How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

Right through this project I have used a range of technologies, some I had previous experience and some I had never used before, during my time I

have developed a range of skills from using all these technologies. There was various stages to the project, firstly research, then planning, construction

and evaluation. New technologies we used in all stages

Research

YouTube

Firstly a technology I used was YouTube in my research, I browsed through videos to give me of an idea of what kind of songs I wanted to make a music video too. It allowed me to look at artists from my genres music videos so I could analyses conventions. A feature on YouTube which was extremely helpful is the related search toolbar, which provides you with similar videos to the ones you’ve searched already, so using YouTube provided me with more example for music videos from my genre than the research I did using a search engines like Google.

YouTube was easy to use and accessible at anytime. When blogging my case studies, YouTube also came in helpful as it allowed me to extract videos from its website and place on my blog. This was helpful as it gave visitors of my blog easy access to find the videos I was talking about in my case study.

Research

Research

Ipod and Phones

The second technology used was my iPod and phone. Many of the times I was on YouTube looking at music videos, I was doing this on my phone and iPod, my iPod also allowed me to watch music channels. These music channels had videos which gave us ideas about different types of genres, different types of shot and locations. These videos also had a comments sections which allowed us to analyze what was favored by the audience and what was not.

Research

PowerPoint

In the research stage I used PowerPoint to create presentations which I later turned to slide shares, this technology was useful as I felt being able to make slide shares helped to organize parts of the project and make the blog look neater. It looked better and created a more professional look

Research

Internet /Search engines

Within the research stages I used search engines such as Google; it allowed me to access many sources. I used websites such as Wikipedia; this provided me with knowledge on my artists and other artists which related to my artist. It provided me with pictures of their CD covers and advertisement posters which I analyzed for my case studies. I was able to look at the photo shoots of similar artists giving me ideas of what type of Mise en scene, clothing, make up and prop’s I would use in the construction of my music video and ancillary products. I was also able to look up locations where we wanted to film on Google maps. I used the internet to email files back and forth to my group members and also contact my teachers.

Lastly I used the internet for definition of media words I wasn’t familiar with. Another thing I used the internet for in my research stage was to obtain the lyrics of our song, researching the lyrics helped when it came to the planning stage as we planned our video around these lyrics to ensure that the story in our video correlated with the lyrics of the song. I had internet access on my phone and I ipod so was always able to find out information quickly.

Camera and tripods

In our research stage we filmed our class at two different times asking them what they thought out our initial treatment idea and what they thought about our ideas for ancillary products. To do this we used technologies such as college cameras and tripods. These videos were then loaded up to YouTube to enable us to put them on our blogs. Being able to use the technology of filming meant we could re watch these videos over and over again ensuring that we didn’t miss any piece of feedback

Research

Planning

Planning Microsoft and PowerPoint

Another technology I used was Microsoft word and PowerPoint; this could arguably be one of the most important of all. I used Microsoft word and power point in the construction of everything. I used it to draft everything from my case studies, to my recee, my risk assessments, production schedule and many more all the way through to my evaluation. Even though many of these files have now been uploads to slide shares, sound clouds and prezis I still used Microsoft word to draft, as it spell checks and grammar checks.

As well as using PowerPoint for making presentation that would later be turned into a slideshares, I also used the simple photo editing feature to create images like these for my ancillary products drafts

Planning ScannersOne of the most important stages of planning was making our story boards. Our storyboards were hand written and in order to get our storyboards on to the computer we had to use the technology provided by a scanner. Putting them on the computer allowed us to share with others on our blog and also make duplicates as we then printed them out for each group member.

Planning Ipod for photosDuring the planning stage we used more new technologies. We used HD cameras to take behind the scene photos for our blog. I also used my Ipod with panorama features to take picture for my Recce. These pictures proved useful as we were able to use them when discussing what areas were best for each scene, so when we got to our locations to film we knew exactly what we were doing to maximized time.

Mobile Phones

Mobile phones were used in Planning in every stage of our products from our shoot, to trying to coordinate times outside of lesson to do extra work to keep on top of the project, co coordinating times to go to each others house to plan evaluation questions and videos. To do t his we have used blackberry's iphones and androids. We downloaded apps such as whatsapp and bbm. They allowed us to instant message each other for free., this made communication and planning much easier. We also face timed each other any queries, face timing my group members was useful because it meant that I could use my camera and show them work I had done or vice versa.  With iphones and androids we were also able to download the blogger app. Doing this meant I could draft potential blogs and even blog in the go. This increased organization and efficiency.

Planning

Construction

ConstructionDuring the construction stage there were many new types of technologies introduced, some our

group members hadn’t even heard of let alone used before. These included video editing software’s

such as Final cut pro. We uploaded our footage to the Imacs , here we choose the footage we wanted. We then began editing and changing our footage to

monochrome adding transitions, speeding and slowing down the cutting rate ect. Most

importantly we matched the video to the song so when our artist sang it matched the words. Final

cut pro was my weakness as I am not very familiar with the software, despite having training I didn’t

pick it up very quickly so was cautious when it came to this stage. However support from my

group meant I was able to get over this.

