Question 4.

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

In order not to cause any legal issues regarding copy righted songs, we decided to go on to www.unsigned.com and discover a band/song that we liked and felt that we could make a music promo for. At first this was quite hard as we knew none of the bands out there so it was a case of scrolling through the recommended artists and listening to their music.

Social media also played a big part in our research and planning as we often used it to gather feedback on products. For example we posted our music video on Youtube and shared it on both Facebook and twitter. The feedback from this backed up earlier points of conventions because the larger group of people that liked it were between the ages of 16-19, our target audience.

 

We could also tell that it was a big hit because it reached nearly 200 views within the first week and is now on 297.

 

 

 

Over the production period I have developed my skills in using a camera to create interesting shot types without them being shaky or blury. I felt that this was a fairly difficult action because the camera needed to be moved in one motion but still remain the same level. I also learnt, looking back at my AS level work, that I needed to include much more interesting shots in order to grab the audience’s attention. This is why in the planning phase we focused on shot types that we could use. We found inspiration from YouTube which was a big help throughout the project. By using YouTube it enabled us to find inspiration from other videos out there. It also helped us in regards to using final cut pro were we needed help on the tricky parts of editing.

While filming the scenes in my garage, the lighting was coming Down from the ceiling and not straight at the singer/dancer. In order to overcome this we decided to take the light down off the ceiling and place it on the ground opposite the singer/dancer. This helped to minimise the amount of shadow on the actors face and bodies.

 

We also came across some problems in Photoshop were, because of the similarities of the colours of the back ground and shirt the singer was wearing it didn’t allow us to magic tool the background. Because of this it meant I had to rub out most of the background myself which wasted time. I have now learnt that in order to save time I would need to pick a more contrasting outfit for the lead singer to wear.

 

 

We also used the photo studio to take the pictures of our lead singer for our Digi pack and magazine advert. Whilst doing this we found that it took a while to set up but it was well worth it because we wanted our products to look/be as professional as possible.  We felt that by taking 40-50 photos of the lead singer we could easily narrow them down to 5-6 and then get feedback from teachers and fellow pupils.