The student used various media technologies throughout the research, planning, and evaluation stages of constructing a music video. Mobile phones were used for communication, photography, and accessing work online. Blogger was the primary platform for documenting the entire process with photos, videos, and receiving feedback. Video editing software like Sony Vegas was utilized to assemble scenes and add effects to the final music video.

1. Evaluation Question 4;
How did you use media technologies
in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?

2. Mobile phones
During the research and planning stages of our music video, there are
many media technologies that we have used. An easy way of taking
pictures and a way of communication and organisation between us
was with using mobile phones. I used my phone to contact our actor to
arrange dates and times of when we were filming. Also with Tom who I
was working with, to communicate. I also used my mobile phone to
take pictures at each location whenever we didn’t take a camera. I also
videoed a short clip when we filmed in the hall at school on my phone
which I then uploaded to blogger. Blogger is another thing which I used
on my phone, so that while on scene I could look at the storyboarding
without having to take it all with us.
After taking these images and videos, I used Bluetooth to send the
media to a computer which I then uploaded to blogger.

3. This is a screenshot of a
I have used blogger throughout comment on my blog from
the research, planning and my teacher which I then
evaluation stages. I used it to improved on.
record everything that we have
done, such as when out filming,
editing stages, digipak, magazine
advert and our music video.
This allowed me to create new
posts each time, also being able
to edit them if I find something
else relevant. This was also good
to get easy feedback from my
teacher on my work so that he
could give me ways in which to
improve.
This was a good way for us to
keep up to date with work, as
it’s easy to access whenever
internet was available.

4. On Blogger, I was able
to upload pictures
and screen shots and
embed videos. This
kept it all together
and organised for
each post and images
and videos supported
what I was talking
about. For example,
here is a screenshot
of a post I did on an
analysis of Kanye
West – All of the
lights. Writing
supported by the
video and images.

5. YouTube has been very useful to us. We have been able
to watch music videos from our genre to get some
inspiration for our music video. We also was able to
upload a preview video onto YouTube to gain some
feedback from our audience. Then later on uploaded our
finished music video to YouTube to gain more feedback
from our audience.

6. Search Engines
Google was very useful during research and planning.
We searched for images to upload to our blog. We also
researched images for ideas for our digipak and
magazine advertisement.
Google also has its own maps, we used this to research
the locations which we were going to use, such as where
we were taking our establishing shots from in our video.

7. Prezi
• Prezi is a good website and another way of using
multi media throughout my posts on blogger. I
have used it on may occasions as a way to display
my work. It’s easy to view and clear way to present
information.

8. I used Microsoft
PowerPoint for some
of my analysis’. I then
uploaded these onto
my own account on
Slideshare. This then
allowed me to embed
the PowerPoint onto
blogger. Using more
multi media to
present my work.

9. Still Cameras
Throughout the making of our music video we took
many pictures whilst we were out filming. This was
so that we could blog it all when we got back to
show our progress. Besides using phones, we also
used cameras to take images of our first digipak
ideas on paper.
To take these images we used a Canon Eos 300D
camera. We used this camera as it’s quite
professional and took our images in good quality.

10. For research and planning we had to contact our artist.
Our only way of really doing this was by Twitter. We
contacted Drake to ask for his permission to use his song
and re create a music video for it. This was so that we
didn’t breach copyright for it. We also used Twitter to
share our preview video and final music video to our
followers.

11. Facebook is a site where many of our target
audience spend a lot of time on. Because we
know this, we posted our preview video onto it
for our friends to see and to get feedback from
them. We also posted our final music video here
too.

12. Sony Vegas
Sony Vegas is the software that we used to
create our music video. We edited different
scenes and synced the song to the visual all on
Sony Vegas. There are many different effects on
here that we could use in our video.
We used the timeline to import all of our videos
on to and put in relevant cut aways and effects.

13. Sony Vegas – Tools used within
Black and White:
We used black and white in some parts of our video. This was to meet the
conventions of our genre Hip Hop. This effect was easy to apply to
particular clips in our video. To do this, I selected the clip I wanted to put
into black and white, then went to ‘video FX’ then ‘black and white’ and
dragged the effect on to the selected clip.

