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

When constructing, planning, researching and evaluating this project, the use of media played a large role.


Planning:
I used Blogger to record an 'online diary' and to plan and evaluate my work. I think this was extremely useful because it helped me visualise what I pieces of work I had completed and what needed improving. It also encouraged me to criticise my work and make improvements where necessary.

Research:
The Internet was my main source of research. Websites like Google, Wikipedia and YouTube were all helpful and provided me with relevant information and materials to use for my project. I used Google to search for artists when looking for a song to make a video to. I typed things in like "British Artists" to get ideas of groups and solos. Unfortunately I didn't find a lot of information this way, however I did get a few ideas. I also used google to find images of Digipaks and advertisements in order to compare them and utilise them so that I could get a general feel of what mine should be like.
I used YouTube to search for British artists too, I found it easier to find artists because YouTube suggested videos of similar genres down the side after I typed in a song.
I used Wikipedia and Google to research different theories of music videos and to find background information on artists such as their record companies, contact information etc.

















Construction:

Music Video
We used brand new state of the art video cameras and memory cards to video our music video and other videos such as; our animatic and videos for the evaluation.
Final Cut Pro was used frequently to edit our video together. I enjoyed using this programme as I found it easy to use. To begin with, we used 'in and out' points to choose what parts of footage we wanted to use and then dragged the clips onto the timeline.
Some of our shots were shot in front of a green screen and so we decided to place different colours in it's place. To do this we used the  'Chroma Keying' tool.
At first we found it quite challenging to get the right level of darkness without the image of the artist becoming distorted. However, after patiently fiddling around with the gages we finally got the correct balance. After this, we selected the "colour picker" tool to insert a variety of colours onto the backgrounds.This was achieved by adding additional filters and changing the colour of them. 
We used transition effects like fading in and out to our video to make it interesting to watch.   I found this very easy to do as the steps were simple. There were also many choices of transitions to choose from such as; additive dissolve, dissolve and 3d spin which is my favourite. Transitions were found by going to effects and then video transitions. 
Another effect we used in our music video was 'Dazzle'. This can be seen on the lips. We thought this effect was suitable because it made the sweets stand out more. 
The screen shot below shows how we did this.

How we added the 'Dazzle' effect

We also used the split body idea in our video.This was achievedby mixing different faces and bodies.
The crop key was used to cut out the parts of the persons body I wanted to use. The images were then placed on top of each other on the time line so when the footage was played it appeared as one person.
We decided that this looked better uneven and out of line as it suggested that our artist isn't perfectly cut.

Our animatic:

Ancillary Products 

I used Photoshop to create my DigiPak and advertisement. I started of with a 4 panel template and layered them with images.
I used the "Magnetic Lasso" tool to 'cut out' the image on the front cover. I think this tool was very easy to use as the lasso almost stuck to the image making it easier to get a precise cut.
I used the 'Diffuse' effect on the back cover as it was subtle and didn't make the image look tacky.
I tried not to use too many effects as I thought it was important for her face to be clear as she is a new artist.
I found the gender symbols in the custom shapes and decided that they would compliment my products. I inserted them by simply dragging them onto the top layer.
The text was created using the 'text box' tool, I trialed different fonts before choosing chalk duster as I thought this was most effective.The 'strikethrough' was achieved by using the shape tool to draw a line through the word 'Sweet'.

 Evaluation:
For my evaluation I used Blogger to record everything I have done and learned throughout the process. I took various screenshots of websites such as 'Youtube' and 'Google', programmes like 'FinalCut Pro' and 'Photoshop' to help illustrate my experience in creating this project.
Overall I am happy with all of my products including my Blog as I believe I worked hard to achieve them.
If I had another chance to do this again, I would be more creative with both my products and my blog as I feel my work had the potential to be more original.