By Aminatta Sylva 13H

Question 4- As part of the construction, research and planning

and evaluation I have used various types of technologies

throughout these stages.

Haverstockmedia blog During the research and planning stage of our media product, my group and I used a blog (Haverstockmedia), in

order to be able to upload our coursework on to. I found this blog very useful.

The blog also allows us to embed videos into a blogs such as YouTube videos, Slideshares and prezis. We could

also upload pictures onto our blog. However the disadvantage of the blog, was that you couldn’t see all of the

content at school due to slow internet connection. Therefore, I could only upload work certain pieces of work from

home.

An advantage of the blog being private was that people that did not have an account could not see your content. The

blog also allowed us to create tags and categories, which made our blog look organized and made work easy to find.

The blog also worked as a place to put down reminders of work to be done, for example I could save drafts of work

partially completed or task to be undertaken for homework etc.

The blog was used throughout all the stages of the coursework; during the construction stage I used it to upload

time schedules, risk assessments, test shots, and other media that will be added to final media product. During the

research and planning stage the blog held all my work from music video analysis, lyric analysis to audience feedback

and other research.

The blog was used during the evaluation stage of the coursework to upload the final media products and do the

evaluation questions, but on a different tab. This helped make my work tidier and easy to find.

The blog was like a diary revealing how my project was going, what work has been done and what work I am planning

on doing.

Google and iTunes

I used google to carry out my research on the genre and the artist of my music video. This helped me gather relevant and important information during the research and planning stages of my music video.

I used iTunes to download the original version of the song. This was great because some of the song on YouTube were either too fast/slow or had parts of the song missing, so to ensure that the lip sync would match the version of the song on my iPod and computer I have used the same soundtrack. I was also able to conduct some artist research on iTunes as it shows you the other songs produced by the artist and what the audience thought of the song.

Prezi, slideshare & Powtoon Prezi- I used this online presentation to present my work on my research and planning

and evaluation. I developed my skills with Prezi, as I had experience with the website from

my foundation portfolio as I find it a lot easier to use than a year ago. I like to use this

online software because it makes my presentations look more appealing to the viewer as I

can add music and videos to it, it makes presentations appear visually attractive.

Slideshare- I used slideshare to share my work so that it could be uploaded to my blog. It

was used throughout all the stages of my coursework.

Powtoon- This is another online presentation website that I used which was also very

visually attractive. It allowed me to use animations, videos, add music and much more. It

can turn slideshows into videos which can then be uploaded to YouTube, this beats

having to click through slides. I used this during my research and planning, it helped me

create short videos of for example, ideas of location, digipak analysis etc.

PowerPoint, Word, Googlesheets

PowerPoint- I used PowerPoint to create presentations during the

research, planning and evaluation stages of my course. It allowed to me

to create basic slides of information with pictures.

Word- I used it to type up filming schedules, analysis of posters and to

write to the star.

Googlesheets- I used this online spreadsheet platform to collect some

audience research. It allowed me to create a questionnaire, and gave

me the output of data in the form of tables, charts and graphs, which

made it easy to read. I was able to access this from home, school and

on the go through the use of Google Drive. Which was were I stored a

backup of my ancillary texts’ pictures.

StoryboardThat, Text2Mindmap, Weebly.com & Wordle I used this online storyboarding platform as a way of creating digital storyboards to plan what

I want to see in my music. My skills have further developed with the use of this technology, as

I used it last year; I created better storyboards this year.

Once the storyboards were finished, you had the chance to either download it as a slideshow

or pictures, which you could then turn into a movie with the use of final cut pro 7/X.

I used text2mindmap as a way for brainstorming ideas and thoughts I have. I used this during

all stages of my course. However, what I did not find useful about this online brainstorming

software was that you could not save as you went along, so if you want to add more work to

your mind map you could not because it has already been turned into a picture.

I also used Weebly.com to create a test website for my artist.

I used wordle to create brainsstorms of the words that stand out the most from the lyrics; this

helped me generate ideas for my music video, and what themes etc are associated with the

song.

YouTube, Facebook, Instagram& Twitter YouTube- this was the main source for me to watch music videos when generating ideas during the

research and planning and construction stages of my course. I also used YouTube to upload test

shots and the final media product so that the audiences can view it.

YouTube was also used for audience research when analysing music videos and creating star

construction work, as it showed me how popular a music video was and whether it received negative

or positive responses from fans and viewers.

Facebook- used to contact the star to seek permission for the use of her song. Also used for

audience feedback and the final product was shared on Facebook. Facebook was also used for

research on Pop/ R&B stars- what kind of things they posted and how many fans they had; same

thing was done on twitter.

