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

evaluation stages?

Internet

For my genre research, band research and mood boards I used Google images and other search engines to find information and pictures. I also used bands websites and social media pages to find further information. As our chosen artist was the Arctic Monkeys we used arcticmonkeys.com to research our band and get an idea of their style and brand image.

When deconstructing music videos I used youtube.com as my main source as here I could watch all the videos I needed whether they were the ones I was deconstructing or intertextual references within these videos.

For my digipak deconstructions I looked on second hand shopping websites such as Ebay and Amazon which made it easy for me to obtain hard copies of the digipaks I wanted inexpensively, allowing me to deconstruct them in more depth than if I was just getting the images from the internet.

I used Google images for my advert deconstructions as there were many adverts of the indie rock genre accessible to me on here.

When conducting research into my target audience I used SurveyMonkey.com to create an online survey which I was able to send out to a large volume of people using both email and new media such as Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

For blogging my progress and ideas I used the blog site wordpress.com which allowed me to create posts in separate categories and embed different types of media into my posts such as slideshows, images and videos.

I used slideshare.com which is a site that allows you to convert PDFs and Powerpoints into a format which can be embedded on to blogs.

I used my youtube.com channel for uploading videos I had made during all stages of my portfolio which made it easy for me to embed these on to my blog.

Slideshare

Wordpress Youtube

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Some screen shots from the websites I used during my research, planning, construction and evaluation stages…

iMovie

We used iMovie software on an iMac in our construction stage when editing our final product.

iMovie allowed us to import all of our footage into an event and then cut the clips we wanted into a project.

We then edited the clips on beat with the music using the precision editor, changed the lighting and saturation and layered the clips to create the double vision effect.

I also used iMovie to edit my deconstruction videos in my research, my preliminary task and for all other videos I made during my portfolio.

As we had both used iMovie last year in our Foundation portfolio we were already aware of how to use the software so we were able to develop our skills much further and make a higher quality video and use more editing techniques.

Using iMovie to add the double vision effect to our final video

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We used the Precision Editor to get our on beat editing perfectly in time with the music, as this tool allows clips to be edited in more precisely in much more detail.

This screenshot shows the tool we used to change the speed and reverse our clips

which added much more interest to our final product.

iMovie

Photoshop

We used Adobe Photoshop for editing photographs that we used on our digipak and advert. Photoshop has a huge variety of different tools so we utilised these by changing the levels, saturation, colour profile and contrast.

Luckily myself and my partner both had previous experience in using it as we both do Art, so we were able to manipulate the images to a good professional quality.

We also used Photoshop for completing the final ancillary tasks by using layers to add logos, images and text. We changed the opacity of these so that the images merged together giving them a professional finish.

This shows how I used Adobe Photoshop to edit my magazine advert from my original image to my final product.

Equipment

For filming our music video we used a handheld Sony video camera with an SD card and a tripod to keep the camera stable.

For the still photographs in our ancillary tasks we used a phone with a high megapixel camera to achieve excellent quality and professional shots.

In my research, planning and evaluation stages I used a Macbook for making, editing and uploading videos and my phone for taking photos of evidence.

For editing the music video and ancillary tasks we used an iMac and a Macbook.

Tripod iMac with iMovie software iPhone 5

…For editing our final piece…For keeping the shots stable …For taking photos for ancillary tasks

with 8 megapixel camera

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Equipment