EVALUATION QUESTION 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Introduction

In this question I will be discussing how I used media technologies in the planning, research, construction and evaluation of my music video and ancillary texts. I will explain how these technologies have helped me throughout the process of creating my A2 media portfolio. Each of these media technologies have helped me with much of the creation of my portfolio and will as such be dedicating a section of this PowerPoint to each, pointing out how it has helped throughout each stage of the coursework.

Blogger

Blogger has been an important tool throughout my AS coursework and this continued into my A2 coursework where it continued to be the place all my work would be uploaded. Due to experience using it in my first year I was able to jump into using Blogger quickly as I knew how it worked and what I would need to use it for. Using Blogger allowed me to keep track of the work I had completed and the work I still needed to do as I could look at the titles of what I had uploaded to see what was already completed. Also, if something was only partially completed or if it was a section I had yet to complete but knew I would need to upload it at a certain point on my timeline I would create a post for it but as ‘need to upload’ or ‘need to finish’ after the title. I was also able to embed all of my that I had completed on Prezi and Emaze or uploaded on YouTube and Slideshare which made it easier to have a place which would have access to all my work without having to include multiple hyperlinks that would take people away from my blog and the rest of my work. Blogger was also helpful during the production of my music video as I was able to keep a recording diary on the site which helped me to keep track of the shots I had already completed and what still needed to be shot. Using Blogger I also created a poll which I used to find out what my audience would like to see in my music video. I used this poll to form how my music video would look and believe it was influential in the final outcome of my music video. Overall, Blogger was helpful during the creation of my portfolio as it was a way for me to keep track of my progress in the creation of my music video and ancillary test, as well as a good place to keep my work stored for viewing by my teachers.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 was helpful throughout the pre-production and research of my music video, specifically the use of YouTube allowed me to view music videos and take inspiration from them which helped me to plan out how my music video was going to look. This helped me create a video that looked realistic. Using Web 2.0 helped me to determine conventions of my genre and who my target audience would be as well as how I would go about making a video that would aim towards this audience. Wikipedia was helpful in determining my target audience as I was able to search a list of artists under my genre and watch videos of their music on YouTube during the period of time when I had to research conventions of the music video and videos under my genre. This was also helpful in deciding on videos I would look to for my textual analysis as I was able to find out that Imagine Dragons, American Authors and Charli XCX all fit under the same genre as my song and find videos for songs that I wanted to take inspiration from. From YouTube, I screenshot the bits of the music videos that provided me with the most inspiration.

Social Media

Another form of Web 2.0 that was helpful during my course work process was social media. I used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram throughout the process of making my portfolio. Facebook was probably the form of social media that provided me with the most help throughout the process as it gave me a way to communicate with Danny after his phone had broken. Due to this happening I was worried I would not be able to get in touch with him to plan out the filming I needed to do with him. However, this did not turn out to be an issue because I was able to get in touch with him through Facebook Messenger and we were able to plan shooting through this. Another thing I used all three forms of social media for was to see what my target audience would be looking for in a music video. I did this by sending out surveys through all three forms of social media so that I would gain the most responses I could on my surveys. I again did this once I had completed my video and ancillary texts, posting them on social media and asking people to comment on them, stating what they liked and what they thought I needed to change. I feel this was an effective way to get response on my product as most people I have on my social media sites are people of that are the age of my target audience which would directly lead to me gaining my target audiences opinions. I was able to take the responses I got from my audience and make changes to my product appropriately.

Dafont

Dafont is a website that I used to gain many of the fonts for my ancillary texts. I had some experience using this website in my first year meaning it would be easy for me to understand what I would need to do to get the fonts. I used this website as I knew it would give me better fonts than the regular fonts on Photoshop which would have looked plain and unprofessional. I think the fonts I used from this website work well with the theme of my song and also look good when compared to other digipaks. To add the fonts to my digipak I would type in what I wanted it to say and then screenshot the page, crop the text on Photoshop and then use the paint bucket tool to change the text to the colour I wanted it to be. Overall, dafont was a great help in keeping my products looking professional.

Microsoft PowerPoint & Publisher

Throughout the course of my coursework the main place for me to present information was on PowerPoint as it was an easy and good way to share present my work. Due to this I used PowerPoint a lot throughout my work, especially in the research and post-production phases of my coursework. PowerPoint was the place I presented the largest amount of my work on because of its simplicity to understand and because of the wide array of ways I could present stuff, with the only thing it not able to feature is videos which I instead used Prezi for.I used Publisher mainly during the production of my ancillary texts, using it to crop my images to the correct size to fit on the digipak template as well as creating the shapes for the background of my digipak as I found it easier to do it on Publisher than on Photoshop.

