The document discusses the various media technologies used throughout a music video class project. These included hardware like cameras and software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Fireworks, and Wix for editing footage, designing album artwork, and building a website. YouTube, Google, and social media were used extensively for research, tutorials, uploading content, and promotion. Memory cards, phones, and other devices helped facilitate the transfer and editing of content.

2. Introduction
Many different types of media technologies were used
throughout this music video class, especially in the
construction and research tasks. This is because we needed the
media resources to introduce us to our task and give us the
right idea of what we needed to create, as well as the
evaluation stages. We also relied on hardware to produce our
music video, as well as software to edit it and create our
digipak. We were familiar with some of the technologies from
every day use and from our AS tasks. However, some
technologies we decided to use were new to us so we had to
adapt to the changes and learn how to use them appropriately
and effectively.

3. The Internet
We used the internet a lot in all aspects of our task. In the
planning and research, we used websites such as YouTube and
Google to find music videos and websites to analyse so we
could start planning what we wanted in our music video. We
used websites of a similar genre, such as Rita Ora, as model
websites and we used influences such as the photo being the
main focus on the home page. As we looked at different
videos and websites, we built up an idea of the conventions
needed to create our own for the specific genre of R&B. These
conventions were things such as the red, black and white
theme, and the poses of the pictures being quite serious and
sometimes seductive.

4. YouTube
YouTube was a vital media tool we used as we used it to
research many different music videos made by different
artists and from a variety of genres, such as R&B and
Rock videos. We also used it to upload our lip syncing
task, our storyboard and our final music video. YouTube
was effective as it helped us to research videos and
upload our own. As well as this, we used YouTube to
search for tutorials to use software we weren’t too
familiar with, such as Premiere. Without YouTube, it
would’ve been harder to analyse other music videos and
to learn the conventions of them.

5. The internet was a vital part of our planning and
research as well as our production. We used the
website www.wix.com to create the website for our
music artist. This was a new website and process we
had to learn as we have not made websites before. It
was hard at first, but once we had researched and
looked at loads of actual music artists websites, we
used them to influence our website. Wix.com turned
into the most important website for us, as it allowed
us to create our website to the specific way we
wanted it.

6. We used a website called Prezi to create mind maps
and comparisons of different music videos and
websites. We also used it to create the star profile, as
well as many other parts of the research and
evaluation, as it enabled us to round up all of our
ideas and show them clearly. We enjoyed using it as
it is more interesting than using Powerpoint, and was
a new website that we hadn’t used before. It was
effective in what we wanted to us it for, which was to
see all of our ideas and analysis in one place.

7. We used Google as our search engine, as we searched
for music artists websites, CD covers, how artists
present themselves, genre conventions and music
videos. Google was important as it sorted the good
from the bad, and gave suggestions of links for us to
go to, instead of us trying to guess what links were
worth going on.

8. We used the website Surveymonkey.com as our
questionnaire. We chose this website over a
paper based questionnaire as it allowed us to
keep all of the information got from the
questionnaires in one place, so we could easily
analyse it. Also, it was a better chose as the
results are more likely to show a true reflection,
as people would be less likely to lie and give false
results. This was crucial as we based all of our
planning around the questionnaire results.

9. Social Networks
Social Networks such as Twitter & Facebook
were important as it allowed us to add more
to our digipak. We used it to try to promote
the artist, by making pages fans could 'like'.
This showed that we were up to date with the
audience we wanted to aim the video at, as
teens and young adults are obsessed with
social networking and technology. We also
used Tumblr to research pictures to inspire us
for our digipak.

