Question 4.How did you use Media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the making of our music video we used a wide majority of media technologies. Whether it was for planning and research, to the construction and editing of our video; using media technologies enabled us to ensure our video was made to look authentic and professional. We used a mix of hardware (Apple iMac and Cameras) and software (Final-Cut and Photoshop) technologies.

The main piece of hardware equipment used was the Apple iMac. We used the iMac throughout the entire process of our task such as the research and planning, downloading and uploading, editing our final product and creating our ancillary tasks.

Using the Apple iMacs allowed us to make use of the most superior software available on the Macs such as Photoshop and In Design. This enabled us to ensure that our products were made to a high standard and quality; allowing us to create an authentic product.

Initially when I first started to use the Apple iMacs, it was quite challenging because I had never used the Macs before. However with some patience and practice, I now am able to work the Macs with great ability.

When we first started our coursework task, we created a blog on Blogger. We created a blog to publish our research, planning and final work. Using the blogs was a great way to see our work coming together visually, enabled us to plan out in our group what part of the tasks we were doing each and was an easy way of keeping a ‘diary; of our work due to the blog showing a timeline from the beginning of our work, to the final piece. Using the blog also allowed us to be creative because we were able to

create a background and chose the fonts and colours used. We were also given the opportunity to increase our IT skills because we uploaded PowerPoint’s, Slideshares and Word Documents through Embed codes. I used blogger last year in my coursework, and I feel the same as last year that using blogger is very easy and an efficient way of publishing work.

Once we had made our blogs, we started our research process of the coursework. We used the Internet throughout our research, as it was a quick and efficient way of gaining reliable and valid research and contained up to date information. We mostly used Google because it is worldwide and is a useful source of information.

Within our research we researched well-known artists to find information about their brand image, album covers and videos. We used the search engine Google for this.

Here is a print screen of an example of the research we carried out on Katy Perry’s album covers.Google enabled us to see clear examples of the album covers and allowed us to gain deeper insight into other things we needed to know.

Another way we found research was through You-Tube. We thought it was vital to use You-tube within our research because our initial task was aimed at a music video therefore gaining research from a global website aimed at distributing music videos was a great way of gaining information about conventions and techniques used. You-tube was appropriate to use because it is cheap, quick and easily available.

We used You-Tube not only for our research but also for our evaluation questions, such as in question one. Our aim was to analyse real media texts and incorporate their use into our media work. We used a wide majority of videos from You-Tube. We were able to use You-Tube because it is so easy to use due to its wide availability of music videos readily available from just a click of the button. We used You-Tube to also publish our own music video. Using such a well-known global site was a great way of publishing our work and promoting our artist. We have already had 225 hits.

Another form of media technology used was the software equipment we used to film our music video. We filmed our video using a HD video camera and a tripod in the media studio. The high definition camera ensured that our footage was in the best quality possible, which helped our video to look authentic. We used a tripod to place the camera on to ensure all recording were still without any sudden un-even movements that would affect our filming. We were able to adjust the tripod to different heights to give us a range of camera shots such as long shots and middle shots.

We were shown before hand how to use the equipment, even though I had used the equipment last year so was still familiar with what to do. Before we filmed our actual video, we had a rehearsal whereby we filmed one of our friends using the green screening. We added a background behind our friend to see if it would look realistic and so that we would have practice for our actual video.

We also used a 10-mega-pixel camera to take photos of our artist. As the camera was such a good quality it allowed our photos to gain high resolution and be more authentic.

Whilst taking our photographs, we used the lighting equipment in the studio. We did this in order to ensure our lighting was the best it could be. We used a 3. Lighting to light our artist and 2 soft boxes to light the green screen to create a god croma key. It helped us to get the professional look.

Now that we had got our footage and images, we used Final Cut to edit our video. We used a USB cable to transfer the footage from the video camera to the Apple iMacs. It was an easy way to do this because it was quick and efficient as all footage was saved and transferred easily. Once our footage was on the Macs, we

editing them using Final Cut.

Final Cut was used massively throughout our project. We used final cut to edit our video from start to finish. Using Final Cut enabled us to ensure that our video looked authentic because it had all the modern and up to date software available. We were able to use the timeline to see our video in order; this was helpful because it ensured that we were working in chronological order. We could also upload our track onto Final Cut so that we could edit our video clips to link to the music and make sure the lip syncing was in time. We were able to edit the clips by adding effects such as split screening, making the transitions of one clip to another be more interesting. We could make the video faster or slower and could rewind clips and even edit the clip to ensure the image looked bright and bold- to add to the professionalism of our video. Overall using Final Cut has massively helped with our music video as it allowed us to make our video look professional and authentic. Final Cut made it easy to edit our video and also gave us opportunities to make our video even better due to the wide availability of effects obtainable.

We used InDesign to arrange, design and produce our ancillary tasks. This software was very helpful because it gave us the ability to be creative with our album covers and adverts. We used a variety of fonts that were available on InDesign and incorporated them into our

ancillary tasks. We created our ancillary tasks on InDesign and I am happy with how they have turned out.

When making our ancillary tasks, we uploaded a main background, uploaded the photos that we had edited, included font and used techniques on InDesign to make it stand out. We also used other techniques such as flipping an image and making the image less transparent.

I also used InDesign to create the backgrounds for our video. I created a background and added an effect to it to make it look like a spotlight in the middle.

We cut out the background using a pen tool to create a path to cut the original background out from the green-screen. We also used Photoshop to make simple colour corrections and enhance the look of our photos. We were then able to manipulate the photos to how we wanted them to look using the cropping tools, editing the lighting of the photo and changing the colour. Using Photoshop

worked well because I had used it last year in my coursework, and it is a quick and easy way to make our photos look even better for publishing.

We also used Photoshop to produce mood boards for our research.

Another software device we used was Microsoft word and PowerPoint. We used these to record important work, such as our evaluations and important PowerPoint’s for our research. I use Microsoft Word all the time so it was an easy way to publish my work as it allowed me to include text, images and helped make my work look interesting. I enjoyed using PowerPoint because it was also an effortless

way of creating a presentation of my work. I was able to include images, annotations, writing and video links. PowerPoint also enabled me to make my work bold and eye catching as I could choose a background and colour scheme for my work. Overall I am very happy with the Microsoft software I chose to use to publish my work, as I think it was a simple yet effective way of displaying my thoughts and research.

Finally, I used Slide Share to upload my work to Blogger. I found this a great way of making my word documents and PowerPoint’s easier to read. It ensured that all my work was together and was easy to do; all I had to do was upload my document to Slide Share, copy the link and post it to my blog.

Overall, throughout our entire media coursework for A2 we have used a wide variety of media technologies in the construction, planning and evaluation stages of our work.

I believe that the main factor for our work was the Apple iMacs as they enabled us to fill our potential due to the wide availability of software

available, such as Final Cut, Photoshop and In Design. Without the software devices, we would not have been able to make our video look professional and authentic. I am very happy with all of our work, from the research at the beginning, to the evaluations at the end. I believe that media technologies have played a massive part in this because of the up-to-date features and effects available.