HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE

CONSTRUCTION OF RESEARCH, PLANNING AND

EVALUATION STAGES?

During my research stage I used various aspects of technologies to help me with the creation of my music video, digi-pak and advert. One of the main media technologies I used throughout the whole process of the creation of my ancillary texts was Blogger. Since our AS task was set, we were told that all of our work should be recorded on Blogger. This enabled us to submit posts to keep track of our progress. Another advantage of using Blogger is that it enabled us to express our creativity which we would not be able to do if presented on paper. For example, we can post images and videos from different media technologies; Youtube, our own computer and through the use of URL’s. Personally, I believe that Blogger helped me keep organised. Every piece of my work is stored on Blogger, and it allows me to access it from absolutely anywhere which furthers the reason to why the use of Blogger was such a positive aspect of the whole task.

Google was repeatedly during all stages of my A2 task. However, it was mainly used in the research stage. I used Google to search images to help me gain a wide range of information about the conventions of the R&B genre. It also helped me to look for an artist. After looking through a number of websites for an artist, I discovered the website 'www.reverbnation.net' where I found the profile of the artist Emerald Jones.

Final Cut Express was the program which I used to create my music video. As Final Cut Express was the program I used to create my AS Short film introduction last year, I was particularly confident about using it this year. I was familiar with a number of editing techniques, cutting clips, rearranging clips, adding sound, transitions etc. Final Cut Express was definitely a more advanced program for editing which really gave us an advantage when coming to editing clips, in contrast to programs such as iMovie.

Similarly, I also used Adobe CS3 Photoshop to create my digi-pak and advert. This was definitely a more advanced program but something that was quite a challenge to work with. Adobe Photoshop is not a program which I have had a lot of experience with. I was aware of all the simple techniques such as cutting an image, applying a background, adding text etc. The use of the program meant that we could create a very professional looking outcome. I learnt a huge amount whilst using this program and I believe it was an extremely useful in the planning process of my A2 project.

I used various filming equipment such as a digital video camera, digital camera, dolly and tripod to help me during the process of my filming. In terms of the stills camera, I used a Canon Legria Video Camera. This helped me during the planning process of all of the texts. At first, I used the digital camera to capture locations and actors which I wanted to use in my music video. I also used a stills camera for my digi-pak and advert. I captured a number of high quality images which I would be able to use in my texts, rather than taking snapshots from my music video, causing the images to be lacking quality, and being quite blurry. The digital filming camera was used to take clips for my music video, and the tripod and dolly supported the camera to ensure that I would gain the best results. 

A website which I discovered last year in my AS project was www.dafont.com. This provides people with an extremely large number of fonts available to download online for free and had benefited me a huge amount in my planning process. It enabled to download fonts for my advert and digi-pak which are completely unique, and differ from the simple texts available on computers such as Comic Sans, Times New Roman etc.

Another website which I frequently used was Slideshare. Slideshare enabled me to transfer powerpoints that I had created on my laptop by using Microsoft Powerpoint into online power pints which I could post onto Blogger. I believe this was a really good way of presenting information on my blog in a different way and definitely was vital for my evaluation stage.

During my research process, music channels were something that I tried my best to frequently watch to help me get inspiration and to further my knowledge of the R&B genre. Music channels such as Flava, MTV Base, and Chart Show were ones that I would often see R&B music videos on.