Research and Planning
To document our research and planning we used a site called Blogger. The blogs which we created to do our posts were made much simpler by writing them virtually and having them all saved on the computer. We had to create shotlists, storyboards and other documents like the plot and narrative guidelines. Having Blogger store all of these things meant they were all accessible in one place rather than if they were done by hand. Virtually, they were always there and available whereas having paper copies of everything were likely to get lost or damaged. Blogger has weaknesses, because there is no back up system there was the risk of all of my work being lost. Some things were made by hand first like the storyboard and shotlist but the majority of work was on the blog. YouTube was also used slightly during the research and planning stages because we needed to upload our lip-sync practice video. Putting this on YouTube and then embedding the clip into a blog post is much easier and safer because if something goes wrong it is available to embed again. Slideshare was another technology used. It is a helpful website which offers hundreds of slideshows on things which are of use to posts and research. I learned more on Andrew Goodwin's theory through a slideshow I found on Slideshare which benefited my research and planning because I was then able to base my music video plans around his principles for a successful music video. Internet Explorer also acted as a credible resource for my research and planning because I found out a lot of important information on the internet which added to my research and planning. Extra research into other theories like The Reception Theory which were extra information to me were available due to the internet. Photoshop was also useful because it meant our digipak and magazine advertisement plans looked rather professional so we had a template to work from. Photoshop is a very good programme to use because it gives you hundreds of tools to use to make the ancillary products however you want them. The images can be edited and words and colour can be layered over the top to create the plan which we wanted.
Construction
YouTube was another online technology which was helpful to me because both of my rough cuts and my final cut were uploaded to YouTube so they could be viewed by both me, my group and my teacher. As well as this it gave me the chance to embed them into Blogger posts so they were securely there and weren't likely to disappear. If something happened to the iMac then YouTube would have my videos on there so they could still be viewed and marked. The Canon HD CMOS Pro was the camera we used to film our music video. It was a very good quality camera which allowed us to film in HD to get the best looking music video possible. I also used a tripod and a dolly. As well as this there was the use of iMovie to create the actual video. iMovie is a very good programme for editing the footage together for the music video however we encountered a few problems. When adding the music for the music video it would only make the song available for the length of time as the footage, this made it hard to match up lip-syncing shots and narrative shots but eventually we overcame this problem and produced a high quality music video. We also used Final Cut Express, another editing software which allowed us to enhance the colours of our music video and give the finishing touch to our video like saturation, brightness and additional effects. The Blogger App was very useful during construction. This meant that I had the storyboard, shotlists, any influences and plot and narrative framework to use during the shoot. I could go back and edit them when plans were changed and to add more detail to posts which may not be clear or may have needed developing. Having all my research and planning at my fingertips made shooting the music video and creating the ancillary products, especially with the mobile app for Blogger. During the shoots I was able to bring up the app and search for the post I needed to make sure I followed our guidelines and plans which we made ourselves. Using an Apple iMac instead of a Windows computer was very beneficial because it has a faster processor, better quality screen and louder speakers which help when looking over our rough cuts. For the magazine advertisement and digipak we used Photoshop to create the ancillary products. This meant we could crop and merge the images we had taken together so that it looked professional.
Evaluation
During the evaluation I have used many different programmes to create interesting ways of evaluating my music video. First of all I used Blogger to create this post whereas my other evaluation posts are more creative. I used iMovie to create my directors commentry and to film myself. This was much easier to do by using iMovie because it gave me the option to overlay footage over the recording of me talking about my video. Making a Prezi was another resource I used to evaluate my products and this was pretty simple to use. I did it because it was more interesting than doing a PowerPoint presentation and it is more user interactive. I experimented with Final Cut when doing my evaluation too and the vast features that Final Cut offer allow for a professional looking directors commentry. The iMac was a benefit to me when doing all my evaluation questions because of the faster processing and the built in iSight camera. I was able to film myself and the videos were quicker to create and export than if I used a Windows computer. New Media technologies have vastly helped my evaluation processes and it would have been difficult to evaluate my products without such hardware and software.
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