Whilst creating our music video, we used technologies that we came across last year and also introduced ourselves to new software's and hardware's that we have not used before to widen our opportunities. We incorporated different programmes and technologies throughout research and planning, production and evaluation stages of the task which gave us the chance to become familiar with new methods of presentation. Here is a video on all of the hardware and software we have all used throughout our process of the A2 Media Studies course whilst creating our music video.
Research and Planning
To make a decision on what track to use, we all brainstormed a female artist that we feel we could add our own touch too which would not contradict with the artists typical video releases. We came up with Ellie Goulding, so we therefore searched on YouTube Ellie's name as searched through what song we think we could perform to. When clicking on one of Ellie's songs, the search bar down the right hand side of the video started to become useful to me due to it including songs which relate to that song and artist.
We also used YouTube to research makeup tutorials that I could do on our cast to make sure that they are ready for filming.
We used Instant Messaging methods, such as
iMessage, to communicate throughout the whole process of our production. We discussed things such as times we are filming, what costumes to wear and what props we need. We found this method of communication very effective due to the fact we are able to instantly reply as it is sent straight to our smart phones and sharing photos was very easy and cost free.
[screenshots of our conversations on iMessage]
To purchase cheap and appropriate props we used
eBay to find the right things we need to make our mise-en-scene as realistic and appropriate as we could. Thinks we purchased were things like glitter for design on Grace's face, glow sticks, rose petals and sparklers.
Production
Throughout our production, we used two different
cameras so that we were able to get different frames and angles for our star. We used a
Nikon D3100 and a
Sony AVCHD Handy-cam. The Nikon camera was Charlotte's, and we decided to use this due to it being much better quality than the camera's we had available at school.
We used a variety of different technologies throughout our production process, below is a table which give the advantages and disadvantages of each.
In terms of lighting, we used a range of different
lighting effects dependent on the scene we was at. Below is a presentation of the different lighting we used.
WIX
The navigation around our website is very simple, you just click where you want to go and let the technology do the rest. We wanted to make sure our video was very easy to navigate around, so viewers do not get distressed while exploring and they can choose themselves where they want to go and what they want to look at. Widgets were added to make our website look more advanced, for example a 'sign up for newsletter' widget, which made it easier for fans to become more personal with our star. Here is a tutorial on our website and how the HTML codes make the pages link and interact with each other.
[ insert tutorial]
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6
Adobe Premiere was one of the main
software's that we used throughout the process of our construction. We included a range of effects that made out video more creative and more professional.
This is the effect
'Ultra Key' that we used. When trying to make this green screen successful, we came across many difficulties as we needed to make a silhouette effect whist adding a green screen. Through lots of trial and error, we finally managed to complete the end result that we was hoping for.
Another effect we used was
'Luma Key' and this was used to make some of our shots appear more clear and sharp as some of the colour's looked bland and dull. Therefore we played around with this effect and made some of the shots seems more clear and more effective than if they was not edited.
The effect
'Strobe Light' also became very handy throughout our editing process, as when we watched back the recorded footage in the drama studio where we wanted different colour lighting flashing like a live performance, the lights did not show up very clear on camera and did not look anything like what we were witnessing whilst filming. Therefore, I played around on
premiere to try and find a solution which would mean we could create our own lighting effects to make the outcome we originally anticipated.
'4 colour gradient' became very useful as we thought we needed to add a bit of electronic style into our video. Therefore, we changed some of the colours on a few random outdoor shots to show the electronic/pop side of the star.
Another technology that we used was
survey monkey so that we could gain information and feedback from other people about our work. We created online survey's so people could leave us answers which would benefit us in our production process, as we aimed our survey's at our target audiences which would therefore mean that the information collected has to be listened to as we need to be aware of what our target audience thinks about our productions and creations.
To get people to answer our surveys, we had to think of good ways to promote them. Therefore, we sat together as a group and thought of good ways we can get people to take our surveys, particularly our target audiences.
- One way we promoted our survey was through social media on Grace's site. This meant that her fans, (our target audience) would see the post and hopefully click and fill it out for us. However, as this is on an online social media website, anyone has access to it. Therefore this could also target a wider audience who may not have took a particular interest in our video before, but do now. This then helps us receive feedback from both our primary target audience, and secondary target audience.
- Another way we got people to fill in our surveys was to send out emails to the rest of the media students in our year group which would then appeal to people who are familiar with our task and familiar with the decisions we made and the problems we faced. With our fellow students answering questions that we have created about our productions, they will know the extent to which we have gone to create this as they have witnessed our journey by viewing our blogs and having a chance to look at our productions so far in class showcases.
Things to do:
- PhotoShop for digipak: Tutorial on how glitter was added.
Things to upload:
- Hardware + Software Video
- Screen Recording on WIX Tutorial
Photoshop played quite a big part in our production, as we edited a lot of things on this piece of software to make them look much more professional and more personalised and specific to our artist. The main production we used Photoshop for was our Digipak, as the complication's of our design caused us to only have this piece of software available to use. Neither of us have ever used Photoshop before, therefore we found it a struggle to try and complete the design we had in mind. Eventually, with hours of practice we finally got there and were very pleased with the outcome. We wanted to make each page in our Digipak relate in some way, so to create synergy we made sure there was a specific trademark included. We used a glitter effect on every page which meant that all of them could be linked and associated with each other. We also included a glitter shot in our video, of a face design within her make-up to also create the synergy there. Here is a tutorial on how we added the glitter into a page of our digipak.
We mainly drew inspiration from the character Effy from skins in some shots she looks grunge and her makeup is messy, in others she looks glamorous. As you can see by the left image from a photo shoot that we did for our tour poster, we used grunge makeup to promote our new video 'You my everything' as this is the look throughout the video but used a feminine outfit and setting with the pink and white umbrella. We feel that this challenges typical media conventions as most women in the media industry portray themselves as very feminine and are afraid to break into new looks which is why we wanted Grace to challenge this stereotype conventions of our target audience we decided to make our digipak very pink and girly to attract our target audience. 
By Looking at the Eliza Doolittle Digipak you can see several similarities between hers and ours. She is also an artist of the same genre as ours it is fair to say that we pretty much stuck to the typical conventions of an electro pop artist when it came to our digipak. The digipak includes a song lyric sheet like ours, the CD does not include a picture of the star on it like ours. Although Eliza Doolittle's CD cover is slightly more interesting than ours with the fun colours, this may be the brand that she is trying to portray. At the bottom of Eliza Doolittle's there is small text which includes her record label and the rest, just like ours.
This is the black crop top similar to what Grace Starr wore to the first time we ever filmed her with the lights on in the background.
