A2 evaluation 4

1. EVALUATION
4
H O W D I D Y O U U S E M E D I A T E C H N O L O G I E S I N T H E
C O N S T R U C T I O N A N D R E S E A R C H , P L A N N I N G A N D
E VA L U AT I O N S TA G E S ?

2. RESEARCH TOOLS
Media technology has been a key part of every part of producing the music video and ancillary tasks, even in
the research stages where I wanted to extend my knowledge of music videos in order to have a better idea of
how to create an effective finished product.
• Google was one useful tool I used as a quick and easy way to access information when researching. From
accessing facts and figures to finding out about music video styles, history, meaning and conventions,
Google provided an answer.
• Obviously, an essential aspect of music video research was watching many music videos. The immediate
choice I used to do this was YouTube. I could search different songs, artists and genres to find the music
videos that best suited what I wanted to watch. At times it was a challenge to find original music videos as
many have been covered, however by using the channel Vivo I could find reliable videos. YouTube was also
beneficial as it helped me to research specific knowledge I needed when using software I hadn’t previously
used. Many people have created tutorial videos to help those who are less familiar with certain skills, like I
didn’t know where to start with creating a digipack on Photoshop, but by watching videos on YouTube I
could pick up these skills
• When researching I found it helpful to visit other blogs and websites. This included fan pages of the artist I
was using for my music video. This was useful as it allowed me to gain a greater understanding of my target
audience. Other students blogs were helpful for understanding that I was on the right track with what I was
creating and as well as help pages and websites allowed me to learn how to use digital technologies like
premier pro and even cameras.
• Survey monkey was useful for knowing what song to choose for my music video, and what types of people
would enjoy listening to the song. It also helped me to envision the types of images I would use in the music
video as I asked my audience what they imagined going with the song.

3. PRESENTATION TOOLS
• Blogger has been the tool I have used to present my coursework as a whole whilst
using a number of other methods to present information within blogger. It has been
an effective way to show my work as I have included pages and labels to navigate
through the research, planning, production and evolution with a separate page to
clearly show my final products.
• Prezi, PowerPoint and slide share, were tools I used to present my information in a
simple, yet engaging way. Slide share was a good tool for sharing my work but also for
looking at other sources of information for inspiration in PowerPoints that others had
created.
• As well as helping with research, YouTube was also useful for presenting the things
that I created such as the music video timeline time-lapse at the beginning of the
course and the video of the practice lip-syncing I created. However, there was an issue
with YouTube when it came to publishing the first draft and final music video. I had to
come up with a solution of how to display these videos so created a Vimeo account
which worked in a similar way to YouTube but meant I had to adjust slightly.

4. EQUIPTMENT
• The camera and tripod obviously were an essential part of the construction of the music
video. I discovered through trial and error the most effective ways to film to get the
impression that I was aiming for, such as flipping the screen around in order to film myself
better in the narrative shots and using autofocus; turning it off for some shots and not
others. I made the decision to go handheld when I wanted the shot to be slightly shakier in
the street scenes and contrastingly steadier in the narrative elements of the video.
• Filming the static TV screen seems like a simple thing, however setting the TV screen up in
order to film it in the music video took a couple of attempts. I had to find a video clip of
old-school static and make it full screen, before finding a way to turn the TV off so it went
fully blank straight away. This is another small example of an additional use of technology.
• All of the editing I did for the music video and ancillary tasks was on a computer. I had
some challenges with getting clips to load and making sure there was enough storage on
my computer but throughout the process I became better at organising this. There was one
moment where I deleted some essential clips from my account, however I solved this
problem and thankfully retrieved the deleted clips.
• I used my phone to take pictures of the mock up digipack and posters early on in the
project when I made my song decision as a quick way of moving images around. Phones
were also useful for communicating to my actors and organising equipment via email.

5. SOFTWARE
• Premier pro was the biggest software challenge that I had to learn how to use. I had
done some editing before at As however creating my own music video was a different
challenge as I was very music independent. With the help of internet tutorials and
advice from fellow students who had knowledge of specific skills I created the effects
that I desired such as the split screen, fast forward and mirroring in my video.
• It was a similar situation with learning how to use Photoshop. I had to develop skills
that I never knew before. With the help of online tutorials I could use my own creativity
to come up with the effect I was aiming for. I gradually became more confident with
my skills and could use my own initiative to realise how to do things. One moment as
an example was when I had to place the circular CD onto the digipack and put image
and text onto it.