14. Sony Vegas – Tools used within
Contrast:
On some of our natural high key lighting, we wanted to
adjust the contrast to make the subject and the artist
become more dominant. We was able to do this on Sony
Vegas. Again by using the video FX. After dragging the
effect onto the clip you could choose the amount you
wanted it to contrast by dragging the cursor left or right.

15. Sony Vegas – Tools used within
Green Screen:
To edit the green screen clips we wanted to use, we had to
use the Chroma keyer effect which then allowed us to use
any backgrounds that we liked. We had to select the effect,
drag it to the clip, then tick the box that said ‘mask only’.
Once we were only looking at the mask, we could get the
bright white to be perfectly defined and untick it, revealing
the artist which then allowed us to put him on whatever
background we wanted.

16. Sony Vegas – Tools used within
Split Screen:
We created a split screen effect because it was something that we had seen
in many other Hip Hop videos. We managed this by creating a new layer and
using the ‘event/pan crop’ tool. To select the amount of the image that we
wanted to use.
Because we had such a large amount of editing and different effects in our video,
every time we went to watch it back, it was lagging. This wasn’t very useful for the
amount of editing we had to do as it lost us a lot of time.

17. Microsoft Office
Microsoft office has many software's which we used. The two
that I often used throughout research, planning and
evaluation were Microsoft word and PowerPoint. I used
PowerPoint to present some of my work. For example, an
analysis of Flo Rida’s ‘whistle’ I chose to show on a PowerPoint
which I then uploaded to Slideshare to embed onto my blog.
I also used Microsoft word. I mainly used this to draft out my
posts before publishing them onto blogger. Another thing I
used word for was to create tables for shot lists and risk
assessments. I was then able to upload these to Slideshare
again to embed onto my blog. These were both two
software's which I found very useful when researching and
planning.

18. Video Camera
This year we used a HD camera to
film the whole music video. This was
a Panasonic HDC – SC700. For our
music video, a lot of what we filmed
worked best in HD because of the
lighting. It best captured every
flicker of the strobe lighting effect
which we used. Also when using
green screen, the HD camera picked
up the subject more clearly so we
could then define the edges of the
subject when editing, which allowed
use to use any background we
wanted to. This camera is also able
to take pictures. This was useful
whilst we were filming in case we
hadn’t got a still camera, as it was
better quality than our mobile
phones.

19. Lighting
We used many different kinds of lighting in our
music video. A software that we did use for one
lighting scene was on champsys PC. Showtec
explorers. An effect we used on this was
spot/wash 575. This created an atmospheric
effect for whilst our actor was performing.

20. Tripod
A tripod was essential for
our filming. If we didn’t use
this, all of our shots would
be unprofessional and
shaky. If there was a part
where we didn’t use a
tripod it was purposely
done to create an
atmospheric look. This is a
picture of the tripod which
we used.

21. Photoshop CS4
We used Photoshop for our ancillary task
two. This was something Tom and I were
both familiar with which is why we chose to
use this software. On Photoshop, there are
many different fonts, texts and styles to
chose from. After choosing our fonts and
styles we were also able to position them
anywhere on the advert that we wanted to.
We were also able to layer images on top of
the first image on here. This was useful as
we wanted to include the image of our
digipak and parental advisory logo.
Photoshop helped us to create a
professional looking finished piece.

22. Illustrator
We used illustrator for our first ancillary task of creating the
digipak. Illustrator included templates which we downloaded.
We used these templates so that we could get the correct size
which our images had to be. Illustrator, like Photoshop, has
many fonts etc to chose from. We wanted to keep the two
ancillary tasks linked using brand identity, so we went with the
same font on both. The insides however, we used a smaller
font and the colour white. This was so that it would stand out
against the images in the background.

23. Barcode generator
This barcode generator
website allowed us to
create a professional
barcode for our
products. This is
something that our
digipak will need on it to
make it official which is
why we did this.

24. Evaluation
Throughout the creating of our music video and ancillary
tasks, I have used many different technologies for our
evaluation.
I used blogger to keep record of all the work that I have done.
For our evaluation, we posted our music video onto Facebook,
YouTube and Twitter for audience feedback. Also created a
questionnaire for our target audience using Microsoft word.
I have used Slide share to upload presentations onto my blog.
As well as prezi.
Also, I used the sound booth to make a video voice recording
on Sony Vegas for an explanation to one of my evaluation
questions.