How did you use media technologies in the con-struction and research, planning and evaluation

stages?

When constructing my A2 music video course-work I used many technologies within my construction, research, planning and evaluation. All my work that I have done within all the tasks are being blogged. I have found this the hardest task as it was the first thing that we set up as we started the year. At first I found it hard to handle and work out how to use but after a while you get used to it. The blog has proved to be a great way to display multimedia skill, an easy place to access work from anywhere and visually more interesting than showcases from projects before. The advances and changes to the lay-out of blogger also causes many problems as it took a while for me to adjust to the new format, however once I was an accomplished user of the new layout, I believe that it was highly ben-eficial, time effective and efficient.

Due to the fact of expanding my work in A2 when using blogger you need to use different ways to publish your work. I started using You-Tube to publish videos onto to my blog to make a change from using slideshare/issu, which is a programme you would use to publish word or PowerPoint documents. Not only did I use YouTube to upload production logs or planning/evaluation tasks I used it to upload drafts of mu-sic video and my final draft. I would often have to export my video using a different compressor in order to reduce file size so that I would not have to be waiting around for large amounts of time whilst the video uploaded, it still took a bit of time but even though I had to wait for the file to upload it didn’t stop me from carrying on with my work.

Other online forms include the essential ‘Prezi’ presentation-maker, you would use this programme to create a docu-ment with interac-tions to make it more interesting and keep people

attracted to my blog and make sure that they don’t get bored or lose concentration. I used prezi’s in a number of different research tasks, such as influence in music styles, music genre and what is a digipak.

When shooting photos for my ancillary tasks I used a Cannon 550D. This camera was equipped with a cin-ematic shutter speed with a 1.8 aperture lens. This meant I could take photographs in shallow focus for a more creative and artistic look. When editing these im-ages I would place them into Adobe Photoshop cs6.

Once placing my images in adobe Photoshop I would use the crop tool to make images the size I wanted for my digipak or magazine advert and the Magic Wand Tool is what assisted me in cutting out particular parts of an image in a professional manner. The Brush Tool also came in handy when making my magazine advert look more interesting, as it meant I could scroll through a selection of shapes and images and print them onto the background of my advert. I used the effects that we had in our media resources area to get a sepia look to make my photos fit in with my genre. Once I had edited all of my photos I then created my actual di-gipak on a program called Adobe InDesign, I previously used this in AS, this meant that I had experience using the program and just needed to refresh my memory on how it works. I find that Adobe InDesign is a lot easier to use then Photoshop as you don’t have to every-thing on a different layer, not using layers is easier as previously when using Photoshop I forget to add new layers, so when I want to go and change something I cannot as I have something else on the same layer. When creating my digipak I sued a variety of tools. When adding my image I would place it and re-size to

the sixe that it needed to be for me to work around it. With my image I would have it ‘at the back’ meaning that when I added text it would go in front of the image instead of behind. A few times when I added text it would go behind the image, when this happened I would have to left click on the image, go to ar-

range then send back. Another tool that I used within Adobe InDesign is the transparency tool for my image that goes behind the actual CD. This tool is found on the tool bar at the top of the program, you can choose how transparent you want the image to be.

When filming my actual music video I used the same camera as I did to take the pictures with, which is a Cannon 550D, so that my footage was steady I always filmed with a tripod so that the camera didn’t shake or move. This would give me a more professional look to my footage.

When shooting in Green screen I used flores-cent strip Lights. This allowed me to brighten up my actress so that the focus was on her. Not only did it help me brighten up my actresses it helped me to be able to use adobe premiere to cut my actress out of the green screen. When cutting out my actresses I used the keying tool. The keying tool allowed me to select the green and ‘delete’ the background so that I could add my own effect. Also when using the strip lights , it took away shadows from behind my actress, this helped a lot when I was using the ultra key tool in Adobe premiere to cut my footage as it made I could do it all in one simple set with adjusting the levels of contrast and brightness. I had to learn this new skill of being able to use Adobe premiere but once I got the hang of it you understand what all the tools to and how it works, it takes time and you get stressed but it’s simple once you know how it works.

Once I had uploaded all of my footage into Adobe premiere CS6 I used the razor tool so that I was able to cut my clips at the right place so that it linked up with my lyrics and the lip syncing was perfect. This tool became very use-ful as it was used at all times, this was the main tool that was being used during the time of

creating my music video. To help me figure out when I need to cut my footage I could listen to the beat of the music and click ‘m’ when the beat was chang-ing. This would

leave a red mark at the top if the timeline, it allowed me to know where the beat changed and how often I needed to change my clip so I wouldn’t have the same clip running for too long of a time. Another tool that I used when creating my music video in Adobe Premiere was the black and white tool, if I wanted a certain part of my music video in black all I would have to do is search for the tool the drag it on top of my certain clip and it would change to black and white, I could then adjust the contrast and brightness.

Not only did I used the lights when filming my green screen, I used lights when filming my outside footage. While filming outside I used different lights to when I was filming my greens screen this time I used Red head lights, these lights are brighter and more effective for outside filming as they are more likely to be able to light up a wider space where as the florescent strip lights can’t. With Red head lights you have to position them in the correct place for you to be able to still see you actor. With filming outside I had to place the Red head light far away when filming because when the light was closer you couldn’t see any of the people in the view of the camera.

Media technologies were also important in the evalua-tion stage of my coursework, I used Microsoft word to draft all of my questions before I chose how I was going to present them as I wanted to make them interesting and pleasing for people to watch. A great way of present-ing your work in an interesting way is to create a video on Adobe premiere. This way I will be able to record my voice and all images and clips within a clip to make sure that whoever is watching my evaluations will stay inter-ested.

Technologies