How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Second dratf
Blogging
I used the blog as an online diary detailing every step of the planning and construction. I used it to post primary research findings including audience survey results and analysis of existing products. This was useful because I could receive feedback on my work and update it instantly. As I was working in a group it was also useful because I could see my partner’s blog which made it easy to communicate and correspond with each other. Also using a blog allowed me to keep my work organised and structured in a way that my teacher and my partner could understand and appreciate.
Search engines
Search engines such as Google, YouTube, Facebook and survey monkey were a big help to my planning and research. This is because they allowed me to gain information that eventually enabled me to make my end product which was my music video. For example YouTube allowed me to compare different genre music video and helped me choose which kind of genre I would be interested in making a video of. Survey monkey was another contribution to my planning and research because it enable me to create questionnaires online and email them to others which is a major change compared to a couple years ago were the only way you would be able to create a survey is if it was hand written. When I finally finished my music video I uploaded it on Facebook for prosumers to comment and tell me what their opinion of the video is. This was useful because it allowed me to get a range of opinions on my video and i also got an insight as to who my target audience was.
Camera
In order to start the planning of our video we created a mood board with all our ideas put into one, we then had to showcase this onto our blogs in which we took a picture of the mood board using the Nikon coolpix and uploaded it on our blogs. For our actual music video we decided to film it with the Nikon SLR however we decided to change this half way through our film n because we realised that the Nikon SLR is more useful for taking pictures and not videoing, this is why we switched over to the Sony HD camera which was much more easier to use and film with. The Nikon SLR however did come in handy when I was taking the pictures for my ancillary product. The camera allowed me to manipulate the pictures i took by giving it different effects such as blurry also the flash made it look like I had taken the pictures in the dark when in actual reality some of the photos were taken in day light.
Final cut
In the planning stages I and my partner created an anamtic story board of how we wanted our film to look. When uploading it on the Mac we decided to use the software called imovie. The reason why we choose to use this was because it was much easier to use and to get to grips with, although it didn’t have many effects this did not really matter because it was only for the planning and not the real thing. However when it came to the real music video we uploaded it and created it in another software called final cut. At first I and my partner found final cut difficult to use as we had nevere actually used it before, as time went by we got the hang of it and realised it was a much better software to use than imovie as it had effects such as light rays, colour contrast, and colour saturation. There were times were final cut was difficult to use especially when our work disappeared on the timeline but we overcame this technical problem.
Photoshop
After taking the photos for my ancillary product I used Photoshop to manipulate the pictures. I done this by experimenting and changing the colour of the picture by using colour filters which were red, blue and green, i played around with these colours up till I found the perfect colour for my picture. Also i made the background slightly blurry and dark whist at the same time my artist stood out. The black and white effect on Photoshop was another thing that I mange to manipulate with, this effect was used in my back cover of my album.