EvaluationConversion sites, mobile phones and

windows movie maker

At the evaluation stage different technologies were used to record and

answer question 1 and 3. When recording my questions I used my phone, however the format of voice notes on my phone are AMR, when making my video the software I used was windows movie make because I could

access it from home. Windows movie maker is not compatible with AMR so I had to use

technologies to convert my AMR files to MP3. I also had to convert my videos to MP4 and

then to AMI in order for them to be compatible with windows movie maker. I

then use YouTube to show case my evaluation video

ConstructionVideo camera-Cannon 900DThe next piece of technology we used was HD camera we used we used a cannon 900D, a member of our group provided her personal camera to shoot our video, with it being her personal camera , she was very familiar with It and knew exactly how to use It, meaning we were able to maximize the use of all the features. Before starting filming we done training at college using a Panasonic HD-HS9000. We carried out various exercises which involved looking at how to focus and how to go about shooting different angles. Using a top of the range HD camera it meant that the quality of our footage was of that of a professional video.

ConstructionPhoto shopIn the construction of our ancillary products we used adobe Photoshop. Photoshop allowed us to create real looking ancillary products, it contained many features that enabled our product to look professional , features include document navigation, Cropping, Layers and Groups, Tool presets, magic eraser ect. The clone tool and healing brush proved useful as it allowed us to airbrush our artist face to create a flawless look. It also provided us with professional type fonts

Still image Cameras – Nikon SLR

In the construction of our project we also used cameras provided by the college (NikonSLR). With these we shot our photos for ancillary products in a professional studio. I had previously used these cameras before so was quite confident in using them. We changed the shutter speed in order to create the effect we have on our CD cover

Construction

Evaluation

EvaluationTwitter

Another technology that was used in the evaluation stage to collate feedback from our target audience was twitter. We uploaded the video to our twitter accounts so that our peers could direct message or tweet us back with feedback . We put the videos up at different stages so they could give us constructive critism and we could make changes accordingly, twitter allowed us to talk straight to our target audience. All of us had twitter on our phones so could view and respond back to our audience feedback fairly quickly.

To get more views and therefore comments on our video I tried to create a buzz, getting many of my friends to tweet my music video, I tried to maximize my opportunity to gain feedback. After a while we had people contacting us about seeing the music video!

EvaluationMicrosoft word and PowerPoint

Another technology I used for my evaluation was again Microsoft word and PowerPoint. Word was used to draft up what I was going to say on my voice over’s in my evaluation videos in order to grammar check. PowerPoint was used to create presentations which where them moved to a slide share. This was a skill I developed as I had never done this before.

EvaluationPaint

To complete my evaluation I needed still images of text in my evaluation video, so viewers knew where I was and what topic I was evaluating. So like here you can see, I created this on paint making paint one of the many technologies I used when completing my evaluation.

EvaluationGoogle Chrome I used the internet throughout my evaluation to look up media technology I wasn’t sure of the meaning to. I also used the internet to look up Stuart hall, Rowland Barthes and Andrew Goodwin’s theory to ensure i had enough knowledge to incorporate them into my evaluation questions. I also used search engines to look up pictures of all the media theorists to add in to my evaluation video.

EvaluationWindows movie maker

Lastly another technology used in my evaluation was windows movie maker, this allowed me to make videos which included voice overs and still images as well as short video clips to answer my evaluation questions 1 and 3

Blogger

Throughout my project I used blogger, a program I didn’t previously know how to use. However I picked it up very quickly. I have used blogger at every stage as I have blogged my work every time its completed. It was easy to use and allowed us to stay organized as we were keep track of our progression. Blogger allowed us to embed photos, videos and various presentations such as prezis and slide shares.

Blogger was easily accessible from our mobile phones as we all downloaded the app.

As a group did you develop skills and individually?

As a group we definitely developed skills. Firstly as a group there was many programs and software’s we had never used before and are now able to use with ease. The biggest one is blogger. Before none of our group knew how to use blogger and now we are all very comfortable with every aspect of blogging. Other technologies our

grouped developed skills in was using programs like slide share and photo peach which we had never used before, when creating a product on these programs they had to be embedded onto our blog. I had never had to embed something before so had no idea how to do however I was shown by one of my class members and can now successfully embed products on to my blog, this is a skill that I can take forward in to my personal life.

A member of our group provided us with her personal camera to shoot our video with, being her personal camera , she was very familiar with It and knew exactly how to use It, meaning we were able to maximize the use of all the features. This particular group member is very good with the technical side of things for example, using cameras, tripod, using the software’s such as Final cut pro and Adobe photo shop. So in this project she was able

to further develop her skills she already had, where as I developed many new skills which again I hope will be useful to me in the future.

As a group we also developed the skills of team work and using technologies to effectively communicate. For example there was no point In time where we couldn’t get In contact with each other. We downloaded a range of apps which allowed us to communicate without having to pay, I introduced members of my group to apps which

they didn’t know about widening there knowledge of communication technologies