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

When creating my music video, I used various different media technologies within the construction of my video, research and planning and evaluating stages of my project. Some of them I found easier to use than others. Such as using the Mac computers, i found this really hard as i had never really used one before. However, when it came to filming, i found this easier as i had got used to how to use the camera.

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

Throughout the stages of creating my music video, I have used many different technologies through both hardware and software. An example of the hardware I used is an Apple Mac, We used a programme called Final Cut on this to create our whole video. At first I found getting used to a Mac quite difficult as you go about doing things compltely different to normal computers however after a while of using it myself and watching how other people in my class use it, I began to get used to a different way of doing things.

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

As I was at the research and planning stage of my work I thought that creating a moodboards of artists from the genre we were with on was helpful as I was able to become more familiar with how the artists dress, how they present themselves and how they use colour and text on their CD covers to sell themselves.

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

Story boards are a really good way to show what you want to achieve in your work. As we had changed our whole video after we had finished our story boards for the second time, we uploaded them onto our blog. I think this is important as it shows we had thought carefully about what we wanted in our video. Its also breaks up all the writing on my blog and making it more pleasing to look at.

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

To help me get a better understanding of my genre during my research stages, i used serval sites to help me, the one I used the most would have to be YouTube. This is a site where you can upload videos and the public can comment on them if they wish. Some of them will be official music videos and others can just be one users have uploaded themselves. I found using this site helped a lot when trying to gather information about my genre and other genres and was ables to see what you would expect to see in a music video. This allowed me to start thinking of ideas in my head.

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

A technology I found really hard to use was Final Cut Express. This is a programme that allows you to edit, add effects and transitions to your videos. Having never previously used it meant learning how to do simple things on it was tricky as you have to use both the keyboard and the mouse which gets quite confusing as you have to rememebr all the differnet things you have to press for each command. I spend some time with lee after school helping him edit and the more we did it I began to get a better understanding of how you use it.

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

The camera was another media technology I came into contact with when I was filming footage for our music video. Before filming I thought about the different angle and shot types I could incorperate into our video and made shooting the footage a lot easier as I knew what I was going to do next. I also found that when I was out filming that I would get other ideas and then film them, for example when I was filming Lewis inside the car, I got other ideas of different and more interesting angles that I could film him from.

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

Whilst we were in the stages of creating our music video, I would still be adding things to my ancillary tasks. These are my DVD cover,the inside cover and the poster. For these I used a programme call Photoshop. This allows you to edit photographs in many different ways.

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

The technology I was most familiar with was photoshop. This was because I currently use it in photograhy.I really enjoyed using photoshop in my work as I already had a good idea of knew how to use it and what all the icons do. I used it a lot when it came to the stage where I was creating my DVD cover, inside and poster.

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

A good thing about using photoshop is when you are making something you can add each new image/text onto a new layer. This make it a lot easier if you need to change something at a later stage or if you make any mistakes. To make my DVD cover I used the ruler to help me measure the correct width of the cover.

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

When it came to creating a barcode, I tried to use photshop however this didn’t go too well. I ended up finding out you can use a font on ‘www.dafont.com’ to create your own barcode in seconds. I then used photoshop to add in the other icons I had on my DVD cover such as the ‘Copyright’ symbol and the other symbols I had used.

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

When I was making my DVD cover, I had to use the selction tool a lot to select what part of an image I wanted to copy onto my cover. This is a quick and easy way of copying a selected part of an image onto your work and found when I copied the images of Lewis, it made it a lot easier that cutting the whole way around his body.

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

Throughout creating my ancillary tasks, I used photoshop a lot to manipulate images. I used the fill tool to add effects on the bricks in the background. I also played around with repition and pattern and changing the opacity of images on the DVD cover and the inside to create give the images a different effect. I think this worked quite well.

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

Another use of technology I used was ‘www.blogger.com’, this is a website that allows you to upload, edit and share blogs with others. This is a very good way of keeping people up to date on where you are at and whats the latest you have done. This meant throughout all the stages of my work I was able to upload my storyboards, sketches of my DVD cover, inside and poster, my plans of what to do nexts and also write blogs on what I had already done. This site allows you to upload images, videos and music soundtracks, this is good as you can make your blog more interesting that just writing. Another good thing about this site is it allows people to comment, this means you can get feedback without pysically showing someone your work and they can just see it online. Also it allows the viewer to easily see the progress you have made throghout your work.

