Evaluation Question 2

How did you use new media technologies in the 

construction and research, planning and evaluation 

stages?

Construction:

When constructing my music video, I decided to use Adobe Premier Pro, rather than iMovie, of which I was more familiar with, because I felt that iMovie was a lot simpler, and it wouldn't allow me to experiment with other post-production effects and transitions. Although I hadn't used Premier Pro before, I was able to practice editing with it for the preliminary task of creating a 1 minute copy of an already existing music video. This gave me the confidence to use this software when editing my clips together. These clips were filmed on my Sony HD AVCHD camcorder, as it meant that we didn't have to borrow equipment from school, or have to wait for other people to finish using it, so we could start filming promptly. 


For my ancillary texts, I manipulated the initial images using Adobe Photoshop, as this is a programme I am already familiar with after using it last year for my AS foundation portfolio last year. The construction of the magazine was similar to that of the creation of my music magazine, and I could transfer the skills I learnt to make a poster.

The second main piece of equipment was a tripod, which allowed us to film panning shots very smoothly, as well as the shots filmed in the middle of the music video, with the shot reverse shot of the protagonist and the girl in the red dress. 

Research:

The main way I researched for this project was through Web 2.0, which gave me easy access to websites showing other professionally made music videos. By watching countless music videos on YouTube, I was able to note the genres and the specific codes and conventions found within them. I was able to use Andrew Goodwin's theory to spot the narrative, use of star image, and editing on the thought beats, to be able to understand how these things can differ between each genre. For example, rock music is generally of a faster tempo, therefore the thought beats will be much quicker than that of a slow pop song. 

The video that gave me the most inspiration, narrative-wise, was "Rain" by Mika:

Even though it's a pop song, I was able to see how to apply Andrew Goodwin's theory. The setting for this music video and my music video are similar because they are both completely filmed outdoors, but the main difference here is that "Rain" is filmed at night. Initially, I wanted the dream sequence to be filmed at night, but we came to the conclusion that it would be too difficult to film it clearly, even with the use of lighting. This research was a vital part for us to learn and understand what we could or couldn't do, because of our limited time and budget. However, we were able to take ideas from this professionally made video, and place them into ours.

After researching genres and other music videos through YouTube, I then utilized Web 2.0 to get some audience feedback. Surveymonkey was easy to create a quick survey, asking my audience what sort of music they listen to, and how they use the internet to listen to music. I asked whether they watched many music videos on YouTube, to which the majority said either "Yes" or "sometimes", which allowed me to see where would be the best place to advertise my final product. Everyone used Facebook, which means I can put my final music video on both YouTube and Facebook, so I know that my primary audience will definitely be able to watch it. 

Planning and Evaluation:

The majority of my planning has been uploaded onto this blog through many different visually appealing ways such as powerpoints on Slideshare and Prezi, and images on Photobucket. These have been useful to the planning process for me, because my information is much more organized in this form. It is through the easy use of Web 2.0 that I have been able to access these websites to plan not only this project, but also my project during my AS media studies coursework. Web 2.0 has been incredibly beneficial to me throughout my media journey, and has been vital during the research, planning and construction phases of this particular project, and these techniques have been applied in my evaluation as well.

-Janet