The student used various media technologies at different stages of their music video project. In planning, they researched other music videos on YouTube to get ideas. Google was heavily used for general research. During construction, they used a Canon DSLR camera to film scenes and a photo shoot. For editing, Final Cut Pro was used to edit the video and Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator were used for print materials. For evaluation, they used Prezi for presentations, Blogger to document their process, and SlideShare to share their presentation online. Wix was also used to create a website to showcase their work.

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

2. Research and Planning

3. YouTube
YouTube was probably one of the best research sources we had because we looked at other
artists and how they portrayed their music through their music videos. As a fan girl myself, I
am quite aware of these things and I always criticize the music video without realising it. I
think this was a good way of seeing how a video could be successful, whether it was a
narrative based or a performance based music video. Furthermore, YouTube gave us a
chance to embrace and develop our ideas by looking at other, more professional artists
because we had to make sure our music video went along with the track. One of the case
studies we used/ was mostly inspired from was Jhene Aiko’s Comfort Inn Ending because
that too was about heartbreak. It gave us a hint of how we could set the mood of the video
which was very useful. Her video was also edited in certain scenes to make it have a blueish
effect because blue usually symbolises knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness, and as
you get through the heartbreak, you start to learn and become a stronger person (in some
cases).

4. Google
Google was probably the greatest research
source for us because everything was linked to
us from there. For example, we had to upload
our video on YouTube, which we was linked
from Google and from there we had to embed
the video onto Blogger. We used Prezi, Moodle,
TimeToast and LeytonMediaHub all from
Google resources/ websites, which were highly
needed for this project. I used Google to also
research about Goodwin’s theory and to
understand what Postmodernism was. I feel
like Google was the main source we used
throughout this project, as it helped us in
various ways.
Moodle helped me and my partner a lot for
this project because we managed to get some
sources that we needed. We had links to the
call sheets, the treatment, the talent releases
forms, risk assessment forms, story board
templates, and also examples that were made
from before. These were really helpful as
they guided us. Moreover, from Moodle we
could connect to other people’s blog, which
also did help us get inspired. We could see
other people music videos and sort of
compare them, talking about which factors
were an advantage, which ones were
disadvantages and what could be improved.
Moodle

5. Twitter/ Instagram
Twitter and Instagram are probably my favourite
apps to use, especially because of the fact that
I’m a fan girl for music. Through these social
networks, a lot of promotion can be done and I
have witnessed this myself with various artists.
Being able to trend things creates a massive
source of promotion on social media. Everyone
would be able to see it and click on it, therefore,
helps the audience find out more about the
artists and their music. Furthermore, it is a great
way to share your music videos because the link
can straight away take you to YouTube. You can
post little snippets of videos and pictures on
Instagram that can automatically be tweeted on
your twitter account, which again leads to a link.
I used both apps to promote our music video
and we got a lot of views and positive feedback
from nearly everyone.
TimeToast
This software allowed me to organise my
time properly because it helped me see
which deadlines I needed to meet at
which time for this specific project. I think
it was fun to set up as it gave me a general
idea of when/ of how much I needed to
do, also keeping in mind of how much
time I have got left for a specific deadline.

6. Construction

7. Canon DSLR Camera
I have developed many skills whilst recording the music video, editing the music video and also making the
print productions. I first learnt how to control and use the Canon DSLR camera properly whilst shooting the
music video. I needed to use the tripod quite a lot to make sure that the camera was still and secure whilst I
was recording the park scenes, the bathroom scenes and the living room scenes. However, I did need to hand
hold the camera for some of the park scenes to make sure I had a variety of techniques used. Furthermore, I
had to play around and use the correct settings for the lighting so that it wouldn’t give off a bad effect whilst it
was on the big screen, but some scenes did get a little grainy when we saw it on the big screen, so next time I
will make sure I use the correct and more accurate lighting correlations. In addition, I had to make the camera
focused properly but the only time it didn’t work out well was when I had to hand hold the camera whilst
recording the close up of the phone. Next time I would use better grip and try not to shake the camera that
much so that it could focus more vividly. As we were doing a music video, sound wasn’t that much of a problem
for us because the soundtrack would go over the sounds that were picked up during the recording. We just had
to edit the lip syncing scenes and the track together so that they would look and sound as if Nana was singing
the song.