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

A way I could improve the technologies I have used could be by uploading my finished music video to the website such as ‘www.youtube.com’. However after seeing other work on the site and noticing there wasn’t much audience feedback given, shows how if I uploaded it, it wouldn’t benefit me at all. Another way i could get feedback is from our peers. By asking more than one group of people allows us to get a wider range of feedback.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

After showing people my DVD covers I showed them my poster. The only thing they really picked up on that I could have improved on was where I had put the text. After changing some of the text round a bit, I was happy with the finished product. Having this feedback on my work was really good as it meant I was finding out how other people were seeing my work instead of just me.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Feedback I got on my ancillary tasks helped a lot as it meant I could improve them and make them look better. Two things that stood out the most when people gave me feedback was my font, at first they didn’t think my font really fit in with my genre, however I then chnaged it used a font I found on ‘www.dafont.com’ and it really made a big difference. Another thing people didn’t really think worked was how I laid the titles of the songs out on the back of my DVD cover, this was because there was too much empty space left. When it had been pointed out I really noticed it myself and used photoshop to put a border around each song title. This worked well as it took up more space and added to the design.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a good way for the audience to watch your work and tell you ways in which they think you could change things and improve it. It also gives them a chance to tell you what they like as well and how it applies to your target audience.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

By having feedback from the audience throughout the whole production stage is a good way to see where you’re going wrong from the beginning instead of finishing the tasks and seeing you went wrong. Doing this allowed me to change small things in my ancillary tasks early on and improve them.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Watching other peoples videos in our class helped as it showed us where we were going wrong and what we could improve on. One thing that I really picked up on that we were missing in our video, was a selection of angles and shots. This menat that when I went out and filmed Mitchel and Lewis, I tried to shoot them from a variety of angles.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

After showing them our video, the feedback they gave use really helped and gave us more ideas of what we could do to make it better. They thought instead of just having one singer and lots of storyline, they thought we should have someone singing the chorus as well. I then went out and filmed mitchel singing the chorus. I decided to film him in a park sitting on the back of a bench as I think this relates to my genre and links in the the target audience. After doing this and adding it in, I could see that it did make a big difference to the video and made it seem more like how a music video would be. Another thing we made better was the lip syncing and having it more on time.

Question Three - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We showed our video to a couple of people in our class. Because we had only just started our new version of the video, there wasn’t really much there for them to evaluate however getting some feedback was better than nothing at all. We chose to use people iin our class as they were from the ages group who we wanted to aim our video at, 16+. They were also people who liekd this genre of music. We chose this ages group as these are the type of ages that would listen to this sort of genre.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

The combination of my main product and your ancillary tasks are really important as they need to relate to eachother. This is because if you saw one of them for example the poster in the street, and then you saw the cd in a shop, it would remind you of seeing the poster. This shows having elements of the video, poster and cover similar is good because will jog peoples momories.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

The font I chose to use, I have kept consistent throughout all my ancillary tasks. This also makes a link between all of them. I got my font off of the website ‘www.dafont.com’. This allowed me to be more adventurous with the font i used and link it more to my genre.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

The same brown/red brick colour was used throughout my ancillary tasks, I had planned for this to carry onto the actual video and have the artist perform in front of a brick wall however, and this did not happen because we changed our idea so much. Our actual video itself is of quite dull colours as they are outside.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Most of my video had been filmed outdoors, whether it is in a car, on a bench in a park and on the street. This reinforces my genre without using a brick wall itself. The rest of the video was filmed inside a house, these parts of the video are also not very bright.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Overall I think that my music video and ancillary tasks fit in quite well together as my artist is on the cover of the CD and on the poster. However, I could have improved the link by making sure there was a brick wall somewhere within the video itself.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

To improve the video, I should have filmed my artists in more places and I could have incorporated a brick wall somewhere in my video to make a clear link with my ancillary tasks.

Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

When we first begun planning our ancillary tasks, we were told we had to have something that linked the video itself, the CD covers and the poster. I chose to use a brick wall with a picture of the artist on the front. Now after having changed our video so much from when we first started, I can see how my ancillary tasks do not really link in with the video. However the artist is still the same.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

As we were planning our music video, I went onto YouTube and watched other videos of artists such as chipmunk and 50 cent as they also fit in to my genre. Doing this allowed me to see what type of costume other artists of this genre would wear in their music videos. From watching these videos I noticed that most of the artists would be wearing things such as hooded jumpers and jeans. Where chipmunk’s videos are mostly simple, 50 cent’s have a bit more of a story to them.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

My music video uses narrative through telling a story in the video. Doing this allows you to have more in the video and make it more interesting for the audience rather than having the artist singing to the screen throughtout the whole song. We chose to have both artists in our video. You got be see both of them but you also saw the story the song was telling as well. This gives the audience more to connect with and be able to get into the video and understand whats happening. My video confirms the conventions of our genre by showing both artists, also props such as a watch if effective in showing teh genre.
This is an example of when you see both artists at the same time in our musc video.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

By looking at artists such as 50 Cent, Tinchy Stryder and Jay-Z, and looking at how they represent themselves on the front covers of their CD covers. It helped me decided what I wanted on mine. I could see from their CD covers that they are the main focus, I used this with my work and made our artist stand out on my DVD cover and poster. Another thing you can notice as you look at these covers is the colour used. They use the ordinary colours which creates more of a focus on the artist. Thourghout my work I used a brick wall as the background with my artist in front of it. I think this was quite successful and worked with my genre.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

Before deciding what genre we wanted to do we researched into different genres and looked at three artists from each to see the sorts of things you would expect to see in the music videos in each specific type of genre. Doing this allows us to realise what type of genre we didn’t want to do for our video. A song we looked at and decided we didnt want to use was from the indie genre, 'Scouting For Girls', 'Shes so Lovely', this is because we felt making a video for this type of song would have been quite difficult.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

The band that we decided as a group to base our work on was ‘Lazee Featuring Neverstore’, ‘Hold On’. This song comes under the genre of grime/hip hop. This was good because it was different to all the other groups in our class.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

One way our music video follows the conventions of real media products is by following one of Bordwell and Thompson’s theories, this is the rhythmic theory. This is the way the video is edited as it contrasts long and short duration of shots. This builds the video up as you link the shots with the beat in the video. I think we have done this quite well in our video as just before the second chorus when the beat speeds up, we changed the speed of the video to go with the beat.This is the bit in our video where the footage is sped up to go with the speed of the music. This worked well as the video was matched with the beat.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

After finding out we were going to make a music video and ancillary tasks to go with them, I had to research music videos and the their conventions. This was to help me know what you would expect to see in them and give me somewhere to start when it come to making my own.

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?

My media products consist of a music video and three ancillary tasks. A music video can be created for several reasons. These are to promote and advertise new songs from artists, these songs can be from all different genres. This makes money for the artist as it will encourage audiances to buy the artists music. Music videos appeal to people in all different ways, this could be through cinematography, how the video had been edited and what effects have been used in the video, this could be changed to suit different target audiances. This is an example of an artist who was promoted well and appealled to his target audience.

New Story Boards 6 - 10

These are the last five of our new story boards.

New Story Boards 1 - 5

When we decided as a group that we needed to change our idea for our music video, we sat down and made new story boards. These are the first five of our new story boards.

Lewis Inside The Car

This is Lewis actually inside the car, here i have taken some pictures of some of the angles i filmed him from for our video. I think the most effective two were, the one where the camera was by the wing mirror of the car and where Lewis was looking back at the camera from the car.

Props - Car

This is the car that lewis was filmed in in our music video. This was effective as it is something you would expect to see from a video of this genre. It wasnt so much the car itself that fit in with teh genre, it was to show the success of the artits and we used it to film the artist from different angles.

Props - Watch

This are pictures of the watch Mitchel wore during our video. This links in with our theme as it could be seen as 'bling'. Also many of the artists from this genre have expensive jewelry to show their wealth and success.