Evaluation

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

Digital Technology

-          Adobe Photoshop

-          Adobe Premiere Elements

-          Microsoft Publisher

-          Microsoft Powerpoint / Word

-        Blogger.com

-          Youtube.com

-          Slideshare.com

- ScribD

-          Digital camera

-          Digital camcorder

-          Internet (for research)

• Still Cameras were used to capture several photographs of possible locations for the music videos during the planning .We also took photographs of us filming as proof of our work and also photographs of our artist during filming an off camera. It enabled us to take pictures we could use to promote our artist. The issue we had was the battery of the camera died and this meant we weren’t able to capture as much photographs as we would have liked to. The camera was quite easy to use and being digital it allowed us to easily delete and save the images quickly.

• Final cut express was software we used to edit the music video. It made it easier for me to identify each clip we needed when editing the music video; this is as it enabled us to name them specifically unlike other video editing software i have used like “IMovie”. It was easy to organise by adding folders although we didn’t need much folders because our clips we already in order and we weren’t having too much scenes. Final cut allowed us to zoom freely. And when trying to change the colour of one of the scenes that didn’t come out correctly, the colour wheel on final cut made it easier to match the colours to other scenes. Although there was a particular clip we couldn’t change the colour of and this influenced our decision to make the video mostly black and white so as not to ruin the quality of video.

• I used a voice recorder to my evaluation. This was because i wanted to have a varied mixture of technology to use when answering my evaluation questions. I felt this would show my knowledge of the variety of technologies available. I also realise i hadn’t used a voice recorder and so thought it was something simplistic yet different to use. The recording i made will be used as a voice over a slide of images. I plan to edit this using Final Cut Express.
• I have used “Prezi” again to present my answer on an evaluation question on my use of conventions. This is because it would enable me to embed videos and images much more easily whilst analysing.

Research

• “YouTube” was very significant in my research as I had access to different music videos and to see how the videos were structured and to get inspiration for mine. It allowed me to be able to see what made other music videos eye catching and how the ideas of the song was conveyed in the video. This all provided me with an immense amount of inspiration and allowed me to put myself in the place of the audience and see how the different videos conveyed the ideas and this meant when I did mine I knew what an audience was looking for or what was expected in certain videos.
• I watched a lot of music video channels on Television during the course of this research. Similarly to the use of “YouTube” it meant I had access to a wide range of different videos with varied themes and I could see clearly the videos are filmed according to the genre and music lyrics. It gave me ideas on how the videos told a story and linked with the lyrics.

• I used google search engine to look up varied information about the different musicians in the genre i had selected. Google made it easier to find the artists images and links to their official websites in order to find information that i could use to identify their iconography in the media. Google search engine was very useful in the research stage of my portfolio
• I used the “Google” search engine to search for varied information about the different musicians in the Genre i wanted and to get information about the artists and to gather images on specific artists and to see how they are portrayed on their websites, on the newspaper e.t.c “Google” allowed me to look at different artists, see their images on Google images and be able to look at their websites and their album covers and see their music and this gave me a basic scope on how the artist and their image is shown and how their own website links to the type of music they sing and the information that they want to convey about themselves to the public.”Google” was very useful in enabling me to gather varied information, analyse different images and gather up ideas to use.

Planning

• I used “Prezi” to analyse Adele’s music video “Rolling in the Deep”. I did this by taking “screen grabs” of different scenes in the video and comparing to Andrew Goodwin’s theory on music videos suggesting that a relationship can be identified between the lyrics, music and visual. Prezi made it easy to illustrate these ideas clearly and more creatively unlike PowerPoint. It’s quite dynamic because of the formats and movements created and so therefore its engaging to an audience. However it sometimes can make one dizzy. But i do believe that it’s something different, captivating and simple to use.

• In addition to this used “Scribd” to embed PowerPoint and Word Document containing my research and Planning to my Blog. Scribd made it easier to Upload this documents as i could not directly post them unto my webpage from my files to. Also it enabled me to store as much of my documents as i pleased and I was also able to access them online whenever i needed. The issue i had was that it was time consuming sometimes to convert documents to flash format. Also sometimes i had to repeatedly upload a document with images and save in different formats in order for the images to show on Scribd. Overall this technology allowed my work to be more accessible.

• I used Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word to plan my work. This was used to present my research and document any information i had gathered during the course of my research. I used it to write down my ideas and the steps i planned to carry out in the production of the media text. This format made it easier to see what i wanted to do, provided me with a clear guide of what i needed to include, it meant i could highlight and annotate my work clearly, put images up to provide visual ideas for my project and the use of both technologies is that they are both readily available, relatively easy to use and quick to access. However using Microsoft Word i had issue with spelling and grammar checker as it sometimes automatically corrected my words when it wasn’t necessary and so i repeatedly had to save my work and continuously go through it. This meant it wasted some time and was frustrating .Overall, I felt using them both allowed presenting my work to be effortless and trouble free.

Construction

• Jvc Camcorder was used to film the music video. The camcorder we used provided us with extremely clear shots that made our video look very professional. The issue we had was it bulky meant was quite heavy and uncomfortable to move around as often as we wanted. We also issue with the battery as it was low quite often and so we always had to be by a socket to charge it consistently. This was an issue as the filming took longer than necessary and was quite tiresome.

• We used a Mac computer for literally everything. This included accessing Google, Prezi, final cuts, Gimp, IWeb and picasion. We carried out our video editing through the Mac computer because we had the final cut software on it. The Mac was much faster than normal computers and produced clearer images on a bigger screen. The webcam in the Mac enabled me to easily to take pictures of notes and images i had written on paper. The picture details were not lost when transferred on the Mac. However because i don’t use a Mac on a daily basis, searching for applications was harder because i didn’t know where to look and how to go about things.

• Gimp was another technology used in creating my Digipak. This was used to edit pictures and around the Digipak template I had collected from Google images.
• IWeb was another useful tool that i used to create the webpage. It enabled me to include image, words, YouTube videos and other interactive applications used in most websites. I found it quite difficult to use as i had no prior knowledge of it and sometimes it got confusing. However once used several times, it was relatively easy to get used to.
• Picasion was used to make a “Gif” with images I screen grabbed off music video in order to provide a collage of the scenes in the music video. The steps were easy to follow and fast overall. I was able to easily embed a few “Gif” into my webpage and blog.

Evaluation