Evaluation Question 4

"How did you use technologies in the construction and research/planning and evaluation stages?"

Technology was vital to the creation of my music video in terms of planning, production, editing and distribution. In each stage of the product cycle I used many key pieces of technology.

The key piece of hardware, which I used, was the apple mac. The mac had all the key programs needed for research/planning, production, editing and distribution. The macs run faster than regular computers and had a large storage space meaning that it could store each edit and the final edit of my music video.

The standard browser for the mac was safari. Although Safari was capable of doing the job I needed it for, I often chose to use Google chrome instead as it ran much faster and so made it quicker to access websites and download files etc. A problem with using the schools macs is that they had many privacy features meaning that lots of the content that I needed for secondary research was blocked. This made it harder to research my chosen genre of Rock due to the fact that many of that music genres videos contain either explicit language or explicit scenes. Through these I often used Google itself in order to search for images or for information/examples regarding my production. This was key especially in the planning stages.

In order to keep all of my files in the one place I used blogger, this was good as I could post work from multiple programs such as word/PowerPoint as well as images. This made it easier to keep track of my files and also gave me a backup incase any were deleted off of the mac by accident. Also, due to technological convergence I was capable of accessing Blogger on many different sources of hardware meaning that I was able to access and add to my work at anytime due to the app on my phone.

I used Microsoft word in order to type out any scripted writing that I needed to do such as my evaluation of existing music videos/ music posters. This programme was good as its extremely easy to use and once I had finished typing I could easily copy the text into a blogger post. I used Microsoft word when making my storyboard, instead of drawing each picture one by one I decided to use photofunia and convert pictures into a drawn effect so that they gave a more accurate representation of what I wanted to see in the shot. This made the storyboard quicker to create as well as being much more presentable.

As well as word I used Microsoft PowerPoint and also Prezi in order to make presentations for purposes of focus groups. PowerPoint was much easier to use as it was simpler and I’d used it for years before the course. Prezi on the other hand was harder to use but it made the PowerPoint much more interesting to audiences so I used a mixture of both. In order to post PowerPoint’s onto my blog I had to first convert them by using the site ScribD. ScribD was important as it meant that I could continue to keep my work all in my blog. It was easier to post Prezi’s onto my blog as I could just embed them.

In order to record my focus group I used the AppleMac programme photo booth, photo booth was helpful as it meant that I could record my focus group without then having to upload it from a camera onto the mac’s which could potentially take a while. Once I had recorded my focus group it was extremely simple for me to export the file onto YouTube and Vimeo.

YouTube is extremely popular and so allowed for my focus group to reach a large audience, however, due to copy right issues over example songs that were played through my focus group I had to use Vimeo as they were more lenient. I used YouTube in order to distribute my music video following the editing stages. Sites such as YouTube and Vimeo allowed for David Gauntlet’s Web 2.0 theory as audiences could independently access my music video online.

 In order to overcome the copyright issues I used Twitter in order to contact the band Nickel Back in order to ask for permission to use their song. Furthermore I used twitter in order to publicize my music video once it was on YouTube by posting the link to it, As well as using twitter for this I used other social media such as Facebook in order to post the video to larger audiences. Using Facebook and twitter allowed for me to get feedback on my video and to easily reply to feedback in order to ask what I could improve if I was to create other videos in the future.

As well as using Facebook and twitter to distribute my music video, I also used them to distribute my survey, which I created using Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey was a great way of making a survey due to the fact that it was free and easy to post on social media as well as print. The site was easy to use and furthermore the results were instantly transformed into graphs, which made analyzing the results very simple.

Once all of the research and planning had been conducted and analyzed I was ready to start production. For the filming of my music video I used a Canon 600D camera that was excellent due to the fact that it gave an extremely clear image but also I could blur images if I wanted to add any effect prior to editing. I could do this by generally blurring the images or by drawing the focus onto one character/object. Furthermore the camera could adjust the ISO level meaning that I was able to keep a consistent level of lighting over shots. This was especially important during the outside shots of park scene and café scene. Finally the camera had a high-quality 18-55mm lens, which meant that close-up shots or any other shots, which required zoom were high quality and high resolution which was vital to the quality of my production. Proliferation of hardware and content has allowed for hardware such as Camera’s to become so developed with better quality images and options for the user.

After gathering all of my shots I was ready to edit, I edited my work on the Mac’s most superior editing software, which was Final Cut Pro X. This was far more developed and professional than my alternative of IMovie as it had more precise cutting as well as much better editing effects such as transitions and filters. Examples of filters that I used are the ‘Dream’ filter and the ‘Desert Glare’ filter.

These filters allowed for the reception theory, an example of this from the use of the ‘desert glare’ filter is that it was used to connote anger due to the red colours, but audiences may feel that it denotes love. The precision and professionalism of final cut pro x allowed me to make my production look equally as professional and this had a positive effect on my audiences.  A strength of final cut is that it saves work automatically and this was important due to the fact that following 2 hours work the mac I was working on froze meaning that I was capable of turning it off without losing my work and so my schedule wasn’t delayed by having to redo the work.

In order to create my digipak I used Microsoft Open Office, Microsoft Open Office allowed me to edit my digipak photo’s in order to give them the desired coloration and filters. For example I used a greyscale filter in order to keep with the dark tones of the digipak and also used a dark blue vignette in order to keep with the color scheme presented on the front cover, which had desaturated colors and lighting. This gives continuity throughout my digipak. Due to this I decided to continue with the use of the vignettes filter on my poster. This gave my band a greater identity, as the color scheme will begin to be related to them.  Once I had created all of my images I then used Open Office to compile them onto a digipak template so it would be ready to print.

In order to apply my digipak and poster to real techniques of advertising I decided to create example images of where my product could be advertised using a bus stop poster and an album cover on the iTunes store. This allowed me to see a practical example of how my product and poster would look while in use. Having my product on iTunes would connote strong synergy due to the fact that anyone who purchases the album would earn iTunes money, and iTunes is used by a mass audience so more people would be likely to by the bands album

While answering evaluation questions I used IMovie in order to record my vocal track and in order to compile the video along with the images, I chose to use this instead of final cut due to it not needing to be as accurately edited as my music video, as well as this it was much quicker and simpler to use for this task.

Overall, I feel that technology has really enhanced my production which has led to high production values overall. Which in turn leads to a better audience experience and a more professional media product.