Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning

and evaluation stages?

In the construction stage of my music video I used a range of new media technologies,

including:

My Panasonic HDC-SD60 video camera to film my music video. As this is an HD camera I was able to

take high definition shots in order for my music video to look more realistic and give it a professional look.

As the camera is small and compact, I was able to set up different shots that I wouldn't have been able to

do with a larger camera, such as the Facebook scene:

I also used a tripod, which was particularly

useful to keep shots steady and to be able to

get some high angle shots.

I also used iMovie as my editing software.

This was a piece of software I have used before and was familiar with, which was an advantage

when using tools for editing.

Editing EffectsI was able to use transitions such as 'cross blur' to create smooth transitions, 'fade to

black' for the beginning and ending and 'fade to white' for the flash effects.

I also used colour filters for all the of scenes, using:

A 'vignette' filter for the lip syncing scenes in order to make

my artist stand out more.

And a 'black and white' filter for the expectations/reality scenes to show that they were flashbacks.

A 'dream' filter for the spinning shot to give it a

more angelic, supernatural look which gave more impact and

went with the soft music leading up to the end of

the shot.

I also used 'split clip' for that shot and split it into 3 parts, speeding up each shot more and more, making the first clip 70% speed, the second 160% speed and the third

250% speed so that the spinning sped up with the music.

Another effect I used was a split screen effect in order to show the same situation with 2 different outcomes:

This was a challenge as certain ones (such as the Facebook scene) had to be perfectly in sync with each other, however

this was overcome by making sure my actress did each scene one after the other in exactly the same place and careful

editing.I made it clear to the audience what these were by using titles to put the text "Expectations" and "Reality" on each

side.

Construction of ancillary tasksNew media technology used to create my ancillary tasks were Serif

Page Plus, Sugar and PhotoScape.

I used PhotoScape to organise the inside panel pictures on my digipak and use effects on them. For example, I arranged the photos on the inside left panel into a template so that images were layered, so the lyrics where at the back, layered by the black and white stills from the music video, which were then layered over the top by a still from the video in colour. These were separated by white lines to give

it a split screen effect which is my star image motif.

I also used PhotoScape to make the images black and white and to also use a blur effect on the edges of them, to make the middle picture stand out even more.

On the right side panel I used a similar template that wasn't split into sections and used a white background on the bottom layer, layered by a picture I took of some trees/leaves which was layered on top by a white box with the bands "thank you's" in it.

I then put these images in Serif to connect them to make the inside panels connected by the spine. I also used Serif to make my front and

back cover, using the box tools, line tools, fonts and colours.

The main front cover image was created in Sugar (a image makeover program).

As I was unable to splice two images of the separate halves of Katie's face together, I decided to use just one picture of her whole face and edit the right

side to make it look happier and then placed a line in the middle to create a split screen effect.

In detail, I used the blend tool to make it look like she was smiling, and make up tools to give her false eyelashes, eyeliner and a slightly green eye shadow to emphasise that this was the

'beautiful' side.

To create the front cover image in the first place though, I used the still image setting on my HD video camera to take the picture. I felt this was better than using a normal digital camera as it

would make the image more professional looking being HD. Over 100 images were taken for the front cover.

Research and PlanningFor research and planning I used www.Blogger.com as online diary to track my progress with my coursework and document any decisions made, changes to my storyboard, shooting schedule, post research

findings and document the planning stages of my work.

I was able to change the layout and colours of my blog to the house colours for my music video after creating my storyboard in order to make my blog

look more creative and to give the whole project a theme.

Software I Used Within My Blog

Slideshare

Slideshare was used to post my PowerPoint presentations

of picture slideshows

Flickr

Flickr was used to post my pictures so that they were a bigger size on the main post

without anyone having to click them to make them bigger

YouTube

I also used YouTube embedded videos to give examples of things I had

found through research and Blogger's video uploaded so I could give an example of the scene I took my inspiration

from in (500) Days of Summer.

New media technologies used in my evaluation

PowerPoint Video Filming and Editing

For 2 of the questions I have used PowerPoint. This was because I thought it would be a creative way of presenting

my answers to the questions. I have tried to make this effective by including lots of pictures to illustrate my answers

and using effects such as arrows to make points. I have also used the house

colours from my music video and ancillary tasks in my PowerPoint’s to

keep it with the theme.

I decided to present my answers to the 4 questions in 2 different formats to make it more creative.

And for the other 2 questions I have filmed my answers on my video camera and edited them

on iMovie it into videos. Again, I felt this would be a more creative way of showcasing

my answers rather than just writing them out. In these answers I filmed myself answering the questions and in question 1 I included clips from my music video to illustrate my

answers, and in question 2 gave my reactions to my audience feedback.

Difficulties encountered with new media technologies and what I would do next time

Difficulties I encountered whilst filming and editing my video included not being able to use a split screen effect on the iMovie I already had, which meant getting in touch with Apple themselves and

inquiring how I would be able to achieve this effect.

I eventually was informed that the effect could be achieved on iMovie 11, and therefore had to purchase that to overcome this issue.

The split screen that I achieved wasn't exactly the look I was going for, as I had hoped there would be a black line in the middle to separate the two video clips

however I had to work with what I had.

I found through researching this problem that this would have been possible on Final Cut Pro which I would probably use next time, however at present this was

not possible to for me to use as it was too much money to buy and I knew no one who had it in order to borrow it.

Whilst filming I wanted to create some dramatic high angles and low angles with my tripod. However the tripod would not go high enough

for a noticeable very high angle or low enough for a dramatic low angle.

Next time I would probably enlist the help of a friend to help me create the low angle, as I could not use the camera without a tripod because my hands would shake

and it would have made the shot shaky. Regarding the high angle I would probably stand the tripod on a box to make it higher, however at the time I did not have one

readily available.

Regarding editing software, I was unable to use transitions going into the split screen shots or coming out of them, which was very limiting as I had hoped to

use some kind of transition to emphasise that they were flashbacks.

Instead of the normal boxes for the transitions there were transparent grey boxes that wouldn’t work when played. This was just how the software was

made and I found after inquiring whether there was anything I could do to fix it there wasn't. Hopefully the next iMovie update will have resolved this issue.