Complete Music Video

Here is the final Music Video, which has been uploaded to YouTube:

Evaluation, Question Four - Technologies, Miscellaneous

There were also some miscellaneous items of media technology in which I used to help the creation of our music video. One of these in particular was using the music production software Cubase Studio 4, using this I was able to edit our original track from its length of approximately five minutes to just fewer than three. This allowed the group to work quicker as it was a shorter track with fewer sections. We also used the DV cameras to record the footage for our music video – although we did not use any of the settings (such as effects) on the camera, it is still a use of media technologies worth mentioning due to its importance to our final product. If I were to improve on this use of media technology it would be to experiment more with settings on the camera, ranging from different effects to different types of focus and so on.

Evaluation, Question Four - Technologies, Photoshop

Within this advanced portfolio, another media technology I used was Adobe Photoshop to create my album package for the ancillary tasks. There were many features of Photoshop which I was able to use and manipulate to ensure my DVD cover and magazine advert were to a sufficient and professional standard. Some of the tools I used within Photoshop included the gradient tool (to create backgrounds) along with the pen tool (to draw certain ideas as found on my magazine advert) and the mask tool (used to cut images with plain backgrounds). I also used many of the filters to add effects to images which I thought particularly successful - these include some of the cartoonise features that I used within my front cover, where on the back sleeve of the DVD I have applied this filter to images of the band members. Another smaller media technology I used within creating my promotional package was the use of a mobile phone camera, used to take images of the warning sign after copyright issues of images which I found on the internet. Using this technology also allowed me to be more creative with imagery, therefore improving my final ancillary tasks to a greater extent.

Evaluation, Question Four - Technologies, Final Cut

One of the main media technologies I used within creating the coursework for the Advanced Portfolio was Final Cut Express, professional standard editing software which allowed us to edit a music video in a much easier way than using i-Movie, the previous editing software which we used for the foundation portfolio. Final Cut had many features which made it easier for us to put a music video together, such as the advantage of having multitrack video editing – this meant we were able to work in layers, and have all parts of footage available if we needed it. There was also advanced features of Final Cut which we were able to use to make our music video look even more professional, such as the ability to have split screen clips along with overlaying clips. We used these features well within the music video to go along with some of the rhythmic editing of the final product. One effect I thought we used particularly well within our Music Video was an effect called "Bad TV", used in the first screenshot which I have provided in this entry. The second and third screenshot show how we used different overlaying techniques within the music video.

Evaluation, Question Four - Technologies, YouTube

YouTube was also an important technology to help me within the Research and Planning stages of the production. This media technology has only become popular within the last few years, but the ability for people to embed videos on places such as blogging websites helped me greatly to express ideas and findings found within the Research and Planning section. This mainly involved adding music videos to the blog which was relevant to the research I was undertaking (such as low budget videos and videos from our chosen music genre).

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

Throughout the production of the tasks for the Advanced Portfolio, I have come across many media technologies which have helped me to create material and realise my ideas. For example, the use of blogs is an interesting use of media technologies regarding documenting my work. I feel I have been successful in using features of Blogger, such as the ways of uploading images and embedding videos onto the blog from video sharing websites such as YouTube. I feel something I could improve on with my use of blogs is using features such as adding images and video to a greater extent, making more use of the advanced features of the website.

Evaluation, Question Three - Audience Feedback

The feedback we decided to act upon was the idea of the shots not being quick enough for the genre of music we decided to go for. As a result of this, we decided to review the section before the chorus, where the song builds in tempo - I feel it was the right decision to shorten the shots so that it fit the beat. In the final product, this is effective as it follows the Bordwell and Thompson editing theory (a convention of all music videos) but also fits in with the harsh, aggressive nature of our music genre.