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

Research –

In the research stage, It was vitally important that I make use of the internet because of the various different search engines such as Bing, Google and Ask.com, this allowed me to very quickly refine what I was looking for and speeded up the research process. Because of computerisation, it also meant that I could find links to all the major names in the music industry in one place. I used Wikipedia to source information on different genres of music, There was an awful lot of information to divulge and regurgitate, however, it is widely known that the use of Wikipedia as a primary source of information is not always a good idea, because anyone can add information to it, therefore there is a high possibility that some of my information could be incorrect, although the pages are looked over by professionals to check the validity of the text.

I used YouTube to conduct research into genres because this allowed me to find real media products created by bands similar to the one I planned on using, but it also allowed me to find videos made in a certain way (e.g. Stop motion or ‘all in one take’). If that was the type of video I had decided on making.

I mainly used Google to source pictures, as I found it was a much more user friendly search engine than Bing, when it came to sourcing pictures, although the computers that I mainly used prevented easy access to these pictures, so when I wanted one, I would ‘print-screen’ the whole page and then use paint to crop the picture down to size. On some occasions I used a Mac laptop, this was useful because it allowed me to crop a print-screen immediately making it easier for me to access photos.

YouTube was also very useful in allowing me to embed my videos into blogger, this meant that I could provide videos to go along with my text, that didn’t require a person to click on a link (which may have taken some time to load) and possibly leave the page. This made it easier for users to process the information on screen. YouTube also helped me to make a shot count analysis on a music video, allowing me to pause, rewind and replay a video to my hearts content. It would have been virtually impossible to analyse a video in such a way if I had say watched it on a music channel.

Planning –

During the planning process there weren’t to many ways in which I used new meda technologies, this was because it was easier to do things by hand, because I was in a group of 2, we did things like brainstorming, storyboarding and choice of actor etc. by hand.

However I used Word Processor to create a risk assessment sheet because of the ‘table’ tool, this meant that I could easily create a readable table with columns for ‘Risk’, ‘Prevention’, ‘Successfulness’ and ‘Ratings’, this meant that I the assessment would flow and be easy to understand.

I used a scanner to input my hand written work onto a computer so that I was able to put my work onto my blog. This saved time, because I didn’t have to then write up digitally what I had already written, meaning I could get on with completing other tasks

I used a Leica D-Lux 4 to take pictures of my storyboard, I did this because I didn’t feel it important to use a large expensive camera to do a job that a normal user friendly camera was quite capable of, although I wouldn’t use this camera to actually film my music video, even though it filming capapbilities

 

I used the same camera with a wide angole lens to capture my recce shots, again, I did not feel the need to use such an expensive camera which may have been booked when a standard good resolution
was available at any time I needed it.

 

Construction –

During construction I used a Canon Eos 1100d with a standard tripod to film my video. It was necessary for me to make sure I had a HD filming camera to create my media product, if I had used a standard definition camera the entire video would have been let down, and there are certain parts that the viewer would not be able understand. The Canon Eos 1100d has an automatic white balance feature, which sped up the entire filming process, because we did not have to stop every time we moved to camera to reset it. This was one of the most important factors in deciding which camera to use because it meant that we could stick to a schedule and not lose train of thought. The camera also films in HD meaning we could get the best quality footage for the video, and also the various attachments such as the macro-lens meant that we could really achieve a variety of different shot types whilst also making important shots more visible, such as the part where to protagonist is crying.

Adobe Premiere was a key part in the construction of my music video, this is the place where everything came together, and there are key aspects of it, which helped shape the video into what it is. Things as simple as video effects; the black and white effect for the shots showing the protagonist was just a standard feature within the software, and needed no tweaking to achieve the type of shot we were looking for.
 

The software has two separate viewing screens; one of those is to allow for the user to check a piece of footage before inputting it. I was able to select a clip and decided whether it was the right take to put into the video, making sure that I did not input clips, which I did not need to use.

 

The video and audio timelines are split into three lines, this is a useful tool because it means that we could sync clips together without overlapping and deleting parts, therefore we could be sure that we had got the sync right.

I used Adobe Photoshop to create my ancillary texts, this was because there are a number of different features, which made it easy for me to overlap images and create realistic looking products.

The wizard crop tool meant I could input images from the internet (again via Paint) and then crop of the background and any other white sections I felt unnecessary so that when I placed the image on top of a background image, it would look professional.

 

The software also allowed me to open images in separate documents so that I could edit them before inputting them into the product as a whole, although it took me a while to find out that I could do this.

There are a number of small features which make the software very good (but only if you know how to do them) such as, originally I did not know how to make images smaller without stretching/shrinking them in the X and Y direction, however it was pointed out to me that by pressing the 'Show Transform Controls' button, you can edit the image size without affecting the ratios, this was very useful when trying to put logos and such on my products.

 

Overall once I got used to using Photoshop there were many key aspects which made my construction easier, although I would say that it is much less user friendly compared to some other types of software such as fireworks. This is because fireworks is much more straight forward, and I did consider using fireworks to create my media product, but it lacks the technical ability that Photoshop possesses.

Evaluation –

For my evaluation I used a variety of media products, such as right now I am answering question 4 in Word Processor this is because with Question 4 being one of my longer answers, I felt it necessary to use a media technology that allowed me to easily transfer my thoughts into a readable and chronological order, although I would not use Word for all of my answers as it could be a deemed a little boring.

For Question 1 I have used Prezi, and online website that allows the user to create in effect a Powerpoint, but spread across a page with a path so that the viewer can follow the thoughts of the text’s creator. Using Prezi also meant that I did not have to re upload an answer to my blog if I edited it, because it does it automatically.

I used Wordle, a website in which you input text and then it creates an image including the key words from the text you inputted, I used this mainly when answering question 3 on my audience feedback, this is because it was a quick and interesting way to get across the answers from my questionnaire.

In order to properly gather information in an effective manner, I used Survey Monkey to produce and distribute a questionnaire to as any people as I could within the time I had. Survey Monkey was useful to me because it meant I had all of my questionnaire results in one location where I could access them at any time. Although had I lost access to the internet I would have lost all of this information, so that is the down side to storing valuable information on the internet, in hindsight, it would have been a god idea to transfer all the information into a Word document as soon as I had gathered it.