2. Technology has been used in many
different ways across a variety of
platforms throughout the process of
my work this year. From online
social networking to communicate to
my audience, to market free
laissez-faire sites such as Amazon
and eBay to Post-production
software like Final Cut Pro X even
technologies involved in the pre-
production such as Blogger.
Technology is a key component in
media and especially in today’s
society. I’ll be exploring the ways
in which I have used technology to
help me with the construction f my
final product.

3. Let’s start from the beginning. For post-production I used many
websites in order to display research, feedback and diary
entries. My main source was a online platform known as Blogger
(or Blogspot). I used this website to log all my knowledge,
planning, research etc. It was really useful as it allowed me to
express my work creatively and it was on a digital platform which
allowed me to access it from anywhere; making it easy and
accessible to work with. I was able to create my own custom style
blog to make it unique to me and my music video and I found this
aspect of the website fun and interactive.

4. As with everything there are limitations and
restrictions to things. This applies to Blogger. It
has many pros but some of the cons made it hard to
let my creativity as loose as I wanted it to be. I
found it hard to align my texts and images in a
particular way, thus restricting my vision for my
blog. I often found that I had to manually resize
inserted videos from YouTube to fit and also
slideshows to fit the width.
BEFORE
AFTE
R

5. Other online technologies I used to display my
work was websites such as Slidely, Prezi,
PicMonkey, Go!Animate, Slideshare and Emaze. All
these sites were extremely useful and creative
when I wanted to present work. I used PicMonkey
for collages, Slidely to make quick slideshows
with audio, Prezi for animated and detailed
presentations, Go!Animate for a comedic quality,
Emaze as another detailed way to present and
finally Slideshare as another alternative to
presenting work. These all allowed me to be
creative.

8. Again, restrictions apply. Although all these
websites are brilliant ways to display ideas,
research etc. To use these sites you have to be
computer savvy and if you’re not you’ll need at
least a couple hours to familiarise yourself with
the design and tools of each program. I was new to
Slideshare and Emaze and I found it difficult to
understand how each program worked. Although most of
the tools are similar it is hard to figure out what
symbol means what and how it works. It was also
difficult reading my work on Slideshare as it would
downsize the images and texts so it would have to be
viewed in full screen.

10. Technology is ever changing and keeping up
with the latest up to date equipment and
software is important, especially when
trying to connect with a society of digital
natives. For my music video the use of
technology was a huge component including my
online blog to log my progress to the
filming process and equipment used and even
my studio location.

11. To film my music video I used a DSLR camera (Nikon
D3000) that would give me the ability to perform focus
pulls and would enable my video to be in high
definition which is exactly what I needed as my video
had to express a ‘crisp’ and ‘clean’ quality to it,
especially in the studio shots. Using the camera was
easy to manoeuvre and came with a SD card which made
importing an transferring my footage to the MACs very
simple and quick. I used the same camera to take my
album and magazine images as again, it took very high
quality photos and enabled me to zoom in and out and
achieve soft and harsh focus definition.

12. Initially I found the DSLR’s a little confusing to
use as in my AS year I had used a Panosonic handheld
device which did everything for me with the touch of
a button, but in less quality. However the fun part
about using the DSLR’s is getting to experiment with
the manual lens and working out how it all works.
Although this did draw me back a little on time I
found it much more beneficial in the end.

13. As my video was very abstract and
minimalistic I wanted to include
something a bit different. I used a
green screen for some cutaway shots
to infuse difference and keep the
audiences attention. I used HQ
background animations to overlay my
footage. I did this using the
software Final Cut Pro X and using an
effect called ‘mask’ under ‘keying’.
This enabled me to eliminate the
green screen and replace it with the
desired background.

14. Using the green screen held a few
difficulties. My original vision was to have a
shadowy image with a animated background so it
blended and didn’t look so fake. However, in
order to achieve a decent enough green screen
the subject and the backdrop have to be well
lit and this meant I had to further edit in
FCP the subject’s shadows, midtones and
highlights in order to make the edges blend
properly. While trying to use the keying mask
tool it also made it difficult as it couldn’t
detect the image properly due to the lighting
not being bright enough this meant I had to
fiddle around more in FCP effects settings to
try an make it work to the best of my ability.

