(4) How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and

evaluation stage of your project?

Whilst creating and producing my product, I used a varied range of technologies, programmes and online search engines and websites in order to generate the best music video I could. It was important for me, to make my product be as realistic and respectable by actual music videos as possible, so I did a lot of research before I even started to plane out my own product.

For my research, I used a varied amount of search engines such as: Google, Safari and Bing in order to access the sites such as YouTube and Wikipedia so I could look at other artists music videos and history so I could get an idea of what I wanted to do for my own product. Search engines are a key thing for us to use during the research stage as it provides us with a lot of sites which we can use in order to gather information about moulding our own videos together, but also current artists too.

YouTube is also very important during the research process, as this this our main access point where we can watch, study and analyse other artists music videos. It gives us a vast amount of range too because literally every you could ever need is on there which is handy for us because it allows us to explore and find out what we want to create as well. This is also where I upload my finished product as well, so it is important that I knew how it all worked. As well as this, Vimeo and Vevo are also a good source in order to get access to the music videos. However with vimeo there is not always all the content you need and on Vevo as well the only artists which are on there are signed to Universal Music Group, so overall I prefer to use YouTube due to the seen to be endless content and choice. Also, because I was interested in a more diverse music type for my product, this again drew me to YouTube.

I also regularly use the ‘VLE’ its learning centre, where I upload all my progresses and keep it all up to date with what I’m doing in terms of my media coursework. I like doing it on this service because we used it last year and I am familiar with it. I tried using Word Press for a short period of time, but I found it to be un organised and not how I would like to work, so I got straight back on the VLE and that is definitely what I prefer. It is also a great way to keep all my work together and I can go back, change and see it all too.

In terms of presentation of my work, I often use Prezi and SlideShare to do so. I find that by presenting my work in this way, it is much more creative and the audience are able to read it at there own pace and its not all just in one block of writing. This able’s me to make my work look a lot more fun and interesting. It is also way more visual for the audience too, as well as being extremely user friendly. Overall, I have done a lot of Prezi’s because I think that they look a lot more presentable, and it is quite easy to do. However for the work where I would like to put more useful information, I think using the SlideShare was handy because it is easier to see and it is clear too, whereas Prezi for me is sometimes quite hard to fit in all the information I would like to.

Obviously one of the main pieces of technology I use is the DSLR camera. As we used these last year, I have already required knowledge on how to use the camera, so when it came down to filming this time, it wasn’t such a task as I knew how to set everything to how I wanted it. It is always important for me for all my shots to be very in focus so the audience can see what’s going fully, however for some of my music video, when we went out it was raining which caused this to blur some of the material, but overall I think this worked to my advantage as it made the footage look a lot more creepy which I enjoyed because it meant in the editing stage I wouldn’t have to add that much to it. I used a tripod as well which meant that all my clips were aligned and overall looked more professional.

For editing, we primarily use the iMacs, which is an apple based computer. We used these last year, with all the programmes on it so it wasn’t so hard to get back into. I also have my own mac at home so this time I was able to do work out of the class room, which made my life a lot easier and made my work load feel like a lot less. I think using the iMac so often has given me more confidence with the programmes on it as well, so I was able to create my product a lot faster, because I knew what I wanted to do, and how to do it mostly. I also used the PC in order to create power points as again this for me is a good visual learner and I am able to use this programme well.

The main programme on the iMac which I used was obviously iMovie. As we had previously used this for our main task last year as well, it wasn’t as hard to use anymore and I knew more or less everything I needed to in order to create a good steady clip to clip film. However, I had never done a lip synced video before. So before I did my main product, I decided it would be best to do a practise lip sync video. iMovie worked well with this and I found it quite simple yet frustrating at times. I think this programme for video editing is very user friendly and I understand how most things work, which worked to my advantage when creating my actual music video. Also as a practise before we did our main product, we did a green screen task as well, which we again edited in iMovie. It was very simple to do and I liked the way it looked and the result I got, however for my own music video I thought the use of it would be too much and make it look quite un-natural, so in the end I decided it would be best not to put it in.

For the editing of my digipak, I used Photoshop and Literoom. As a photography student, I knew quite a lot of how to work this programme because we use it almost every week. I found this stage quite challenging because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, however I knew I wanted to link it back to my music video. With literoom, this is much more simple to use just for editing the saturation,exposure etc. of a photo, so before I was to edit the titles onto my product, I did this so for the most part, all my digipak photo colours matched. Overall, this worked well for me because I managed to create both of my pieces using my artist in the same outfit so it automatically allowed all my pieces, including my music video to all link well together.

iTunes was also another programme I had to use in order to create my music video. I downloaded a few tracks which I was contemplating using. The 3 tracks I selected were Lana Del Rey – Money, Power, Glory. Marina and the Diamonds – Teen Idle, and obviously the track I ended up choosing which is Florence and the Machine’s Girl With One Eye. iTunes is very user friendly and allows you to preview tracks before you fully buy them. This helps as well for research because you can listen to tracks which are similar to the one you are working on and try and gather idea’s just from the lyrics alone. Even though iTunes didn’t overly impact my whole music video with research or anything, it did provide me with the song I was using with my main task and therefore was a key programme whilst forming my product.

Overall, all of the technologies, programmes and online search engines and websites have helped me complete my product well. I have been able to research fully into other artists music video’s and analyse them and then incorporate their idea’s into my own, which is what I wanted. With iMovie as well, this gave me the freedom to create whatever I wanted and with my knowledge of the programme I think I have been able to do this well, and create an end product which I am proud of.