EQ4 - How did you use technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

EQ4 - How did you use technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Technology has contributed to a large extent within the process of making my music video. Without technology within the process of making my music video I would have struggled as it allowed me to create a product that was the best it could be. The Apple Mac played a very important role and helped me significantly as it holds all the programs and content I need. With the Macs I found it useful that anything you’ve created stays on that one computer as it makes it easier for us keep everything together. However this also caused problems for our group as there was another group editing on that computer which meant that we had to construct a timetable of when we used the computer and when they did.

Also Google Chrome played a significant role in the research and planning for my music video, as I was able to research the codes and conventions of typical pop music videos. My use of Google ensured that I was able to research generic conventions of music videos and the different narrative structures they posses. This enabled us to identity the weaker elements to the music video and the stronger videos and also helped us collect feedback from our target demographic. This then gave us access to YouTube, which was the main source of our research and planning; as I was able watch other music videos that fit in with my genre. Also with out end product we uploaded it onto YouTube, which ensured that our audience could watch the music, which fits with David Gauntlet’s Web 2.0 theory where the audience independently finds what they want to on the Internet and with my music video being on YouTube they were able to access it independently.

Blogger is very significant in the process of research and planning as it meant that we were able to put all of the documents we need together onto a blog in which we can access from anywhere. This website was very useful also as it meant that when looking back on our work or deciding what we need to improve we were able see it all.

For our initial ideas we felt it would be beneficial to document it onto prezi as its different to PowerPoint and word and gives the audience a visual and interactive aspect to the research and planning. With prezi it also allowed me to document a lot of information and different subheadings for the information, which helped separate, the large amount of writing we were prepared to write. 

Another software that helped us within the process of planning was PhotoFunia, which allowed us to choose normal images, and change then into drawing which made out storyboard look more professional and presentable. We also created this on Word as we felt it was the easiest way to create the storyboard and meant that we could create a template for it. This helped us as the technology we had access to now in A2 media is more developed and efficient then in our AS productions. This also helped us as it meant that our storyboard wasn’t as simplistic as before and that we were able to visualize what our music video would actually look. This helped us decide on what types of shots we wanted to use as we felt that it would be affective if we used close ups of the artists face to fit in with the notion of viewing (male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey) as the artist was wearing red lipstick and the male audience tend to like red lipstick on women which would provide our group with a secondary audience of males.

Then to upload my coursework onto blogger I used scribd as it allowed me to share my work on my blog as it provides me with a link to embed it. This allowed me to ensure that all my coursework is together and easy to access so that I am able to improve my work. Also this helps me ensure that I have done all my work as I can create a checklist so that I can keep up to date with all of my coursework.

Scribd helped me as it ensured that I was able to download my uploads onto any computer I was on to edit it if I need to make any last minute improvements to my work.

Also for me to get audience feedback I used a website called survey monkey. This helped ensure that I was able to get feedback from the audience by asking music video specific questions as it gave me an idea of who my target demographic was and meant that I was able to hear from them to tailor my music video for their needs. This also helped me make last minute changes to ensure that my product was the best that it could be. Survey monkey was a very helpful source as it was easy to use and meant that I could ask my audience questions both quantitative and qualitative. To then document the response I got from the questionnaire I used PowerPoint so that I could analyse what types of things my audience may want in our music video and what they would expect to see and this would allow us to refer back to the responses and decide who our target demographic are as we would then see what they would like abut our video and what the majority of them use to watch their videos on and why.

To then film our music video we used a Canon 600D SLR Camera to capture the footage we wanted. This ensured that the footage we captured was high definition and to a high standard. We were also able to practice our use of focus pull which helped us ensure our filming and footage were as professional and effective as it could be. Also this camera helped us ensure that we had a wide range of different angles and shots, which helped us, vary the perspectives we denote of our artist. To then edit this footage we used Final Cut Pro X as we already had experience in using this program and felt that it gave our work a very professional look to it and helped us create a product that was the best of our ability. This program also allowed us to layer the performance shots over the music video so that we could sync it all up and use the shots we wanted. This also helped us link the footage with the lyrics, which fits with Andrew Goodwin’s theory of relations between footage and lyrics and make synergistic links between narrative and performance.

With the camera we also took the images we wanted for our digipak and poster and edited these images on a website called pixlr. This website ensured that we could edit the saturation and contrast of the images o make them all the same type of lighting. With my digipak and poster I made my images very bright and colourful and ensured that they all had high key lighting, as I didn’t want some images to be dull and the others to be extremely bright. This also helped us when planning out the digipak as we could see what looked right and what didn’t. When planning out our digipak we used open office as it allowed us to make a template for the images we captured and edited. This made it easier for us to visualise our digipak, which allowed us to decide whether the digipak went well with the poster and if it fit with the music video well.

Overall, technology helped my group to a large extent in the construction and research, planning stages and evaluation stages of making my media product as I was able to construct very useful research and also was able to receive useful feedback from our target audience.