Noshin Anjum 13AL4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Construction and Research
Before we settled on the concept of creating a rock music video, we had chosen the genre alternative rock and picked the song Music From A Garden. I created a Prezi to illustrate the content of each scene that may be included in the potential music video and the images used derived from Mozilla Firefox. Primarily, I listened to the song without any interruptions and for the second time, I kept a keen ear out for attention to detail so I could match the lyrics to a set of visuals. Pitch for Music From A Garden At first, we needed to collect data on the different types of genres that we could possibly encounter and we settled on rock. A presentation was created on Prezi exploring a genre and this consisted of the history of rock, instruments, performance, the formation of bands, conventions of a rock band and examples of rock music videos. However, I used Mozilla Firefox to extract the information itself from Wikipedia. This allowed us to gain an idea as to what to include in our music video. The research of Goodwins music video theory was into The Man Who Can't Be Moved by The Script and YouTube was used to view the music video. I screenshot the scenes that supported my points and pasted it on a document which was later uploaded on to Scribd for readers to view. Applying Goodwin's theory Further research was necessary to explore the conventions of our preferred genre. Therefore, I created two mood boards on Final Cut Pro: alternative rock and rock. The mood boards were created to show the conventional images that I thought to be associated with the specified genre. The images originate from Mozilla Firefox and were then imported to Final Cut Pro. Once imported, I cut the scene to the beat of the song so the images were displayed in correspondence to the lyrics. I uploaded it on to the group YouTube account and embedded the code on Webs. Alternative rock mood board Rock mood board Print tasks were created for the advertisement of our music video. Firstly, I researched the concept of digipaks on Mozilla Firefox and then produced a power point presentation on Microsoft PowerPoint, which was uploaded onto SlideShare once completed.

Noshin Anjum 13AL4

Planning
In addition to our music video, print tasks were required to advertise our video. In this task, Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 was largely utilised to design our digipak and magazine advert. Various drafts were made until we reached a decision as a group as to which would be our final draft. First draft of my magazine advert

Magazine advert As it can be seen, my draft was in a landscape format, which was immediately criticised upon, as it is not normal for a magazine advert to be displayed as a photograph. The print tasks largely represented the rock genre due to the use of colour and font, which is chiefly black and white, as well as the preferred images that were placed on the covers of the digipak and magazine. Our group captured majority of the images with a Canon camera however, the only image that originates from Google is the iTunes logo. Digipak

Noshin Anjum 13AL4 Narrative The narrative of the music video was conjured up in Microsoft PowerPoint and then uploaded onto SlideShare so I could insert a hyperlink into Webs for spectators to observe. We used Final Cut Pro and used an effect called desaturate, which brings the colour scheme to an achromatic tone.

Animations Within the music video, there are glimpses of animation that was done by a group member. We wanted to illustrate the significance of instruments in this music video and this was thought to be achieved through a lighthearted method: animation. With a bit more practice, the animations could have appeared in a professional manner. In this state, I think the animations are rather light-hearted for this particular rock song.

Noshin Anjum 13AL4 Actors Three out of four members hailed from the Asian background. This is evidently our attempt at subverting from the stereotypes of rock band members being White, according to our research. However, we used YouTube to search music videos with an Asian lead vocalist. We came across Dream Warriors by Raxstar where the focal interest is the main singer as we see multiple close ups of the artist.

Noshin Anjum 13AL4 Band member: Tajul In our music video there were a few close ups of Tajul, the lead singer, for the construction of a star image. To be frank, if my team had discussed the various types of camera angles and shots that we could have taken then we would have had our hands on more footage, thus being able to cut the clips in Final Cut Pro to the fast-paced beat.

Noshin Anjum 13AL4 Band members: Fahad and Koysor (guitarists) and Dmytro (drummer) The rest of the band members got their moment to shine when the music track reached a guitar or drum solo. We could have filmed these band members from different angles (low angle may have been suitable since they have a small part in the production of this music video, in comparison to the lead singer.)

Evaluation
The first question asks the ways my media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products. I decided the best way to present the answer to this question is in the form of a presentation on Prezi. I would be able to offer specific scenes from my music video that relate to the topic being discussed by viewing the video on YouTube and then I can screenshot the page. At first, I was going to display my answer to question one in the format of a video using Final Cut Pro. I initially wrote my answer as an essay and typed it in a document on Microsoft Word and then I summarized it into a script. I then calculated as to how long this video may be and I ended up with an estimate of six minutes. I could not comprehend as to what I could include in the video when I was not comfortable with filming myself or recording my voice to use as a voiceover. Therefore, I decided that I should use Prezi as it is identified as an engaging and creative website for presentations. Question two asked about the effectiveness of the combination of my main product and ancillary texts. This was also displayed as a presentation on Prezi as I thought that I would be able to go back and forth from the ancillary texts to a point that I would be making. However, I do not have an idea of the full capacity of Prezi so I could not use the website effectively.

Noshin Anjum 13AL4 Question three was illustrated using a software called PowToon. Admittedly, this question was enjoyable to answer as I discovered a new way to present my answer and have fun whilst doing so. PowToon allows the user to create animated clips to present data or information concisely. There is a range of images, transitions and music tracks to choose from. Also, there is a timeline at the bottom of the page and you can control how long each slide lasts for, this gives the user great manipulation in depicting their information. Finally, question four asks how were media technologies used in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. The answer is in the format of an essay on Microsoft Word, which is uploaded in Scribd for spectators to view. I felt that this is an efficient way in explaining the uses of the media technologies that I have utilised and the difficulties I may have faced or the advantages of a specific software.