Prezi

Prezi is an internet software that I used many times throughout my coursework as it provided an alternative way to present my work than simply creating a PowerPoint or Word document. I was a good way to present my research and planning as it allowed you to embed videos which PowerPoint did not allow which made it a much better way to present some of my work when I needed videos as using PowerPoint would have meant I would have needed to embed the video separate from the document on Blogger. The unique way Prezi allows you to present your information made it a key media technology for me to use whenever I wanted something different from a normal PowerPoint. I also believe the way Prezi sets out work made it the best choice for some of my research, specifically the history of music videos as it allowed me to have it set out as a timeline which made sense with the information I wanted to set out.

Slideshare

Slideshare is a website that allows you to upload your PowerPoints online which allowed me to embed them on Blogger. I had used this during my AS coursework so I had experience with it meaning I knew how it worked which made it the perfect choice for uploading my A2 coursework and also meant that PowerPoint was a good format to use also. I used Slideshare a lot throughout my portfolio, mainly during the pre-production and post production stages, uploading my reseach and storyboard through it as well as parts of my evaluation.

Photoshop

Photoshop was used mainly during the production of my ancillary texts as a way to get them laid out correctly. Due to using Photoshop in my first year during the production of my music magazine I knew my way around it and knew I would find it easy to use rather than leaning how to use an entire new format. Also due to the many photo editing tools featured on Photoshop it was the first place I thought of to create my digipak and poster. I used many of the tools featured to create my texts, specifically the crop tool, paint bucket tool, spot healing brush, text tool and magic eraser tool. I used the crop tool to crop any unwanted areas of my images as well as when adding my texts from dafont, cropping around the text to make it easier to cur out. I used the paint bucket tool to change the colour of the background square as well as changing the colour of the text from dafont which all were originally black. The magic eraser tool was also very helpful taking the text from dafont as it allowed me to get rid of the white background around my text which I needed to do for my front and back cover specifically. The spot healing brush was helpful when editing my images of Danny to remove and spots he had at the time. Finally, the text tool was helpful to create any text I didn’t take from dafont. Photoshop was also helpful during to the fact you could change the opacity of the black and white effect on it which allowed me to add the effect and them turn down the opacity so that it appeared as a more brownish tint. I also used Photoshop to set out my digipak by opening the template in Photoshop and saving each of the parts of the digipak as an image and opening each of them before moving them onto the template.

Premier Pro

Premier Pro was the editing format that I used to create my music video. I also had the possibility of using Final Cut Pro that is available at college on the IMacs but chose to used Premier Pro as I find Macs hard to use and also because I had access to it at home meaning I could work on my video both during and out of college hours. I had also had prior experience using Premier Pro when developing my film coursework during my AS year which was another reason for me to use this software, although I had to catch myself up on how to use it. I imported the videos onto premier pro and most of the time, copied them into my sequence without the sound so that it wouldn’t effect my video. However, when positioning the lip sync I kept the sound on so that I was able to make sure the lyrics matched to what Danny was singing on the video. I then mute the video making it so it appears as though Danny was singing the song, adding to the realism of the video. The features on Premier Pro where helpful when creating my video, including the effects they had access to on the software, with the one I used most often been the cross dissolve which allowed me to include the feature of having my actress move around without having it be a jump cut which would have looked unclean. Overall, I feel the Premier Pro allowed me to accomplish everything I wanted to with my video and gave me, with it ending up looking the best I could hope for with the equipment I had.

Camera

Due to not owning a camera of my own I had to borrow a verity of cameras from college and friends meaning my clips didn’t always turn out looking the same because of the differing cameras I was using. However, I believe this didn’t effect my video too much as the clips all fit together well meaning that the differing cameras didn’t effect my product. On two of the occasions I borrowed a camera from my actress Lauren which was helpful as it meant I didn’t have to worry about borrowing a camera from college over the weekend or Easter which could be tricky as many people will want to use them over this time.

Tripod

A tripod was another piece of equipment that I didn’t have access to meaning that I had to borrow it from college or from a friend. Again, Lauren had a tripod making it easy to shoot with her as she would bring hers for me to use. When I shot with Danny I had to borrow one from college again so I made sure that I booked one out in advanced as I didn’t want to miss the opportunity and not be able to film. Tripods were very helpful during the filming process as they made sure that my video remained static and looked professional (however, on a couple of occasions I wasn’t able to use the tripod due to how my show was framed). Overall, using a tripod was a big help in the filming of my music video as it added a sense of professionalism to it.

IPhone 5S

I used my IPhone 5S at multiple points throughout my coursework. The main use of my IPhone was to communicate with my actors during the filming planning of my video. This was a very helpful way to quickly communicate at any time I needed to. I also used my phone during the filming of my video as a way to play the song when my artist was singing so that that would sing the song in time to the music meaning that when I was editing it the lip sync would fit and would look realistic. I also used my IPhone to take pictures of locations and my cast shots as it was easier for me to do this rather than borrow a camera from college to take these couple of pictures. My IPhone was very helpful throughout the construction of my portfolio because of its portability and its multiple uses.

Conclusion

Overall, these technologies went a long way to the completion of my coursework, especially Photoshop and Premier Pro which allowed me to create my products. These technologies have helped me through the process of completing this work and I would use them again to complete another piece of work.