1. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
We used a wide range of media technologies during the production of our product, video, and
digipak/advert. We filmed our Music Video with a Canon 700D DSLR camera which allowed
us to achieve 1080p HD shots. Filming with a DSLR also allowed us to use other lens’ too
and for this we used a wider lens which could zoom further in and remain focus for our liquid
shots. We also used studio lighting to ensure that our product didn’t have dark shots.
The lighting for these shots were a big issue for us. We initially filmed them in our colleges
studio which has a range of lighting, screens and platforms to balance the glass on top of but
the glass had a very evident glare against the camera lens. We played around with the
lighting, adding more and taking some away but nothing seemed to help the problem. We
took our props home and found that just a plain white wall and a bedside stand away from the
window but still in natural lighting let us achieve the shots we wanted.
To edit our music video we used the apple exclusive editing software, Final Cut Pro. Final Cut
Pro offers a good range of editing techniques and effects that allowed our product to look
industry standard. Although our music video hasn’t been manipulated that much and doesn’t
include over-the-top special effects and editing we did frequently slow down and speed up
clips for an accurate lip sync match and also for accurate thought beats. We played around
with the colouring of our video by changing the saturation which allowed us to choose from a
wide range of colours. Most of the drug use scenes in our music video are either purple or
blue to represent the protagonists vision and current state of mind. We used the ‘blur’ effect
on two shots of our music video, these included the mirror shots and some of the protagonists
eye shots as blurred vision is an effect of drug use. We applied such techniques to show the
audience the effects that drugs cause without focusing too much on it, as the main concept
behind the video is the protagonist's response to heartbreak which is symbolised through the
heart shaped locket she has hold of for the majority of the music video. The protagonists
heartbreak story is left open for the audience to interpret. Our original idea included the
protagonist frequently checking her phone and receiving text messages from her ex boyfriend
and this can be seen in our very first rough cuts. However, we decided to completely scrap
this idea and only keep one text message which displays the lyric ‘it won’t mend your heart if
it’s only a couple of lines’ we overlaid this with a ‘funhouse’ effect which gives the clip a very
hard to read droopy effect, again, this shows the protagonists vision from her point of view.
We used the ‘projector’ effect to overlay some scenes in our music video. Some clips of the
liquid we filmed had this effect turned up to it’s maximum capacity to give a very 3D look
However, we turned down the effect a lot in some of the clips of the protagonist as it looked
too much and quite cheap which was not our desired effect. The final effect we used with
Final Cut Pro is the ‘letterbox’ feature. This allowed us to change the width of our video to a
more cinematic style (2:35) which we agreed looked a lot better for our style of music video.
To create our advert and digipak we used the programme ‘Photoshop CS5.1’ by Adobe.
Photoshop was the best option for us to edit the advert and digipak as we weren’t happy with
the images we achieved and needed to shoot new ones but Photoshop allowed us to create
all of the base layers like the overall text and design and slot the final images we were happy
with at the very end allowing us to save time and put a lot more focus onto the music video.
To create the digipak we also used Photoshop CS5.1, we found a template online for a six
panel tray which could hold one cd. We thought this was the best for our product as the six
panels allowed us to show our best shots and include them in the digipak.
Another platform we used throughout the creation of our music video was the website,
‘YouTube’, which was the platform in which we uploaded our rough cuts, test footage and
achieved footage so that we both could access it as well as easily link it to blogger to embed.
YouTube definitely helped us with the creation of our music video as it allowed us to view our
music videos’ rough cuts on a platform other than Final Cut. YouTube showed us some
aspects of our music video that needed changing and adapting and this was mainly the first
few shots of our music video. On Final Cut we thought that the initial beginning was a strong
2. point of our video but when watching it back on YouTube we found that it was very dragged
out and a bit repetitive therefore we cut the shots down some more using Final Cut. YouTube
was also a good contribution to the editing stage as looking at the rough cuts compared to the
final cut showed us a clear development and journey to look back on.
After previously using ‘Blogger’ for our AS work, we decided that this would be the most
suitable programme to display our A2 work as it is fairly easy to navigate and allows users to
display their blog posts to an audience with a link. Blogger also allows users to have custom
headings and sidebar images, which we wanted to display our brand identity and record
company logo. This made our blogs look more professional whilst also advertising the
products.
