1. How did you use new media technologies in construction and research, planning and evaluation?
2. The Internet... Through this project, I’ve utilised a number of new media technologies so that I can achieve my initial idea of creating an eye-catching and exciting media package – my video, accompanied by my music CD cover and a magazine advert. At the beginning of this project, we (as a group) had to gather research about our chosen artist (Princess Landa) and genre (dancehall/reggae) in order to gain knowledge and understanding of the market and audience expectations. I mainly used the Internet, with sites such as YouTube and the Princess Landa Facebook fan page in order to provide me with a lot of contextual information and gave me an insight into the kind of fans followed her and her music. I also made use of Google images in order to analyse her images and other female dancehall artists and analysed their image and the conventions. This allowed my to acknowledge the forms and conventions in the dancehall industry and allowed me to make judgment whether or not to challenge or reinforce these conventions.
3. YouTube... At the research stage of our project we decided to analyse videos on YouTube. YouTube has proven to be an effective tool as it allowed me to analyse and research real media products to base my one on. YouTube is an example of new media technology as if we were to do this project 5 years ago, we’d have to watch music videos and wait for the song to be screened on television as oppose to online. During this, we came across various unknown artist but one in particular; Princess Landa who already had a song that we used on YouTube but there wasn’t an actual video that went with it. If was helpful that one of our group members had personally known Princess Landa so we thought that it would benefit our overall product. Whilst we were in the shooting stage, she proved to be very unreliable and was never available for shoot – that’s when I found our actress, Simone, to kindly be our artist. YouTube was what we used to upload our video onto in order to receive audience feedback and reviews. Looking at various different videos from artists of a similar genre (dancehall/hip hop) and who are recognise to be mainstream artists, we used Sean Paul’s song – Watch dem roll as a base of our music video. The up tempo beat correlated well with the actions of the dancers reinforcing the meaning of the song (the dancing).
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5. Digital cameras and DV Tapes We used DV digital video camera in the shooting process of our music video in order to record it. DV cameras are intuitive and compact and resulted in giving us good high fidelity film. As my group and I had never used these digital cameras, we did a mock up in order to familiarise ourselves with the settings of the equipment. We used a digital video camera in the construction process of our music video in order to record it, due to the fact that none of us were accustomed to such equipment we decided to firstly play around with the camera and familiarise ourselves with the settings and think about what types of shots we could use when we start officially shooting. We used a tripod in order to make sure that the footage was clear and not shaking and for the first scene we decided to use three cameras which proved to be very time consuming so after that stuck with one camera. We recorded a multiple amount of times to ensure that we had enough footage when we start our editing process which required us to use more than one DV tape (picture shown above).
6. Mobile Phones/Social networking sites In order for myself and my group to keep in contact with each other, we made use of mobile phone and social networking sites – which may seem obvious but it made sure that we were organised and kept to our shooting schedule. We also used Facebook as a communication tool in order to keep in touch with each other and to confirm set schedules. Premier
7. Final Cut Pro... Final Cut Pro on the Mac’s allowed me to edit together my video and also the first part of my evaluation. Using final cut meant that I could use various transitions and effects in my video to make it look more professional overall. We all took part one way or another in the editing process. As practise, we took out a camera and filmed a chase sequence. We then edited this sequence on Final Cut Pro in order to familiarise ourselves with the different settings and effects. .
8. Photoshop... I used Photoshop in order to edit my digipack (CD cover and magazine advert). Having used Photoshop in AS, it was a lot easier to understand and develop my ideas. Photoshop allowed to exenterate the unique selling point of my final product (music video) by sticking with the colour theme of black and white but with colour edits.
9. Blogger... Using BlogSpot (blogger) was a great help throughout my planning and research of my artist. It’s helped my visualise my music video by uploading my storyboard sketches and has improved the organising behind everything. My work is presented in an easier format with subtitles and web links. My work could easily be adjusted and updated. He subheadings allowed easier and quicker access to areas in which I wanted to either look at or update after posting them.
10. Overall … Overall I believe my knowledge and understanding of media technologies has expanded throughout this course. Using programmes such as Final Cut Pro gave me an insight as to how much work and effort making a music video in the music industry really is. Without the use of these technologies, we would be able to produce or market our final products.
