When researching, I chose to use the video website Youtube.
This is because it allowed us to explore different examples of videos in order
to gain inspiration. Youtube is a free website available to anyone with an
internet connection, be it through use of a mobile phone, iPod or computer, as
most music channels are only available on digital TV networks such as Sky. This
website inspired, influenced and excited us when researching music videos, it
allowed me explore what works and what doesn’t in a promo. Due to the wide
range of videos available it meant I could see a range of different music genre
videos that caused us to research our particular genre and what were the
typical conventions. This technology also helped with the exhibiting of our
finished promo, from which we can see a range of different people’s responses
and opinions, and whether or not our final product was successful. It was
effective because we could gain some really valuable feedback from people who
know what they are talking about—as they work in the industry. It was also
affective because this is the place where music fans go to find good, new music
and the new artists. So to gain a following and fans youtube became useful. It
was also affective to help research other music video to gain inspiration and
knowledge of what works and what doesn’t as well as learning about the
different affects and techniques that can be used. 
Photoshop: We used this software for our Digipak and
advertisement tasks. This helped give a professional look to the tasks with
this great technology it allowed us to create a variety of different affects to
the photos it allowed us to crop, edit, tilt, lighten, darken and etc. So we could use to this software to create an
effective designs. For example we used
the tool to darken the background and change the contrast with the colours with
the darkness and lightness ratio. This made the background become more abstract
as new colours/tones have been created as a result of the tool as change a so
what boring image to something interesting. We also used the crop tool, this
allowed us to take away the background and just leave what we wanted in the
foreground. It was used on a photograph of all the band members, which we
wanted to include on the digipak, but didn’t want the background. This meant we
had o carefully crop the background, it was difficult but with the zoom in
feature it made it easier to get an accurate edge.
iMovie: This technology was used in the making of our music
promo, we used this to put the selected clips together, add transitions and
edit and add effects when needed or when necessary. We used the specific technique of jump cuts to
put together the music video, this is a straight cut between one clip to
another-a pretty standard technique that is used to create pace quickly. We
used this throughout our video and was especially affective at the end with a
montage of different clips being put together to create pace and build up to
minor the song. We also changed the contrast of some of the shots in particular
the gig shots to lighten clip in order for the audience watching to actually
see whats going on screen instead it just being black. Another technique I
learnt about was the use of slow motion in clips; this meant adjusting the clip
to a slower speed. 
We did this by editing the format of the clip and reduced
the speed to be much slower, this was a setting at was available once you click
on footage. It was a really valuable technique and worked really affective
within the music video and linked back into our inspiration of the Ok Go
sequence video.
Blogger: This site helped me to keep updated with planning
stages on the production, allowing me to keep all of the research elements in
one place. So I could reference these information when making the music video—look
back at what the audience wanted from a video, what conventions, techniques and
ideas they liked in a video of the genre.
For me personally it helped keep me organised with what tasks leading up
to the film days needed to be done in order for the days to run smoothly and
affectively. 
Google: This was a needed tool to help me with the research
of the band and the alterative genre of music. This search engine found images,
information and text about the music genre, helping us research about this type
of music and educating us on what we needed to include in our very own
video.
Facebook and Twitter: These social network sites became
really useful when publicising the finished music video—we put it on their
personal Dance Grenade group Facebook page that all their fan and friends could
see and allowed the world view it—creating interest and advertisement to the
band. They also become useful for gaining feedback from the target audience. It
is a great way in which we are able to gather information to help us take steps
forward in the making of our production. This feedback could through comments
left on the video and through Facebook Chat. I also used twitter as a means of
exhibiting our final products, as it opened them up to be viewed by a wider group
of people, meaning that we would get a more accurate amount of feedback on our
promo.
This unit I have learnt and developed from my skills I have
learnt at As level, I have considered the different skills needed for shooting,
editing and planning to create a affective and creative production of a music
video. Through this project I have gained a better understand of using
different technologies such as IMovie and Photoshop, my limited knowledge at
the start of the process has made me think how far I have come. I have learnt
about how to create fast editing in time with the beat of the song, lip-syncing
and transitions, I now have more rounded skills of this technology that I can
now apply to anything I might need to do in the further.
