For my A2 Media Blog

1. How did we use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?

2. For the research/planning the conventions and existing
videos of the genre, we used three main websites:
 YouTube
 Google
 WordPress

3. YouTube was the most important research tool for our
coursework. We used it to discover and watch different
music videos from the same genre, in order to gain an
insight into what our music video should look like. As
the majority of artists’ music videos are on YouTube, it
was the ideal tool to gain inspiration and to analyze the
conventions of the Drum n’ Bass genre. YouTube was
fundamental to our inspiration of our music video.

4. Google was another useful tool that we used for our pre-
filming research. This search engine made it incredibly
easy to find websites or articles to guide us through our
research. It allowed us to find specific websites that
taught us about genre conventions, history of artists, the
genre, and the industry. We also used it as a guide for our
editing and filming as there were aspects we did not
know how to use/create; Google gave us websites which
guided us through some issues.

5. WordPress was our main tool used for planning our
video. The website gave us the ability to post all our
research organized manner to create the stepping stones
of our media product. It was an ideal website to
document/blog our activities and planning leading up to
our video.

6. Our main digital technology that we used for filming:
 Canon EOS 100D
 IPhone 5s Light

7. The Canon EOS 100D was our main tool used for the
filming of our music video. We chose to use this camera
because of its 18-megapixel capability which was a step
up from the camera we used in out AS video. It also had a
manual focus, which gave us the ability to play with the
focus of our shots ( Deep/Shallow focus) that we used in
out video.

8. In our shots such as the lip syncing, the scene was quite
dark and it was difficult for our camera to pick up
anything. So we chose to use the camera light of an
IPhone 5s and some other iPhones to illuminate the
shot. It turned out to be quite useful and affective for
certain shots such as the lip syncing of just the singer’s
mouth. However it didn’t work as well in illuminating
shots from a distance further than 2-3 feet. To do this we
could’ve used a professional camera light, however we
did not have access to one so we had to make use of
what we had.

9. For the editing of our film we used:
 MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina Display
 IMovie

10. For the storage of our films and the editing of our
product, we used a MacBook Pro – 13 Inch Retina
laptop. We used the MacBook because it was the
only computer among the 3 of us which was the
most up to date and the less likely to lag or crash,
this led us to believe it was a more trustworthy
computer and we wouldn’t lose our work due to a
malfunction. Furthermore, it’s easy to use and it
comes with a video editor “IMovie”. Whereas the
other computers at our disposal had no software
for editing videos.

11. IMovie was the most important piece of software for the editing of
our final product. Although it isn’t the most high-end piece of
editing software available, it was easy to use and it was available to
us as the software came with the computer. It was also our go to
software because we already had experience working with it for AS
Media Studies. We agreed to use IMovie because we thought it
would take time to learn how to use another software and we were
already familiar with the current software. IMovie had basic editing
features however compared to other software on the market, it isn’t
as professional as other options in the market. With that being
said, although IMovie has its limitations we could still put together
a satisfactory piece of work. If we had used a better software we
could’ve added more affects and make the final product more
superior.

12.  Fotor
 Pixlr Online
 PowerPoint

13.  Fotor is a photo editing software which is free and
available on the internet. Fotor provides basic editing
tools such filters, changing colours, photo retouches,
etc. I used this for creating the theme and colour of the
digipak and advert.

14.  Pixlr is a free online Photoshop. Although it is limited
and doesn’t have the same range as tools as Photoshop,
it provides similar tools. I used this to create the
whited-out silhouette on front cover of the Digipak.

15.  I used PowerPoint for both the advert and the digipak.
It was useful because it provided the ability to add
pictures and logos onto the digipak. All writing
(Except for Artist Name & Album Name) and logos on
my digipak/advert were placed there using
PowerPoint.