Draft Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, and planning, and evaluation stages?

When creating my media products, I have used several new media products to create and enhance my media products. Many of these technologies were specific to stages of my work, and helped me a different points. However there were still several products that helped me all the way through creating my products. Examples of these were:

·         The website Blogger – This I used all the way through to post onto to keep all my course work in one place, that the examiner can view it. The website enabled me to gain feedback from my peers, teachers and other people from around the world. I used this on the internet on the computer and also downloaded the app for my phone which allowed me to take photos and post them straight to my blog, E.G pictures of the location.

·         Samsung Laptop – I used my laptop most lessons to browse the internet when doing the research and planning, to create my ancillary texts and music videos and the type up all the documents posted on my blog including my evaluations. This helped me massively as it meant I could take my laptop wherever I went and work in different places instead of having to use the crowded computer rooms at school or sit in one spot at home. It also gave me a good storage device for all my videos documents and pictures associated with my media work.

·         Memory stick and SD card – I used these throughout my work to transfer documents to other computers for backing up, and from the camera to my laptop. If I ever used the school computers to do any work then I saved the work onto my memory stick ready to put on my laptop. The SD card was a great way to transfer pictures and videos to my laptop without having to bother with wires connecting the camera.

Research and Planning

There were a few things that I specifically used during my research and planning stage. I used several websites to gain pictures for my research. I used websites such as the bands official website, Flickr, etc… As well as this, I also used:

·         YouTube – This was used in my initial research of music videos. I watched several music videos in different genres and analysed 3 from the same genre of mine. I took screen shots from YouTube and used them to back up and demonstrate my points. These pictures are on my blog.

·         Animoto – I used the Animoto website to make my 25 word pitch that would aid me when pitching my idea to the class. This website puts your text and pictures together into a clever, short video that is easy to grasp. This allowed me to get feedback on my ideas from the class and helped me to improve my work.

·         Fujifilm S1800 – This is the camera I used to take the picture of my storyboard. I used this as it take good quality stills and I would be able to read what I had written in each box, which allowed me to see who was in the shot, what the shot was of and how long the shot was.

·         Movie Maker – I used this software when putting together my storyboard pictures to make an animatic. The reason I used this was that it was on my laptop when it arrived and it is easy to use, there is nothing complex. I put all the pictures on and got them roughly cut so they were in the right place. This helped me to visualise what the final video would look like. When I started the filming I watched this over which told me what shots to do and what the lyrics were.

Production

There were several things that were specific to the production stage that I didn’t use in any other stage. Below is each of the things I used in this stage that I didn’t use in any other stages.

·         Musical Instruments – I used a microphone when filming my music video, although it wasn’t turned on, I gave the impression that it was being used and made the performance look real. As well as this, I used 2 guitars, one was a Westbury original and one Vintage Les Paul Style. These were 2 electric guitars, both very different, which also gave an element of realism to my video and showed that the guitarists have differences in opinion on guitar. I also used the school drum kit, which looked rough and used, but also added to the video, which wouldn’t have looked the same without.

·         Sony Vegas Pro 12.0 – This is the software I chose to download and use for my music video. This helped me massive amounts, by enabling me to get the lip synching right by letting me slow down the speed of the video and track together and let me get it right down to the millisecond. This also allowed me to put all the clips together with a backing track and mute all the videos I took, by building up the layers. This made the final video look professional and without any real vocals just the ones in the real song. I also had the option of rendering the song in several different formats. Throughout editing I would keep checking what the video looked like by continuously rendering in a small bad quality. The reason for this is as it was quicker than in a high quality. When I did my final render it was in 1080p Full HD, which was a high quality which lest my blurriness or distortion.

·         HD Video Camera – I used this to film the whole of my music video. The camera was good as it films in full HD. This meant that I could get really good quality footage, making my video professional.

·         Spot Lights – I used these when shooting my music video, the shots were lit from the air, and this was a great source of lighting as it mad the band stand out but didn’t make the back drop too light. This did create shadow, but that was eliminated by the free standing lights.

·         Free Standing lights - I used these both for my ancillary texts, in the pictures and in the music video. These were used to provide lighting to the people but also to eliminate shadows meaning that my video looked better and my pictures have less shadow.

·         White Backdrop – I used this when I was taking the pictures for my ancillary texts as it provided a blank background. I chose to do this as this made the shots easy to frame and made them look professional.

·         Photoshop – I used this to put together several layers creating my digipack and magazine advert. Using this software allowed me to put together layer by layer pictures and sexts as well as adjusting the contrasts to create a sharper picture. I was also able to freely move exerything around, only view the layers I wanted and merge any layers that needed moving. This was undoubtedly a key part in creating my media products.