Twitter- this helped us get an idea of what kind of person the star that I am researching is.

Instagram- this was used during the research and planning stage of my production; during my star

constructions I used Instagram to see what stars upload.

Furthermore, stars use social media to promote new singles and albums by sharing snippets or

behind the scenes, in order to please their fanbase.

Whatsapp, iMessage, SMS, Google Calendar

I used Whatsapp, iMessage, SMS to stay in contact with my artist

during a filming period. These applications allowed to plan filming

schedules and inform my artist directly. It was a good way to contact

her because I available to reach on different platforms, and this is

good in case I need to cancel filming because of something, I would be

able to contact her on spot through different platforms.

I used Google calendar to plan out my day, for example, filming on

Monday, time 16:00-17:30, edit footage at 17:45-19:00. It sent me alerts

15 before a programme is about to start, and 15 minutes before a

programme is about to end. This helped me become more organized

and balance my school work with my production work. It made the

stages of my course less stressful.

Construction stage- HD (DSLR) Cameras, speakers

& iPod

I used a HD Camera to film my entire music video and a DSLR camera to take the pictures

of my ancillary texts. This year the camera that we were given had longer lasting

batteries, this meant that we could do more filming outdoors and not have to worry about

running out of batter; same with the memory capacity of cameras. The HD cameras made

my footage and pictures look professionally made as they are of very good quality.

Unlike last year, my hand held shots are much steadier, as this year I filmed my entire

music video by hand.

I used speaker and my iPod touch during the filming of my music video, in order for the

artist to hear the song and to lip sync. The speakers helped us because it meant that the

sound was audible, unlike my other test shots, in which I did not bring along my

speakers- the star found it hard to lip sync because he couldn’t hear the music.

Construction stage- Adobe Photoshop & InDesign

During this stage I used Photoshop to edit and create my ancillary texts- digipak images and

album magazine poster. My skills with Photoshop has improved, as I was able to manipulate

my images successfully. I used YouTube tutorials to help me when I was editing my pictures

on Photoshop, I feel that my knowledge of Photoshop has excelled over the course. Once the

pictures were edited, I would save a jpeg and a psd version, in case I wanted to go back and

edit something. I then uploaded the image onto my digipak.

Photoshop allowed me to carryout various tasks such as making a background black and

white, changing the colour of things, adding fish eye lens effect to images, brightening and

darkening images, creating Polaroid-like images, adding texts, overlaying text with images

and many more.

I downloaded my digipak template from the internet on this website.

I used InDesign to create my digipak mock-up, however, towards the end of the course I

decided that it was a lot easier to create my digipak on Photoshop as I did not need to

transfer files over.

Final cut pro 7

I used final cut pro 7 to edit and compose my music video at

school. I had already developed my skills with final cut pro as

I have used it for about 3 years now, but this year I used the

video filters in final cut pro to make my music video appear

nostalgic, as well as changing the speed of flashbacks. I

slowed down some clips so that the audience can seek

pleasure in watching the music video, this followed

Goodwin’s theory of voyeurism. I also used colour filters to

make the video look brighter; this follows the convention of

Pop/ R&B music videos having high-key lights and/or bright

looking stars and locations.

This is the tool box section on the final cut pro 7

software, which allows us to do effects to our

footage. For example the pen-tool was used to

create fade ins and outs for our footage and audio.

The blade tool was used to cut our footage into

smaller chunks, taking out the unnecessary parts.

The volume tool right beside it helped me maintain

the volume, by limiting how loud it could be, this

stopped the volume from being too loud, as we film

near a busy road.

The viewer allowed us to create subclibs from

footage taken. Then we could organize our

footage by creating bins to put them in. We also

used the viewer to change the colour of the

footage, create matt colour blocks so that we

don’t have a black screen.

We created sequences in order to be able to use

the timeline and save it properly. The timeline was

where everything was put together, including the

titles, music, sound effects and footage in the

form of subclips (so that the original clip has not

been permanently modified)

On the timeline this is our sequence, and as you can see

there are many little clips everywhere and audio files as

well. I also found out that I could have up to about ten

audio layers, during the construction of my media product.

During the flashback scenes, I

slowed down the speed to

encourage the feelings of nostalgia

and voyeurism within the audience.

I was able to change the

brightness/darkness of our footage

by the use of the effect Colour-

corrector. I ensured that most of

the footage was of the same

brightness. This also allowed me to

follow the conventions of pop/R&B

music videos of high key lighting.

These tools above

allowed us to increase

the size of the clips onto

the sequence, to use the

pen-tool, mute an audio

track. I used this to adjust

the volume and opacity of

clips on my project.