Evaluation Question 4

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

by

Simon James

INT. OFFICE - DAY

The office is clean and has a crisp feel to it. A large wooden table decorated with allocated glasses of water, pens and paper. DANIEL (26) and MIKE (28) are stood at the front of the room next to a projection board prepar-ing their presentation.

Within a moment, the room is filled with various execu-tives and heads of corporations, filing in and taking their place at the table. The two young men feel the glare of authority upon them.

DANIEL Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Daniel-

MIKE-and I’m Michael-

DANIEL-and this is our evaluative presenta-tion!

Daniel attempts to inject his charisma with a dose of en-thusiasm, which is not well received.

MIKEThe question in hand is-

He press a button on a remote, switching the slide.

MIKE (CONT’D)-how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

DANIELBeautiful question.

MIKE’Tis indeed, Dan. But we aren’t here to discuss the brilliance of it, we’re here to answer this from our own experience of the music video process.

DANIELYes! Now I’m sure you’ve all had time to view our music video and have many thoughts on it, but we’ll save those till later.

The executive audience are not amused by their enthusias-tic approach, yet they continue in this manner.

MIKEBut for now-

Mike once again changes the slide on the presentation to reveal a slide baring a single word: “RESEARCH”.

MIKE (CONT’D)What media technologies did we use in our research of our music video?

DANIELTo begin with, we had to research the genre, audience and similar artists be-fore we could begin planning our music video.

MIKEThat’s right. And with setting out to do this, we began with using various search engines such as Google and Bing to discover more about our chosen genre; Rock.

DANIELOnce we had done this, we had a small portfolio of bands and fan bases in which to research further into, such as Nirvana and The Velvet Underground, as well as, of course The Pixies.

MIKEWe then researched their music videos, using various video streaming websites such as YouTube and Vimeo, and looked for common elements within them, such as how they adhered to Goodwin’s Seven Conventions.

The audience mutter quietly to each on some of the deci-sions they had made in their research so far.

DANIELOnce we had a sufficient amount of in-formation about these bands and their fan bases, we needed to put pen to pa-per. Or should I say: finger to digital paper.

Daniel awaits a laugh from the audience, yet receives nothing except an overreacted response from Mike.

DANIEL (CONT’D)We won’t try jokes then.

MIKEAnyway, we did this mostly by using the technologies within Microsoft Office, for example, Word and Powerpoint were our most utilised softwares in this area.

DANIELWe created many documents displaying the research we had uncovered in our pursuit, as well as creating several music video analysis, as to get a sense of what we would have to produce.

MIKEAfter this, we began the process of getting our research seen. We were in-structed to produce a blog to document our journey from beginning to end.

DANIELWe would then upload each piece at ap-propriate times. To do this, we had to go through the process of embedding our work. We did this by uploading it to SlideShare, and then receiving an embed code to place on our blog.

MIKETherefore concluding the research as-pect of our presentation.

Mike straightens his tie and takes a swig of water before moving onto the next slide: “PLANNING”.

DANIELOnce our research had finished, we needed to begin planning our own music video. We did this mostly once again through using Microsoft Office prod-ucts, such as Word and Excel.

MIKEWe used Word in the planning of a sto-ryboard for our video as well as a starting point for brainstorming ideas.

DANIELOnce we had these basic brainstorms down, we went away to the drawing board to create our vision.

MIKEThis leads us onto the pitching of our presentation. We were tasked with sell-ing our music video idea to executives, like yourselves, in an attempt to get it produced.

DANIELFor this, we had to create a powerpoint presentation to accompany us in our pitch. We did this using Microsoft Pow-erPoint.

MIKEOnce we had completed our pitch, we were instructed to go out and create our music video, leading us to-

The powerpoint slide changes to: “CONSTRUCTION”

MIKE (CONT’D)Construction.

DANIELWith the construction of our music video, the media technologies which we predominantly utilised were that of hardware, such as cameras, lighting and tripods.

MIKEWe were assigned to use a Panasonic AG-AC90 to film our music video, along with a suitable tripod and various lighting equipment.

DANIELWe were allowed to chose from redhead and liliput lighting, yet generally chose to use the lighting rig available on the set.

MIKEUpon finishing the filming of our video, we set out to edit it into our final product.

DANIELWe did this by using the Apple software Final Cut Pro 7. Having used it in pre-vious projects, we felt comfortable with the task at hand.

MIKEThe desire for many effects allowed us to experiment with the different fil-ters and effects that Final Cut Pro had to offer, to which we chose a select few, such as ‘Day for Night’ and ‘Fast Motion’.

DANIELOnce our video was created, we had to set about making our digipack, and a poster to advertise this.

MIKEWe had to research the layout and con-tents of a traditional digipack before setting put to create it. Once again, we used various search engines to do this, Word to create our findings and SlideShare to distribute them.

DANIELIn creating our digipack, we used Adobe Photoshop to get our desired outcome. We also used this software to create our poster.

MIKENow, finally-

The slide changes once more to show: “EVALUATION”.

MIKE (CONT’D)What technologies did we use in our evaluation?

DANIELWe chose to utilise many of the tech-nologies that we had previously used in all the other stages of our music video.

MIKEWe used the same Panasonic camera to interview our audience in order to ana-lyse their feedback, as well as produc-ing a questionnaire on Word for them to fill out.

DANIELConcluding this, we created a Prezi presentation to display one of the other evaluation questions. Then going on to create a powerpoint presentation using Apple’s software Keynote.

MIKEWe even used Apple Pages to create the script that we’re appearing in right now!

DANIELSelf-reflexivity!

Daniel performs a slight expulsion of display to the ex-ecutives before returning to his previous state.

MIKEAnyway, this concludes our evaluative presentation.

DANIELAnd we hope we have answered the ques-tion of “how did you use media technolo-gies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?”

MIKE Thank you once again ladies and gentle-men.

DANIELWe hope you enjoyed our presentation.

THE END