During the process
of this course I have used many different media technologies wherever suitable
to help me plan and create my media products. Firstly I used technology to aid
me in my research of existing artists, I did this using the internet and used
video streaming websites like Youtube.com to watch existing bands music video
to gleam inspiration and look at conventions. I used the internet and books to
research about theorists like Goodwin who devised Goodwin’s 6 points, website
such as Google and Wikipedia were useful for finding factual information like
this. I also used Google Image searches to find pictures of existing digipaks
and magazine adverts to look at and analyse and well as looking at ones that I
own.
First Discovering
the band was done online through websites like unsigned.com and myspace.co.uk,
without websites like these finding and unsigned band to use would have been
very difficult and I would have been reliant of finding a band that I actually knew
people in who wrote their own songs. But thanks to these technologies I could
use a band from anywhere across the world.
In terms of filming
I used a Sony Handycam hdr-cx115e, handheld, HD hard drive camcorder. This
camera is high-definition and although the footage was edited in standard definition
the quality of footage was still surprisingly good to say this is a high street
available camera. The video had quite a nice home-video low-fi look to it which
suited the indie ethos of the video well. I used this camera in conjunction
with multiple tripods to steady the shots and allow smooth tilt and pans. In
the industry much higher quality camera would be used and could be used with
dollies or steadycam. Cameras like the Handycam mean that small bands are
finding it increasingly easier to film their own low budget music videos.
I edited all the
footage on the school’s apple iMacs using the built in iMovie software, the
iMovie software is fairly simple to use if not quite clumsy at times. Althought
he footage was filmed in HD, I believe the clips were converted to standard
definition when they were imported into the software, hence the grainy quality I
mentioned previously. Although iMacs are the industry standard in media, most
of the time the software used is Final Cut Pro, not iMovie. Technologies that I
used in iMovie include the preset clip filters that you can apply such as the
black and white filter that I applied to the first half of my video and then
removed for the second part. I also used the software to speed up and slow down
clips, use preset transitions like fade to black and cross-fade, as well as crop
some pieces of footage to get rid of something unwanted on the edge of the
frame.
My cover images
were shot using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 point and shoot camera. This camera
is 12megapixel and has 12x optical zoom. This camera produces good quality
photos and for the sizes I need the photo were easily of a high enough quality.
I edited the photos
and graphics using Photoshop Elements which is very good software, if not a
little complicated to used until you get used to it. For the covers I produced
and the advert I think the outcome looks rather professional. I used features
of this application such as the built in texturing tool where I simply had to
choose the parameters of the texture and it would render it for me.
Another big piece of technology again a website on the
internet is Google Blogger that I have used to record, and plan my progress
throughout this course and at the same time used it to present my coursework
entry.
Had this been a professionally released video it would definitely
be uploaded onto YouTube and Vevo on the record labels official protected
channel to reach a much wider audience as well as being played on music
television channels like MTV. The internet and social media websites like Twitter
and Facebook would be a very good way of advertising and spreading the word
about my album release and I think sites like these play a hug part in the music/media
industry in the modern world.
