Anisha and Mehnan A2

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QUESTION 4 - How did you use Media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout my construction, research, planning and evaluation I used various media technologies to finally complete my music video, print work and evaluation.

Firstly, we carried out research on google and youtube to find out what RnB genre music videos need in order to fit the genre, and what we need to include. We also researched what an RnB artist would need to look like in order to fit the right criteria for the genre, and in order to appeal correctly to our target audience. We had then presented this research found onto blogger, which we used in order to present all our research work, planning work, and our final products. We also uploaded all the work we had done before, such as planning pictures, questionnaires for audience feedback and research, and planning our studio shoot etc.

We then started shooting our video. We decided to do our video all studio based, as RnB Music videos are usually based in studios and are very rarely shot in locations. We used a video camera to record all of our video. We used a green screen to put behind the artist which would enable us to put a different background behind our artist when editing. This also enabled us to apply different effects and styled backgrounds behind our artist when in the editing process to make our video more interesting and appealing. We also used the different lighting available in the studio to make it look more professional and realistic, and also used a strobe light to add more of an effect and make our video more interesting and appealing. Also as our chosen song is called Strobe Light, we found it necessary to apply a strobe light somewhere in the video. We created a background to edit behind our artist in the editing process, by using Christmas lights against a black background, zooming in with the camera and making it out of focus so make it look like a studio background and to make the video look more appealing. Also we thought this would fit in well with the RnB genre as there is always some sort of flashing lights/background in the more upbeat songs.

After successfully shooting our video we decided to shoot the pictures for our album. We used an illumix digital camera, which was about 11pixels, and produced high quality images. We used our own camera as we preferred it. We shot our professional styled images for our album against a white backdrop sheet, and used the lighting available in the studio to give it a very professional look. After succesfully taking our desired pictures we then went onto editing our pictures for our album and editing the video footage. We used Final Cut to edit our music video, which was an easy to use program for me as I had already used it before. Therefore constructing the music video was really easy and starightforward for me and i had no problem using the software what so ever. Then we used Photoshop to edit our pictures, enhance the lighting, add effects and brighten them, in order to give them a professional look. Then we transferred them over to InDesign where we added text and made them into the shape to fit our album by using the template given. Photoshop and Indesign I found very easy to use as i have been using Photoshop since i was 14 and have used Indesign previously in my last project for Media. I had no difficulties and produced my music video and print work for the album to the best of my ability.

For my evaluation work i used mainly micorsoft powerpoint and blogger, and also youtube for my directors commentary which we had recorded, edited and uploaded onto youtube. This was very easily done as we had just done the exact same process with our music video, therefore our directors commentary was produced quicker and more effectively as we had a better understanding of the program, and knew exactly what to do in the quickest way possible.

Saturday, 3 March 2012

Evaluation Q4: Anisha

How did you use the media technologies in the contruction research planning and evaluation stages?

We used the programme 'In Design' to create our Four panels for the Album and for the magazine advert
Another programme we used was Photoshop this was very useful as we used it to make the photographs we took look more professional eg. Brightening the photo's and editing the background, however editing the background was time consuming as we had to cut out the image. This programme was quiet easy to use as we where already familiar with the tools that had to be used in it.

The programme we used for our actual music video is 'Final Cut' as this allowed us to cut and edit our video footage, it took us quiet a while to get use to this programme as it has alot of different tabs at the top which have a variety of effects and ways to edit the video eg. Chroma Key. The main advantage of using this programme for our music video was being able to cut scenes and change the background as there was alot of unwanted parts of the video which would have bored the audience if they wern't cut off and keeping the same background throughout the whole video would have also made the audience loose interest. We found the timeline in this programme quiet complicated however we managed to get use to it after a few lessons and where able to use this programme properly.

As well as Imac programmes we also made use of other media technologies such as

the camera to take photographs of the artist so we can use them for album cover adverts etc. the photos taken where good quality as it showed all the details and came out with bright colours we where also able to zoom in and out easily therefore we had no trouble using the camera at all.

Another type of fairly easy media technlogy we used was the video camera as this was needed to shoot our artist. This was easy to use as it was similar to the camera we where able to zoom in and out it also had other features such as balancing the brightness and colours etc. As we didn't want our music video to have a hand held effect we used a tripod in order to keep our video still, this didn't only keep our video still but also allowed us to take a variety of shots as we could make the tripod high, low etc which gave shots of different angels.

Green Screen was a verry important media technology we used because if it wasn't for this we wouldn't have been able to replace the background therefore we would have to go for location shoots which would waste alot of time and also wouldn't be part of the R&B genre as most R&B music videos are studio based.

For our research and planning we used Google, Blogger and Youtube.

We used google to research the different types of music genres and after choosing our genre 'R&B' we used it to research into that particular genre Youtube was also used for the same purpose as this allowed us to watch actual R&B videos giving us an idea of what these videos are about. We watched several different R&B music videos by several different artists on Youtube which helped us to spot the codes and conventions of these music videos eg: Expensive items, narrative

As our music video was studio based it was verry important that the correct lighting was used. We found it easy to set out the lights as we where able to adjust them (make them high low etc). Organising the lighting for our video and photographs didn't take us long however we feel that we could have done a better job of it as the lighting we used wasn't bright enough for some photo's and scenes of the music video when we uploaded it the computer, so we had to use programmes such as photoshop and Final Cut to brighten them if we got the lighting correct in all the photographs and video's then we could have got our final products finished quicker as we wouldn't have had to edit and brighten them.

Thursday, 16 February 2012

Evaluation Feedback - group

No posts to draft here - however do look at the good example evaluations on the Advanced Portfolio blog to see what you are aiming at.

Miss McNulty