Evaluation - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the Research and Planning stages of our media work we used the Apple Macs to do some research on different styles of music videos. We came up with four initial ideas for songs we were intending to use for our music video. These were: End Credits by Chase & Status, Here in your arms by HelloGoodbye, Liquid Lives by Hadouken! And Crush Crush Crush by Paramore. We chose to use Crush Crush Crush by Paramore and in our planning we found two videos of a similar genre on YouTube and we wrote out a detailed analysis of each one. We also used YouTube, Google and Muzu.tv to find images we could use within our detailed analysis in order to make our blog look more interesting rather than a huge block of text. We used blogspot.com to ensure we could keep track of our progress and what we were doing and we found it very easy to use.

During the construction of our media product we used a digital camera, a video camera and also a green screen room. We used the video camera to film our main product and we used this in college and also in our exterior locations. We used the camera for a variety of shots ranging from long shots to close up shots and we used it to film our main character Beth when she was moving around and also when she was simply standing still. We also used a digital camera in order to get photographs of our locations, our main character, props and costumes and also some shots of the green screen room. We took photos of the green screen room for us to put up onto the blog to show what type of equipment we were using in the production stages of our work. Along with the camera we used a tripod as we found that this was the best way to get smooth, still shots with no shaking in them. We did use some hand held shots in our video but we found using the tripod was the best.




We used the green screen room to create the image of a busy restaurant as well as an unusual background to go behind Beth singing and dancing. The green screen room we used has got 3 cameras and we used each one for a different shot. This meant that we were actually doing some editing during the filming process rather than doing all the editing after the production stages. During the filming in the green screen room each of us had a different role, one of us was in charge of music, another of us was in charge of the cameras using a big box of buttons and switches and then Beth was involved in the shot so that was her role. We found the green screen equipment very easy to use and we believe it added an interesting element to our product.

During the editing process of our production we used Final Cut pro which is a professional non-linear editing software. Using this software meant that we had the ability to easily move around the different shots we had once we had added the track to the timeline. We were able to change the speed of the shots and add transitions and effects to our video in order to make it look as professional as we possibly could.

We used photo shop to create the CD cover and poster to go with our music video. It was used to edit photographs of the main character in our video and to create a style completely different to any CD cover we have seen before.