Evaluation | Question 4

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

In order to actually begin planning we had to use the internet to do research on artists. Search engines such as Youtube allowed us to draw ideas from videos and songs with similar concepts to ours. We got inspiration from Fever Rays video 'When I Grow Up'. The video has a slight blue tint to it which is what we've got in our video. We also got ideas from the likes of Lyyke Li's video for 'Little Bit'. The video is slightly disconnected with random shots and is quite abstract. Which is heavily used in our video to match the music and lyrics of our song. In adadition, we used Youtube to also learn how to edit and add effects on FinalCut to our final product, however it was not all that helpful so we ended up learning and teachings ourselves over time. We also used Youtube to upload drafts of our footage and finally the final product to collect audience feedback. Despite the fact that our final product being in sync on the Mac computers they were slightly out of sync once converted and uploaded onto Youtube. Uploading our video onto Youtube was necessary for viewers to watch, share or comment, and an important advantage when we had to collect audience feedback.

For our animatic storyboard we used a HD camera to film and then uploaded the footage onto iMovie which enabled us to put all the images together. It was a simple and easy process. The software doesn't require much effort as everything is set out in front of you, however we upgraded to FinalCut Pro as it's got better tools for video and you can do much more to your video.

Although when using FinalCut to begin with was a little complex, it was a vital part of technology we needed to produce our music video. It's detail and precision required time however we managed to adapt and use it to its full extent, adding effects and removing unwanted shots. Although it was the best quality camera we used the Nikon Camera took us a while to actually upload all the footage onto FinalCut. We had to upload all the footage onto iPhoto as it was a camera and not an actual camcorder. Then we had to import it to iMovie then onto FinalCut which meant we had to render every bit of footage we cut, added or editied. Other than that the Nikon camera was the easiest to film with, we also used it to take pictures for our ancilary text. The quality of the camera cancels out the time spent underendering footage.

I used the SLR for my Digipak photos because of the quality. The shutter speed was an advantage for my photoshoot, I even took accidental images which came out great. The aperture of the camera allowed me to capture the sunset in a high resolution.