to help present my ideas in an interesting way in terms of use of technology. Prezi is also extremely helpful as it enables you to embed YouTube Videos as well as photos to further develop the Prezi presentation and look more engaging and professional. The only annoying thing is that the program is American so the spell checker picks up words like ‘colour’.

Photoshop• We used Photoshop a lot when creating our

ancillary tasks. • We were able to create the exact layout• Furthermore by using Photoshop to edit our photos

allowed the quality of the photos to be the best as possible.

• Also, using Photoshop allowed lots of editing options (e.g cropping, filters, contrast, adding text etc.) for our digipak and magazine advert.

This is a screen grab of using Photoshop to make our Digipak…

• Here are some examples of before and after editing (using Photoshop) of Leksi the main female artist.

Using Photoshop made my photos for the Digipak look more professional. In this photo I cropped the image down to size, to enable all the main focus onto the artist. Furthermore, the direct address of the artist in relation to the camera in this image also helps to do this.

Original Photo Edited version

In addition, I used Photoshop to label the conventions used in both my magazine advert and Album Digipak that I used in Question 1. Using Photoshop was extremely helpful as I could locate the arrows and textboxes easily and situate them to the places that worked best. Also Photoshop allowed the Photos to be kept in good quality.

For both of these I used Photoshop version CS5:

Final Cut ExpressWithout the Final cut express software we would be unable to produce and create our music video.When editing both our preliminary task and final music video opening we used the editing software FinalCut. Although we did have some experience of using this software we have definitely developed our skills.

Here is a screen grab of how we used Final Cut Express to make our Andy Warhol ideas using

Split screen and colour corrector.

Furthermore, from watching a YouTube tutorial and learning how to change the background for the Green Screen, we were able to practice the techniques to use in our music video.

Here is a screen grab and link to the tutorial that was very helpful when making our music video.

http://youtu.be/liQlc7cVriM

We also used Final cut for Question 3 of the Evaluation, which we made as a group. We used the peer review feedback already on our blog from when we watched our music video in class on YouTube to help script. We also filmed peer reviews of our ancillary tasks and got Qualitative feedback which we then made a video on Final cut.

• When creating our blog we ran out of memory space for uploading photos. Therefore, we had to upload our photos onto Flickr and embed onto our blog. Using flickr was a life saver as without this software we could not upload anymore photos to finish the presentation and journey of our blog and creation of our products.

Examples of our screen grabs on Flickr…

Google was our main search engine that we used for researching and finding examples of ancillary products as well as the backgrounds for our Green screen.

We also used Facebook to research for our ‘Consumption post’ to see how modern artists communicate about performances and information that their audiences might be interested in.

We used Twitter to contact Rita Ora the artist of the song ‘Love and War’ (which is the song that we chose to use for our music video). We left a tweet to Rita Ora letting her know that we were going to use her song, in cased she objected for copyright and legal reasons.

Microsoft WordI also used Microsoft Word to draft my Question 1 of my evaluation, without having to upload to the Blog. Also, this is helpful as you can then easily transfer and copy and paste onto the blog.

In addition, we also used word to write and type up our script, which we read aloud and recorded. This was then used as a voiceover in our Final cut video for Question 3 of the Evaluation.

Microsoft PowerPointWe used PowerPoint to share our ideas and present them in an interesting and engaging way. At the beginning of the project we made a PowerPoint Presentation about Queen.

In addition, making this PowerPoint is very helpful as I can easily write my own ideas, and embed links and photos to make it more appealing to watch.

We used a variety of equipment…

Other than computer and internet software we used a range of technological equipment and not just digital formats when creating our three products.

Apple SoftwareWe used an Apple Mac Computer throughout each stage of the course. We primarily used Finalcut, Blogger and YouTube.

Video CameraWe used a video camera to film our entire music video, the rough cut and final version. We also used this to film some Ancillary feedback.

DSLR Camera

When taking still images for our Ancillary products and taking photos of filming our music video, we used my Nikon D3100, which was an essential technology.We used the images and edited using Photoshop.

18mm-55mm Nikon Lens• When taking the photos of

Leksi for our Digipak and magazine advert as well as taking photos when filming the actual music video I used a standard 18mm – 55mm lens for my Nikon DSLR as it is the best lens to use for Portraits.

Here are some of the Photos we took during the filming session…

Here are some of the photos which I took for the Ancillary Tasks . . .

Tripod

Using the tripod enabled us to film a professional quality video without it being shaky enabling a stable image.

Green ScreenThis was the first time any of us had used the Green Screen so we relied on YouTube tutorials and experimentation to create our music video. We relied on the Green Screen a lot throughout creating our music video, as we wanted a variety of backgrounds and using Green screen made this possible.

Furthermore, using this technique allowed scope and areas for change as we could experiment and see which background worked best using genre conventions and our own ideas as a guide.