How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluate stages? (Music Video)

THE FINAL PRODUCT:

• Software used for main media product: FINAL CUT PRO
• Other technologies: RECORDING CAMERA

The way in which the piece was constructed and conducted was that we filmed lots of footage -- shots of the artist in many positions, such as dancing in the forest, throwing water whilst dressed, and various other things, and then re-film certain pieces of footage, constantly repeating some scenes, changing costume was quite frequent, which was quite tedious at times.

• My input in the music video was I edited the beginning of the song and the finale, whilst the others edited the rest of the video.
  

Research:

• As part of my research, I thought hard on the actual concept of this video - I wanted it to be very abstract and surreal as possible - and this would be challenging the conventions of a music video (close ups, interaction with the audience, etc) and I think that the idea has stuck and it has turned out to be quite surprising. To boost inspiration I used sleevage.com to look at artist's work, and also looked upon Youtube to gather ideas and possible themes for my artist. I also looked at the background information on Florence & the Machine, Kate Bush, Tori Amos to get a general feel of their music and their music videos, and what they're trying to express through their music videos.

Construction:

• In order to begin editing and creating my music video, I used editing software Final Cut, which admittedly, I found this uncomfortable to use at first as I had never used it before, as last year I used iMovie, which was simple to use. I then soon adapted to the software but of course, I still got help when I needed it such as importing the footage, which I eventually got used to.
  

This is a screen shot from the music video. I have used Final Cut to manupulate my film footage and was able to create something out of the ordinary -- as you can see, I placed 3 pieces of footage on top of each other to stay in with the theme of surrealism, dreamy atmosphere, being in a dream. I have used overlays and changed the opacity in the film footage in order to challenge real media products and I think that by making the film more abstract, I believe that this is what people would be wanting to see a lot more in reality.

Evaluate:

• Once the music video was complete, the next thing was to upload it on to YouTube, which we have done. The media technologies I have used to broadcast my footage and work was youtube (recent), flickr (gained feedback for ancillary task), and uploaded on blogger so my class and my teachers; possibly other peers are able to view the video. Being able to upload this footage has really brought confidence to me and my technical media skills, and I believe that I have become more advanced in the knowledge of using editing software and I think my work has challenged the typical media conventions of a music video and by making it completely abstract and bizarre, it has gone against the conventions in a way that it would be seen as interesting and possibly refreshing for a specific audience.