8. Photo shoot Images

9. Editing

10. Final Cut Pro
Editing the music video was highly tricky for me because I wasn’t really that great at using Final
Cut Pro; however my partner Nana was very good at it so he mostly edited the video together. I
enjoyed fixing/ colour correcting each scene because the idea of the flashbacks was to make
them really vibrant and vivid in the beginning but they’d gradually start to fade as Nana got closer
to committing suicide. I also helped pick some of the filters like the ‘bad television’ effect because
that went really well with our theme of the video. Moreover, it was really fun discussing which
scenes would be suitable to go next to each other and which scenes didn’t. This helped us
communicated better as a team, which I think is a skill we improved on from since we started the
project. We both decided to have the video mostly in black and white to portray that this was his
present now. Usually, in music videos the black and white filter would be used to show flashbacks
but we did the exact opposite because the flashbacks were the best moments of his life, rather
than his present.

11. Adobe Photoshop
Even though I’m not a great Photoshop user, I managed to create all my print products without
fail. For my advert, I got a little help from my friend Hamza who assisted me with the smoke
effects and put it around Nana’s image. I definitely improved my Photoshop skills. I learnt how to
manipulate the smoke image and make it a see through image so that it wouldn’t overlap and
block the image/ background behind. I edited off the unwanted blemishes on Nana’s hoodie and
face. Trying to fit the fonts and writing with the background image was also very tricky but
simplicity did the trick for me. I liked how the colour scheme was minimal and simple as well
because it allowed me to work better with the print products theme (which also all had to link
back to our music video). In addition, Photoshop allowed me to play around with the lightness/
contrast of the print products which again was very useful because some of the lighting in my
actual photography came out a little dark, so being able to edit that made my work look more
aesthetically pleasing. I think overall Photoshop was a great help and it definitely improved my
editing skills.

12. Adobe Illustrator
I used this program to manipulate the fonts for the print products. Even though I'm not a
professional at it, I managed to find the best suitable fonts for the title using various
command and techniques. I do wish to improve my skills on Illustrator because this
software does specialize on editing text only and making one particular font look different
in many ways and styles, which I find very interesting.

13. Evaluation

14. Prezi was probably one of the most fun and
easiest software’s I have used. It helped me
have a clear (yet creative) and organised
presentation of my work through an online
presentation. You could pick and choose the
most suitable themes for your presentation and
also write as much as you like. You have access
to using images off Google, for example I used
images of my case studies in my Prezi
presentations, which was very useful for me.
Blogger is the website where I had to blog
and update everything I did in this project,
to prove my understanding of the work. I
had to regularly update it with every step I
took during this project, including the ideas
and development of the music video, the
progress of making/ recording the video,
the making and progress of the print
products and all the actors, props and things
I needed to shoot the video. I had to make
sure the weather forecast was suitable to
shoot and also make arrangements if it
wasn’t. I could easily reflect and improve my
blog as I went along, which was very useful
for me. I needed to embed other software’s
I used in order to post on my blog.
Blogger Prezi

15. Slide Share
Slide Share was a very useful website for
me, especially for this question (Question 4
Evaluation). This site helped me to easily
convert my PowerPoint presentation, so
that I wouldn’t have to find other ways to
connect it onto my blog. Now you can easily
go through my presentation from Slide
Share on my Blogger account.
Wix
Wix is a fairly simple program that allows
you to create websites of your own. I
think it’s a very easy program to use with
a variety of templates/ layouts you could
chose from to fit your own personal
theme. This is a very new program for me
to use, an even though it was my first
time using it, I enjoyed it a lot. I like how
there are other forms of media I can use
to illustrate my work better and more
uniquely.