Evaluation question 4

2. The computers at school have also been vital to my
music video production as I completed all of my
editing for the music video, as well as much of my
research and planning using the internet. The
computer was running Windows 7, which allowed me
to complete my work with out any lagging problems
or program crashing. The internet was great to
research, however I did find the small problem of
some websites being blocked on the school’s server
such as YouTube which would have helped a lot more
if I was able to access these sites.

3. My camera was my choice to film my
music video footage on due to HD
capturing as well as full accessibility to
the camera whenever I needed to use
it. I didn’t use many effects on the raw
footage because this would be easier
to complete post production. I got on
very well using the Canon, however
oneproblem that did occur was quick
movements made it hard to focus.

4. I also used television and film to inspire from when making my music video. I
had found multiple television adverts which uses good effects which were a
possibility for me to use in my music video. Television also gave me a good
idea of what my target audience would be listening to thanks to music
channels where many RnB songs with their videos were playing where I could
use ideas from. Film also helped me because I had a few RnB/hip-hop style
films such as ‘Step up’ which had some shots where the performances were
taking place which I used for inspiration, as well as a lot of mise en scene such
as costume, lighting and scenery which I used within my music video. All of
these pieces of research and planning were very useful to my project of
creating an RnB music video because they all directly effected the genre of
RnB and gave me great ideas for how my music video could look like, and just
to generally get me into the RnB spirit and attitudes which many RnB artists
portray through the music videos of RnB.

5. My personal MacBook was particularly useful for the
ancillary tasks because I was able to download fonts and
other parts which created a large part of my posters and
digipak. My MacBook also had access to Adobe
Photoshop which is what my ancillary tasks were created
in. I was also able to keep my blog up to date through the
internet on my MacBook which also gave me mobility as
my MacBook could be transported between school and
home and I was able to fit in time to blog much more
easily. My MacBook was also used for general research
into my genre and other music videos which would
contribute to the success of my overall project.

7. ITunes was very useful in the research and planning section of my
blogging where I needed to find inspiration for other artists, from song
names, feedback from fans, CD covers, pricing, record labels, and general
style of the artist which I would use to influence my decisions about my
final products for my artist ‘Alyssa’. ITunes was ideal for this because all
the mainstream RnB artists had music and sometimes even a specially
created page on ITunes which contained a lot of information which was
key to creating a successful artist package of my own.

8. Photoshop was particularly useful for my ancillary tasks where I
made a poster/magazine advert and a digi-pak, which are all
very visual yet the designs are very two dimensional and
required photograph editing. Due to my other course subject
being photography, I am very used to Photoshop and all the
controls and effects making Photoshop the best and most
professional option to edit my photographs into the magazine
advert as well as the digi-pak. The ability to change the fonts
and the smaller details which needed fine tuning to be the best
it could be were simple for Photoshop to manage. Overall,
Photoshop has been very effective for the level of creativity
that I wanted to be captured within my ancillary tasks as well as
the overall compatibility for each of my tasks to interlink
together.

9. Premiere Pro was the best option for me to edit my music
video together because it had the most capability in terms
of effects and general fine editing facilities. Last year’s
project, we used iMovie, however this time, I felt that I
wanted to challenge myself which meant using more
professional editing software which I felt would benefit
the final result of my music video due to the new
capabilities which the software allowed me to do.

10. Microsoft word was also extremely helpful
throughout the whole process for making
notes, writing out blog posts whilst offline,
planning my shot lists and shooting plans
and many other stages where I needed to
jot a note down and save it. I could also
access these documents from anywhere
due to saving the files on the shared
section meaning I could access the files
from home, or any other computer rather
than just at school. The ease of copy and
pasting images also helped me easily
transport images to and from school by
saving them into a word document.

11. I also used Microsoft PowerPoint for a lot of research, note
taking and inspirational presentations which I could use
when designing my products. For example, the blog post I
created which showed a range of existing CD covers from
RnB artists was created in this program and screenshot to
create the actual image file. The program was perfect to
allow me to move the images around to exactly where I
wanted as well as resizing them to fit well on screen. I also
made a slideshow PowerPoint presentation for my record
label research where I made a slide of information on a
range of different record labels in order for me to
collectively analyze the information which I had researched
and picked out of useless information for me to choose the
ideal record label for my artist. This was a perfect way to
allow me to narrow down my choices and was easy to
slideshare straight onto my blog with no hitches.

12. I have used blogger throughout my media project
to document my progress and research to make it
easier for me to refer back. I have found blogger
very easy to use throughout the pre-
production, production stages as well as the post
production because of the functions which easily
allows you to see your progress through the blog
posts which resembles a timeline of events.
Blogger also allows you to add multimedia to
posts such as YouTube and photographs which
helped me to visually demonstrate my ideas and
thoughts rather than plain descriptions.
Overall, Blogger has been

13. Throughout the whole process of producing my music video, I have
used YouTube constantly for referrals, inspiration and research. To
begin with, I used YouTube to decide on what genre of music I
thought I would like to make a corresponding music video to, where I
first found the RnB genre very interesting.
YouTube helped me to explore many different existing RnB music
videos in order to gather ideas for my own. I also found YouTube very
useful for the comments where members of the public expressed
their opinions on different RnB music videos and especially what they
think works well, and what is not as good. This was early stages of
market research, but for other music videos and learning from the
criticism of others. Another aspect of YouTube which was particularly
useful was the availability to check out any music video and to also be
able to take many screen captures for further analysis of the
proxemics and many other features such as Mise en Scene which
enabled me to realise what my music video is required to look like.