15. During filming I also used a track and a crane to
achieve some of the slow panning shots in my music
video. Using this equipment was difficult as I hadn’t
used them before, however a track is pretty self-
explanatory and meant using a tri-pod to mount the
camera onto the track in order to move in smoothly in
what ever direction I wanted. The crane was again
another piece of equipment I hadn’t come across before
and required some assistance from friends. I found
that the crane was hard to move smooth enough without
it being a bit jittery and it was much heavier than it
seems!

16. When coming up with my music video idea I knew straight away I
wanted something different from other college videos and through
inspiration from people I watch on YouTube (BeautyCrush) I found
a video which incorporated what I wanted to used in my own video.
Smoke grenades. I knew straight away that using smoke grenades
would give my video a little edge and so I used websites such as
Amazon.com and eBay to search for some. Using the internet
technology I was able to purchase my own and it made my video a
whole lot more professional. However, the negatives to using the
internet to purchase props is that it is a huge place and finding
the right thing can be difficult. I ended up searching for days
looking for the right type of grenades in the right colours and
also trying to find Metallic gold paint and gold glitter proved
to me a struggle.

18. The most important piece of software used for
post-production was the program Final Cut Pro X.
I used this to do all of my editing for my music
video. The software was very easy to use and I
was aware of the features due to my first year
using in when doing my AS piece. I could import
my footage quickly and drag them to the
timeline. The tools such as blade made editing
very easy and meant that I could precisely cut
down the footage to the right spot.
I was also able to adjust the
brightness, contrast, lighting
and colour balance really easily
to create a true black and white
effect.

19. I used final cut pro frequently throughout my
progress on multiple things. I used it for my
preliminary tasks, my frame by frame and even to
put together my own diary entries. It enabled
variety and made my blog more creative. I also used
Final Cut Pro to answer my evaluation question 1 to
make it more entertaining to watch/listen to. I was
able to add layers to show visually what I was
explaining. FCP is a really professional and useful
piece of software and technology that enabled me to
easily use the variety of effects and tools to
produce a professional and convincing media
product.

20. I used another program called PhotoShop CS6
which I’m very accustomed too. I’ve used PS
many times on many things so using this
software was easy. I used PS to create my
album cover, digipak and magazine advert. I
used lots of layers to create smoother skin,
I used the smart blur tools, dodge and burn
tools and used it to mix brightness and
contracts. I also used fonts and was able to
create a professional looking digipak. I
also used online websites such as DaFont to
download all my font choices as these were
free to use and I could use them on my
digipak and magazine.

22. Youtube was the distribution site in
which I upload all my content too. I used
YouTube as it’s a familiar website to me
and it is one of the most popular and
most often visited sites ever. YT enabled
me to title my video, a space to describe
the content, a place to put tags so
people can find it quicker and includes a
‘like’ and ‘dislike’ button so audiences
can express their opinions.
I used YT a lot when
researching while
planning. I was able to
use YT to compare my
video to others, to
gain inspiration and to
analyse and evaluate
the genre conventions
of my chosen genre.

23. My target audience were digital natives and
digital immigrants who had recently converted
to online social media and networking. After
the movie ‘The Social Network’ it was clear
that Facebook was a very popular social
network worldwide and if I wanted to target my
audience I’d have to promote through this
platform. I also used Twitter as this is
another social site that communicates well
with my target audience age of 18-25. These
sites made it easy to share my work and
allowed people to comment and ‘like’ my
content. This was really helpful when getting
audience feedback during my rough cut and
digipak research.

24. I’ve discovered and understood more through this
process that technology has played a very key
feature in the production and promotion of my
music video. From start to finish it’s helped me
form ideas, communicate with my target market,
understand genres and urban tribes and enabled me
to experiment with different pieces of equipment
and software successfully and professionally. I
found my individual style and aesthetic really
helped with my digipak and making me stand out
and creating an abstract music video.
The more technology advances the more we become
disabled with understanding how things work but
this doesn’t mean we stop there, it enables us to
progress and expand our ideas and creativity.
I’ve become more aware of technology not
only in a creative way but also from a
theoretical perspective.