I have learnt how to create stop motion-even though we
didn’t include it in the final production, it was interesting to learn about
how it is used the needed techniques and time you need to put in, in order to
produce it affectively. I learnt that you need to be organised and know exactly
what you are doing, or otherwise it wouldn’t look good at all. Through
practising and team work we did manage to produce a fairly good slow motion
sequence. It involved trying out a quick sequence the boy could do and taking
regular photos as we did it—like for every second. So it broke down each
movement to exact positions—it allowed us to speed it up or slow it down. I
learnt that it was important to stay in the same position between each take and
that the sequences would need to be simple as the more harder the less
affective it look. Keeping it simple with the background and clothing as well
was needed for best results. This unit has allowed me to experiment with was
work and what doesn’t.
I have learnt the importance of framing a shot—really
thinking and analyses what it in the shot and being filming. An example of me
thinking about the framing was the long shot of the band members in the woods
for the Ok Go inspired dance sequence.
This shot worked really well, because of the background of the colours,
trees, sky to make a beautiful shot that looks visually appealing on screen. It
also worked technically as all the boys were in shot from head to toe with an
equal amount of spacing between them—in order for the sequence to work. This compared
to the thriller shots of the actress walking in the darken alley—the framing
was poor as her face wasn’t central and didn’t exactly work as an affective
shot. With learning to master this skill
the use of planning every shot we wanted to achieve was important, this meant
that we could think carefully and evaluate whether it would work or not before
the shoot. Instead of wasting time on the day of shooting the video. This also
meant, we would have enough footage and include everyone’s ideas to achieve the
best possible result we wanted. Partnered with this skill it meant I had to
affectively use a tripod-this piece of equipment was nothing new to me, as I
worked with it for As Media and for photography shot. But this was an important
element in creating a straight, steady shot which is a basic requirement to
produce a good framed shot.
Another technique I have learnt during this project was of
the importance of creating pace in the editing that fitted the rhythm of the
song, meaning that it fitted to the beat of the music. We wanted to build up
the editing pace towards to the end of the video, to create a build-up of clips
minoring the music in time—this creates a relationship between the two elements
the song and the video. This links them together making the video feel part of
the song, which it is almost the story behind the lyrics, this was something we
certainly wanted and I think we managed to achieve. The method behind this was to put in a mass
amount of clips for a short duration to create a flash of images and clips that
work with the music.
Through the designing and making the digipak and the
advertisement, we used the software of Photoshop to create a professional
looking piece. I started with no knowledge of this software and not having any
previous experience of this technology, as a result of the rest of my group
teaching me as I went and through trial and error I learnt the basic skills of
Photoshop. I have now experienced what works and what doesn’t with this
software, giving me experience for my next project for when I need to use this
programme. It learnt the basic skills of cropping an image down, to just revel
what I want in the foreground and get rid of the background. I also learnt how
you can edit the contrast of a photo, this was particularly important when
doing the digipak and advert as this was a key feature that made ours
different, unique from everyone else. Another technique I found out was the use
of adding text to a photo; I previously didn’t know that you could do this or
how to do it. As this is a regular feature on all of our products it was a good
time for me to learn for myself how to do it, and then perform it on the
advert. This meant I could be shown how
to and then do it for myself—making sure I wouldn’t forget what I did.
Despite using a lot of technical devices, we did encounter
some problems during the filming of our promo. Due to wanting to capture all
the footage we wanted of the band, it meant that we filled us a whole SD card,
so we had to quickly delete footage that we didn’t need and were a mistake. But
we did come prepared and had another card, so we could continue filming and not
waste time—sorting what footage we wanted and didn’t wait on location.
Another problem that faced us was lip Syncing, when it came
to adding sound to our promo, we found that parts of the lip syncing did not
match up as well as they could do, this was due to our filming being done at a
live performance event the band did, so we couldn’t get the exact timing right
as it was a bit faster than the soundtrack. This was something that could not
be helped and meant we couldn’t include all the footage that we originally
wanted too. But I we tried to magnified the timeline of the clip, helping us to
gain a much more accurate result and put in other clips that could also fit at
the given point of the song.
Exhibiting our material online it opens up a number of free
publicity options for our products. Due to the amount of people using the
internet compared to the more traditional methods of sourcing music, our
products will reach a much wider target market gaining a lot more publicity for
the track and creating a buzz on this new artist.
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