Software
While performing our audience research, we used many different websites to find similar bands and to see what certain audiences like, in reference to music genres and styles. Websites like Myspace and Facebook were especially useful for these, as people can "share" music videos and songs that they like; using this information, we could then create an idea of what our specific audience would like. The search-engine Google was also equally useful; this website, which allows the user to search through millions of websites, allowed us to look for our chosen band's website and any reviews or articles concerning them. This then helped us to piece together the ages of audiences who enjoy the band.
In creating our text, we used many different software packages to assist us. The main product we used was FinalCut Express; this video editing software is industry standard, and did not limit us on the effects and editing techniques we could use. However, before cutting and editing the video clips, we had to convert them into files that could be read by FinalCut. We did this by using freeware, downloaded from the internet.
Freeware, also known as shareware, is a name given to open source programs that can be downloaded from the internet for free; these programs are usually used by the general public in return for consumer information; the programs are then changed and improved by the producing company, and then sold to the general public. We used two different examples of shareware; iSquint and MPEG Streamclip. These are two examples of an conversion/encoding tool, which is necessary when editing film; many programs only accept certain types of program files, so to use a variety of programs a conversion tool is needed. These programs both worked as they were intended to, and allowed us to edit as we wanted without spending money on converting software. Other shareware that we could have used includes the program "GIMP" instead of Photoshop; however as Photoshop was already present on the school computers we did not need to download the replacement.
Other programs that we used while creating the music video included Quicktime Player and iTunes; these are both media players of different styles, with Quicktime playing video and iTunes playing audio files. These were especially useful to see how the text would look in its eventual digital viewer. Music videos, along with albums and singles, are sold by iTunes meaning that this would be a possible way for the audience to see the text. When creating the ancillary tasks, we used Photoshop to edit the photographs for the digipack. While this was a relatively new program for us to use, the concepts of editing are similar to that of FinalCut; in this way we could edit the photographs sufficiently and to the best of our ability.
While evaluating the video, we used blogging websites like Blogger, and video sharing sites like Youtube to share the video. On this blogging site we can also show how we have designed and produced the video. Sites like Facebook and Youtube have also been used to share the video with our audience.
Hardware
Without the use of video cameras, we would have been unable to make our video. We had learnt how to effectively use the cameras in previous tasks; however, skills like handheld "guerrilla style" filming and moving with the cameras were both skills that we needed to learn. The SD cards used to store the raw video files from the camera meant that we had to be wary of file size; a limited memory storage size means that if we are not careful we could lose previous files.
The iMacs were incredibly useful while making our music video; the advanced graphics card (ATI Radeon HD 4670) came in very useful while making the music video, and the storage space allowed us to store backups of our project in case of emergency
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