14. Amazon was also very useful for referencing
songs, albums, release dates and general information
on each CD such as record companies especially for
my pre-production research. The CD covers were also
easily available for me to copy for researching existing
products of cd covers and comparing the features
which I liked and this made it easier for me to see all
of the cd covers together in the form of a moodboard
which helped me visualise. Amazon also had
information on record companies, and track listings
which all helped me to understand the industry
better and helped my research.

15. Google was really great throughout my process of making the music
video, especially the research and planning stages where I relied on
Google a lot to find me interesting ideas through different search
criteria. I used Google images a lot when researching different album
covers, digipak ideas and magazine advert examples which I could
inspire from in order to create my own products. Google images was
ideal for this job because of the range of images it found, however a
lot of the time, the images were not relevant which was irritating. To
navigate between websites I may have found with inspirational
sources which was ideal. Overall, the majority of my research into
existing artists, existing digipak products, magazine articles which
have been published and record label research all included the initial
‘Google search’ which allowed me to find what I wanted to find out
related to what I needed.

16. Prezi was used within my music video production for an evaluation question.
Prezi is a new presentation format which allows you to show a presentation
in an alternative way rather than a PowerPoint which is more dynamic with
the movement and transitions. I also loved the way Prezi effortless allowed
you to include media such as embedding YouTube videos and images as part
of the presentation which just makes the presentation that little bit more
interactive where I was making a point and this meant I could visually
demonstrate what I was meaning. Overall, Prezi is a great alternative way to
present work over a blog.

17. Due to YouTube and a lot of other video sites being blocked on the school server, I
came across Vimeo, a website which allows members of the public to upload
videos, much like YouTube. Vimeo was better than YouTube in some ways because it
had more ‘Home made’ videos and a lot of fan videos which was sometimes quite
interesting to see how somebody else hears the song and translates it into a video. I
found a lot of the official music videos for many RnB artists which also was good
because I was unable to use my usual first choice for finding music videos, YouTube.
Overall, Vimeo was a good alternative to music video research, however I do still prefer
the wide variety of choice YouTube would have allowed me to have, never the
less, Vimeo still allowed me to find music videos through the school internet
effectively.

18. To make my digipak with an effective sizing
guide, I came across a website offering free
high quality PDF templates for a variety of
different digipak, some with 4 panels, some
with six and so on. These were very useful
because all was necessary to do, was to
save them to my documents, and import it
into Photoshop which I could create my
digipak panels around the template
meaning that the sizing guide would be
ideal and perfect for printing.

19. Slideshare is a website which allows you to upload
slideshows, word documents and other types of
document, so you can easily share the content
with other people as well as access to embed the
content to a blog which was more than ideal for
what I required. I uploaded a few blog posts using
slideshare because it was so easy to do and
looked clean and tidily presented well on the post,
however still enabled me to express the
information I needed for the blog.

20. I used Yahoo Answers for market research for when I was deciding upon names for the artist
I was going to create. I posted the question of suggesting decent RnB style names for a
pretend artist and I had many responses of suggestions which other people have suggested.
I also asked the question about lyrics, and what the public believed that the lyrics were
saying. This would help me understand some possible visuals to go along with my song track
to make a good music video. The answers were almost instant, and a lot of them were
sound information rather than useless information which I could not use. Another question
had previously been asked very similar to my artist name question which I was able to use as
inspiration as well which was good.

21. Tesco entertainment was also used within my research
stages for inspiration about how the CD’s from existing
artists are promoted within the industry. This was very
interesting as although we as consumers see this
marketing all the time, when thinking from a
marketing point of view, a lot of the time it is
effortless and perfectly slotted in to websites to make
us believe that the album is much better than it
appears. Tesco had a great range of CD’s which were
produced by mass RnB artists which I could also use to
see how they promote the new CD’s.

22. Urban fonts was great for me to use when coming to
creating my ancillary tasks because the standardised fonts
which come with computers were not best suited to an
RnB CD cover or poster. This font website specialised in
‘Urban and street’ fonts which were all perfect for my
tasks, however some of the graffiti fonts were perfect. The
fonts were easy to download and install, then I began
playing around to make my logo for Alyssa, as well as the
poster and CD Cover which would also include my logo.

23. YouTube to MP3 is a converter which saves just
the audio of a YouTube clip to a MP3 file. This was
particularly useful because to be able to make the
music video, I needed the music track for my
actress to mime to for accuracy, and ease for
syncing the music video footage to the audio
track. I found YouTube to MP3 to be a very easy
way of grabbing the tunes which I required to use
for my music video, keeping the same sound
quality throughout the downloading process.

24. I particularly used Wikipedia for my record label research where I
visited a range of pages for RnB artists which I would like to base
my artist on, and researched into what record label they used,
how successful they were in terms of sales and general
background history of the artists and the way they promote
themselves to sell more records. Wikipedia was perfect for this
information because they include all record labels and the
information page about each record label that an artist has used,
and for what album which really gave me a good idea of the style
of music each of the record labels liked to specialise in.