4. How did you use media technology in the planning, construction

and evaluation?

IMACS The iMacs was the computer system that

was dominantly used for our media

project. Without it we would not be able to

make the media products that we have

made. The iMac had different software’s

and applications which made it possible to

do all the things that we could. It also

contained USB slots and other slots that

allowed us to transfer footage and work.

The iMac was secure as well as efficient

which made it easier to make our media

product without much fuss.

SOFTWARE’S The iMacs at college had software’s and most of these came in handy when

doing our work. Some of these software were new to us. We had to learn

how to use a few software’s such as final cut pro.

Final cut pro

Final cut pro was used to put our whole music video together.

It was an essential. It has many advantages such as:

Not being too complicated

Having many editing tools

Exporting and importing footage quickly

Huge timeline

Final cut pro allowed us to make the split screen effect, include professional

looking titles, fix lighting differences and make a unique and different music

video. We had the ability to fix sound issues and create a better opening.

This year final cut pro as much more easier to us as we were more familiar

with the technology and we knew how to use it.

THE INTERNETThrough the iMacs we had the ability to access the

internet which meant we could use websites such

as:

Youtube allowed us to research the music genre

we were using and helped us to plan the

construction of our music video. It also enabled us

to distribute our work so we could send to

audience.

Webs allowed us to post everything that was

necessary for our music video to be successful. We

were able to plan for our music video (through the

calendar & research) and use the information on

our webs to construct our music video.

FILMING TECH

We had an advantage this year filming with HD cameras in comparison to the

low tech cameras we were given to use last year. The advantages are listed

below:

Efficiency: Importing footage is much simpler compared to last Year. Last

years camera was time consuming in the sense that when importing, we had

to watch the footage all the way through whilst it was transferring on to the

iMac. But with the HD cameras it is much easier as watching the footage was

not necessary when importing. Footage is imported quickly and is not time

consuming.

The new HD camera also enabled us to transfer footage easily and quickly.

It also made sure we didn’t film over any other footage.

Mac laptop was helpful to us as taking it home enabled us to do a lot more

work and get a lot done apart from doing it in college. It had all the

software’s and applications that was needed and helped us get the work

done.

The tripod was another piece of equipment that had helped us a lot. It

enabled us to film different angles for our music video with accuracy.

However, compared to other music videos, our filming did not range with a

huge amount of angles as it not a convention of our chosen genre.

Technology helped us hugely for our media product. All the

technology was able to work together in all stages of our music

video. The iMac was the foundation of all the success. Without

it, we would not be able to make our product. The iMac consists

of software’s we used for our footage and content to make our

media product. Final cut pro was the most important software

as it was the software that put the whole thing together. Overall

technology has been essential to our creativity for our media

product.

We were able to keep in contact with our artist/actor through our mobile phones.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA

PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP, OR

CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

LYRICS AND VISUALS/NARRATIVE:

Our Narrative idea challenges that of real media texts but it is slightly

more common amongst the grime genre. The narrative in most videos

is portrayed throughout the whole video presenting a full narrative.

For example, in RNB videos, the narrative is likely to be the life of a

couple falling in love and breaking up etc. However what we filmed is

directly linked to the lyrics. This is common amongst the grime genre.

There was a moment where we decided to develop this further and

have a small narrative (artist gets rejected for a job offer) but it still

linked to the actual flow of lyrics (struggling to strive for a successful

life).

MUSIC AND VISUALS:

Similarly to Rihanna’s video, our music video LS – Hard Life consists of

fast paced shots cutting between shots representing the pace of the song.

Some shots seem handheld and the focus and balance of shots are

tweaked with. This is because it is presented in a way that is through the

perspective of a friend. This reason could be to make the audience feel a

personal emotional attachment to the song/artist’s story. In this case, a

grime song would be feeling an emotional attachment to the life story of

the artist.

We edited the music video by cutting to the beat. The rhythm of the song,

matches what the audience can see. This is a important convention as all

music videos are cut to the beat.

Although some grime videos do use voyeurism as they have attractive

females in it; we did not use voyeurism as it didn’t necessarily fit into our

song’s lyrics.

In terms of genre characteristics, we followed the conventions of the

Grime genre.

CONVENTIONS

The majority of the video conforms to the conventions of the

grime genre. We chose in particular to present a troubled young

male living the ‘street’ life including things like, smoking, gang

culture, cars, delinquent behavior (spitting, fighting), showing

off money to present generic conventions. We used Grime

artists K Koke and Giggs as inspiration to make our music video.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE

FEEDBACK?

The audience research enabled us to improve our video. At first our

video consisted of pretty long shots of the same thing. The feedback

that we received was that it needed to be shortened in order to go

with the pace of the song. This was vital feedback as this is also a

generic convention of the grime genre.

At one stage we had a fill in for our animalistic lyric however due to

audience feedback we learned that this could be done

metaphorically and not necessarily have to be literal. So that the

animalistic lyric was not literally portrayed as ‘animalistic’, we

interpreted it metaphorically by presenting Harry as a victim

(victim linking to animal).