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

For research and planning, the use of Blogger played a huge role in my research and planning as I was able to put up all my work as I could always come back and refers to what I have done in the previous days. I first researched a few different genres of music videos using Wikipedia to give me more details about the genres and how it originated, with music videos. It was convenient to post videos from YouTube and insert images/screen shots in to Blogger to help visualise what I was saying. It also helped visually with deconstructing music videos as part of the research and using Photoshop CS6 to create animated GIFs to help show certain shots or mise-en-scene I was trying to describe, as only blogs work with animated GIFs. I knew my band through social networking sites such as Twitter as well as knowing a few of their songs in the British charts. I was fortunate as they knew who I was and therefore it was easier for me to get their permission to use their song, which I had managed to get through Tumblr. After choosing the song ‘Bajan Style’ I decided to look up music videos that had a similar genre as well as analysing and deconstructing Cover Drive’s previous music videos. I researched these music videos using YouTube. This helped me start planning my own music video as I could see typical codes and conventions that were used such as typical mise-en-scene, the use of colours and camera shots/angles. By deconstructing previous music videos, not only did it help me consider codes and conventions of that particular genre, but it also helped me consider ways in which I could attract my target audience. I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to meet Cover Drive one day during filming time (thanks to connections on Twitter) so they could be in my music video for a few seconds.

For my ancillary tasks, I created a digipack and a magazine advert promoting the album. I researched into many different album artworks that were similar to my genre for example researching into solo artists like Rihanna as well as bands such as No Doubt. Wikipedia helped me with researching these singers and bands as it gave me information about the album itself and the music that these artists make. After researching other artists/bands, I then had a look at Cover Drive’s album cover as well as their single covers. I feel that their single covers portray their genre of music more than the album cover. This is shown through the use of colours, for example the single cover for their song ‘Lick Ya Down’ is very colourful. Likewise with their single cover ‘Twilight’

 

Twilight

Lick Ya Down

where I had researched using Google images, this has palm trees on it, which could reference to the Caribbean.  I kept this in mind when thinking about my own ancillary tasks as I wanted to create a product that portrayed the Caribbean element of their music. 

The construction of my music video, I used a HD camera to film and edited it on an Apple Mac using the Final Cut Pro software. Final Cut Pro made the editing process quicker and easier. This is because I was able to import all my footage from the camera to Final Cut Pro without running out of space. By having all the footage in one location on the Mac, I was able to look through all the raw filming before choosing which footage I wanted to use thanks to the two screens on Final Cut Pro, as one is for viewing the raw footage and the other is for the footage that has been dragged into the timeline. The uses of markers on Final Cut Pro were necessary in this project as it helped identify beats that would be useful for cuts and edits to make it a lot easier. Additionally, I used Color to help highlight the colours in my music video as I felt this would work easier as the options are more broken down, in comparison to Color Corrector 3-Way on Final Cut Pro. This is because on Color I was able to look at primary and secondary colours and adjust different contrasts and brightness’ whereas with Final Cut Pro’s Color Corrector 3-Way I was limited to the adjustments of colours as they are all combined. 

Color

Ancillary tasks I had made on Photoshop CS6. Making the ancillary tasks was a bit easier for me as I know Photoshop CS6 quite well. After taking images, I felt that these photos were good and I was ready to edit.  I chose this particular image from the shoot as I feel that the pose looked quite dominant for a female character and the use of the flag wasn’t too much.

I started working on the digipack, starting with front album cover. After looking at Cover Drive’s previous single artworks and the album artwork, I decided to keep the type of Cover Drive as it is in a way their brand identity. I believe my Photoshop skills were a huge contribution to succeeding my overall ancillary products. This is because I was familiar with certain effects like using PSDs and textures. As I have stated before, I used a PSD on top of the main image, then afterwards adding on top a blue and yellow texture, which I then multiplied into the main image to get the concluded image. Similarly with the back cover, I used a simple image of my hand holding the large Barbados flag as I thought this was quite simple and not too much exposure on the flag. The research of other album artworks helped me understand use certain codes and conventions of album artworks to make my product look more professional. Such as the back cover, I added in a small print, bar code and the record label logo as well as the track listing. If it wasn’t for those few things, my back cover would not have looked like a real back cover of an album package. Likewise with the magazine advert, after researching other magazine adverts I could identify what made the magazine advert look like a professional advert and added what I needed to make it look like a real advert such as release, website and record label logo.

In terms of evaluation, I shared my music video on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr as well as it being uploaded to YouTube. After sharing my music video on Twitter, Cover Drive had seen it and shared it on their official Facebook page as well as their Twitter. This gave my video a lot of attention, which made it easier for me to get some audience feedback. Additionally, I used Skype to get audience feedback with a girl who lives in a Caribbean island of St. Maarten, which I filmed using an Iphone as well as a Skype call with Cover Drive in Barbados. In the end, I use Blogger to present all my work.