11. Adobe Premiere Pro
Premiere Pro was our favourite programme in this project. We hadn't been familiar
with the software before, so we used YouTube and ‘Premiere for Dummies’ to help
us get to grips with what we had to do with it. We used our preliminary task, the
Britney Workshop, to make ourselves familiar with the process of editing. Even
though we did not get this completed, we at least got the hang of using the
software in time for our music video. We used the software for basic cutting, and
for placing music on top of the filming we had done. We then went on to use
effects such as black & white to make our video fit the conventions of the genre
more, and we felt it was relevant to have the ‘memory’ scenes in black & white, to
reflect the time difference. We also learnt how to create ‘split screens’, which we
used a few times through our editing, some which were later deleted. This was
when we used two shots of the same music or of the same thing, and made both
shots visible to the audience at the same time. We got this idea from the Beyonce-
Countdown video and wanted to use it to show that we could use different types
of shot and also to show we could use the editing software well. Premiere was a
good software as it allowed us to edit all of our footage and to create and edit the
music video until it was of a good enough standard to be submitted. We used 22
minutes of footage and wilted it down to fit with the music we chose.

12. Word
We used word to make graphs and pie charts for
the questionnaire results. This let us show
clearly what our questionnaire found and
what those who completed the questionnaire
wanted from our music video and digipak. We
also used it to make to do lists and to do our
risk assessments.

13. Fireworks
We used the media software of Fireworks for our
digipak, specifically the album cover and CD. As
we had used this software in AS, we were familiar
with how to use it to create the media product of
our chose. We used it to create 6 different parts
of the album cover effectively. We specifically
liked it as it allowed us to cut and edit the
photographs we had taken. We preferred this
software as it was familiar to us and we knew
that it would allow us to achieve the album cover
that we wanted.

15. Still Camera
We have used a still camera to take the pictures
for our digipak. This was important as we
needed a good quality to make the digipak
look professional. The camera we used was
effective in this as it produced high quality
photographs, that we could stretch and shrink
to any size without them pixelating. It also had
a good flash which let us take pictures in
darker places outside, as well as in cloudy
conditions.

16. Video Camera
The video camera we used for the digipak was also very good.
It was a new camera, which allowed us to use a memory
card instead of a tape. This was better as it was a quicker
way to film. The video camera had a flash built in so we
could film at night and it still showed a clear picture. The
video camera was useful as it had a long battery life, which
meant we could film for hours without worrying about it
cutting out. As a hardware, this was the most important
part of our A2 task, as it allowed us to film our music video
effectively. It also showed the shots we had done clearly by
date on the screen of the camera, so we could review and
reshoot if needed on the location of the filming, instead of
waiting until we had processed it onto Premiere.

17. Memory Card
We used a memory card for the video camera. This
was good as it had a lot of memory, and allowed
us to store all of our shots on one card. It also set
the filming out clearly by date. This was very
helpful compared to the way we have filmed in
the past. We used to use a camera that required a
tape that saved the filming onto it. However, this
was time consuming and was difficult to put onto
Premiere quickly. The memory card saved us time
as it made the process very quick.

18. Tripod
The tripod was important as it ensured we used the
camera to our full advantage. The tripod meant
we could film and the camera would stay steady.
This is important as our research showed most
videos shots are very steady and still, unless it is
representing something from the songs lyrics. We
believe that it is important that the shots were
steady as otherwise the music video would look
very unprofessional- something we wanted to
avoid at all costs.

19. Memory Stick
A memory stick was used to transfer our work
from one computer to the other. This was
important as we were lucky enough to of got
new computers with new software whilst we
were editing our footage, so we had to
transfer our work from one computer to the
other. This was important as it allowed us to
do our work on a newer, faster computer with
better software, so it allowed us to make our
work the best it could be.

20. iPhone
We used our iPhones to record some practise shots,
so we knew what worked and what didn't. We
also used it to play the song whilst we were
filming, to ensure we were getting the lip sync
right all of the time. We also used footage on the
phone. The app 'Aviary' was used to edit some of
the photographs, and ‘PicStitch’ to make a collage
of some of our pictures, in specific for the album
cover and for the star profile. The phones were
important as it let us do research on the move
and it allowed us to plan our next filming by using
the weather apps available.