2. How did you use new technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
My skills in using digital technology improved greatly throughout each
section of the production course and consequently played a vital role in
the creation of music video, digipak and magazine advert. Throughout
each of the pre-production, production and post-production stages,
digital technology was necessary in many forms, helping to enhance the
process. To begin with, the initial digital technology I became introduced
to was the website Blogger. Blogger was a platform that enabled me to
create a collective group blog with individual postings, meaning that
each member of my group could publish, share and acquire feedback for
every post, whilst keeping information organised and easy to access.
3. Pre-Production
Despite also using Blogger as the backbone of my evidence to upload
posts and keep research and planning organised, I found that during
research I lay more of an emphasis on websites such as YouTube and
Soundcloud. Both are popular and very reliable sources, particularly
when it came to viewing examples of past music videos for my chosen
artist- Bondax.
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook enabled me to
gain an idea of the sort of following that this artist had received. This
was a crucial piece of research, particularly on initially choosing a song,
as I wanted to make sure that the artist we chose was not too
mainstream- it would be difficult to reproduce an already popular
charted music video- however also something that had a certain sense
of appeal, even if this was only to a niche audience.
4. Pre-Production
Using Google images meant that when it also came to producing my
digipak and magazine cover, reliable examples were easy to find.
Searching through Google images meant that I was able to research
digipak net designs and examples of past artist magasine covers.
Digital technology was extremely beneficial in this process, however the
only downfall at this stage was that our relatively new artist- Bondax
hadn’t produced a magazine advert or even a debut album cover. On
one hand this meant that I was provided with a clean sheet to design
without fear of appearing to imitate the artists previous work.
5.
6. Production
The process of production for my music video was fairly straightforward
in the end. By using a DSLR Canon 650 camera, I was able to achieve
high quality, adaptable cuts that weren’t unfocused or fuzzy on replay.
This put me into the role of director and cinematographer, as the Canon
allowed for multiple shots, leaving plenty of footage to turn to in the
post-production process.
7. Production
For the production of the digipak and magazine cover, digital technology
played a vital role, as programs such as Photoshop and InDesign were
key to both products. It was crucial that the digipak cover was decided
first, as then we could synergistically apply a similar (or in my case, the
same) picture to the magazine cover, clear indication of the link
between artist, track, album and magazine display.
8. Post-Production
In terms of my music video, the post- production stage was most
definitely the most time consuming of them all. However, Final Cut Pro
(a somewhat more advanced version of iMovie) enabled me to fit
together both the sound track and the footage of our video using the
iMacs. Due to the nature of my music video, being that when we shot it,
many parts were long continuous takes of the male character following
his love interest around town. It was possible to choose the most fitting
chunks of footage and just slot them into the timeline, as we did not
need to worry about spending time cutting between jump shots of lip
synching artists or still scenery.
9. Post-Production
I found that, for the post-production of both my digipak and magazine
cover, the website Pixlr was also helpful in constructing the choice of
font for my digipak as I only had to look at past examples from album
covers by Bondax themselves, to determine with font suited the style of
my product. Once this had been chosen, it became relatively simple to
apply the same text to the magazine article, whilst also ensuring that it
was a more suitable font size, due to the change in dimensions of the
magazine.
