Question 4

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stage?

Research

During the research process, I used YouTube regularly to watch music videos for music videos that follow a mini story. This was particularly useful as it enabled me to understand what conventions I had to follow. YouTube also allowed for me to view work from other students who have also done a music video. I also used the search engine Google to access multiple websites that gave me help and information.

Planning

I placed silhouette placeholders in iMovie, which allowed for me to see the music video taking shape before taking my shots whilst also creating a simple to use storyboard. By creating this storyboard, a sense of structure was made and I had the ability to replace these placeholders with real shots as my filming progressed. To familiarise myself with software I’d be using for the evaluation questions, I created a multiple short practice responses to a question with the iMac GarageBand and Photo Booth with the assistance of I movie in the form of a podcast and vlog. This gave me the ability to implement images to my podcast and vlog to give a visual representation of what I am talking about. I was also able to stop the recording whenever necessary, which helped me, become more flexible with my recording. I regularly used blogger to record my progress during the creation of my music video. Blogger is a useful tool because it enables me to effectively organise all my work in a single place.

Construction

Whilst constructing my music video, I used a Cannon Legria HD camera to record my footage. As it records at a smooth 60fps. The fact that it was handheld proved to be a helpful factor as I was able to closely match conventions and shots of a music video. For example, my camera man was able to get into a bush in the distance to film a particular part of my video as I wanted a very long shot and that was the furthest point away from the cliff as possible. I used a tripod for shots of which required stillness or slow panning or zooming. The tripod allows for a lot of freedom with its adjustments in height and angles to ensure that I was capable of achieving the shot I desired. iMovie was a useful application on the Apple Macs as it allowed a straightforward method to create and produce a music video. It allowed me to precisely cut clips to guarantee that the timing of each shot was perfect. I was able to add music, transitions, text for titles and slow or speed up shots or place them in reverse. For my ancillary tasks, I took pictures using a Cannon still camera or took screen shots from my film and this ensured that I had high quality images to enable me to begin editing.

Evaluation

While evaluating my work i used slide share which was a vey useful bit of media technology to use as it allowed my to create a powerpoint and upload it online to use it to answer on of my questions, I also used photo booth and I movie to create a VLOG response to one of my questions as this allowed me to record myself and also to edit what I had recorded to make it professional. I used blogger to upload and publish my answers allowing it to be view from wherever.