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

Transcript:

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

Initially, before any planning or research, I created a blog on www.blogger.com. This site allowed me to record every single element involved within the process of creating all three of my products. Luckily, I was familiar with this site already as I had used it in AS level Media studies. It was quite a simple concept to get a hold of so I found myself quickly adapting to it and posting different things every day. It proved to be extremely great in displaying my multimedia skills and portraying my work in a visually pleasing manner. It meant I could embed my tasks from different documents, whether it be Word, a video or Powerpoint, which was useful. I actually found myself enjoying using Blogger and beginning to post things I didn’t really need to, however I felt would help improve my grade. Blogger was essential to publishing my actual journey and how I improved on my producing process with every week. Additionally, Prezi is another site I was familiar with due to using it previously in AS. It is a web-based presentation application, which helped me present my work in perhaps more interesting and entertaining ways rather than just Powerpoint. This allowed me to actually vary the publishing techniques I used with my tasks, making them look more abstract and different. The embed tool on Prezi is what allowed me to copy my presentations on to my blog, so that it was easy to view every time anyone went on to my blog.

            Of course, to actually post videos to Blogger, I needed
a video-uploading site and this was YouTube. This is because often, after exporting any of my videos, I would discover uploading them straight to Blogger was not possible. This is because the file size of my videos were generally over 100MG or would just be time consuming, as I would convert them in high quality, and files over this size were disallowed on Blogger. Therefore, finding alternative techniques to showcase videos was something I taught myself to do. I have been familiar with YouTube for the majority of my life, so it was very easy for me to use it. I uploaded various videos to YouTube such as production logs or screen grabs of how I did certain things to my products or audience feedback, which did reduce the quality a little but this was not too important. For the majority of my videos, I would use Windows Movie Maker at home to improve and edit them before I actually uploaded them. I found that I wanted all of my tasks to look as presentable and watchable as possible, and the last thing I wanted was for the examiner or audience to become bored. Windows Movie Maker was prime in helping me achieve this goal. After screen grabbing me editing my music video for example, I would import this onto my USB, take it home and then import it onto Windows Movie Maker. I would speed up the footage so that it was not too tedious to watch but was still easy to understand, and cut out parts that were not needed. I’d also add my actual music video sound track, titles and captions to explain what I’m doing. All of these features added together to create a perfectly presentable and watchable video. The reason I didn’t use Premiere for the majority of videos like this is because it would be too time consuming and I only had this program at school, and because I got the majority of my work done at home, I would not be able to access it. Similarly, when presenting drafts of my videos, I found Vimeo particularly good as it allows you to host videos in overall better quality and even in HD. I would of course make these using Premiere Pro. I found it also separated my music video drafts from all of my other tasks, which meant they were all compact and easy to find.

            Along with these higher-quality forms of media, I did also just use plain text posts when doing production logs as I felt it was easier for me to elaborate on what I’m explaining through text than complicated, entertaining creations. This would be either through Word or just Blogger text. I would then use a useful site called Issuu which again I was familiar with from AS, which would place all pages of your text into a book-like presentation, where the viewer could flick from page to page easily. It was also good for photos, such as a certain planning task I did, where I went and took photos of the locations I was using in my music video, or my storyboard for example, and I placed the photos or pages into a Word document and then uploaded them to Issuu. If I had just uploaded the pictures straight to Blogger, the viewer would have to keep scrolling down the photos which may have become tedious and boring for them. I used this site often as I found it was a really good way of presenting my documents. Differently, I used Powerpoint for research posts such as Props and Costumes. Microsoft Powerpoint was often a route I took, especially when analysing products such as my similar product research for music magazine adverts. This is because I found tools such as the text box tool and shape tool (drawing arrows from text to images etc) really helpful in analysing products in a simple, quick and easy way, because I’m so familiar with this publishing technique. However, again it was not a document you could upload straight to Blogger because you’d have to upload all slides as separate JPGs, so for things like this I’d simply use Scribd. I used this method often as it was a digital documents library that allows users to upload and publish their presentations, and then embed them on to their blogs in the HTML section of their post. However, I did want a variation of different publishing techniques, so I also used SlideShare, which is a very similar site to Scribd. Using SlideShare meant I could also access different views and opinions of research topics such as “who are the Pop music target audience?” as this website displays presentations created by people all around the world.

            Furthermore, the internet was a fundamental component of the whole project as it is the root of every single post, as of course, Blogger is on the internet. Another internet-based tool I used was Google, which of course we are all familiar with as students, and I would use this for a lot of my research as it contains so much information about almost every single topic imaginable. I also used as a resource to find images for any of my documents, such as research tasks such as “possible locations” etc.. Obviously sites like Scribd, Slideshare, YouTube and Issuu are all also internet-based too.

            Another program I used when constructing my script for my music video is Celltxt which made it possible for me to create a professional and realistic script, with an already-planned-out structure waiting for me, including the location, description and lyrics all in the correct place, that I could fill out myself. At first I found it quite a difficult program to use because I wasn’t familiar with it and it was fairly complicated, but after a while it was quite an easy program to use and made the script a lot less challenging and daunting for me. It also allowed me to plan out every single detail of each scene etc.

            Similarly, I also used a website called Soundcloud for me to upload long essays in a voice-note so that they were less tedious to read. I thought it might be more appreciated if I read some essays aloud. By using this website it meant I could upload audio files by embedding them onto Blogger. Another two sites I found really crucial in my whole production process was Facebook and Twitter. This was because I actually used them when carrying out audience feedback. For example, I would set a status on Facebook asking people to watch the second draft of my music video and carry out a survey, or tweet the same thing on Twitter. Also, all of the Media students from A2 created a group together on Facebook where we all sent our music video and survey links to each other, enabling us all to watch each others videos and fill out the surveys. I found these social networking sites so helpful because it meant I was receiving feedback from my actual target audience: the young generation that are most likely to use social networking sites. The options to have conversations online meant that I was able to receive both positive feedback and criticism, getting advice on my products quickly, enabling me to actually improve on my products straight away. My mobile phone was also another crucial factor in me receiving feedback because it enabled me to text and ring my other friends family that perhaps I could not get a hold of online.

            So this comes onto me explaining how I posted my surveys, and this was through www.surveymonkey.com. This allowed me to create a survey through its available options, and share it with everyone I wanted to. Another way of receiving feedback was through filming group discussions/focus groups and individual interviews. I filmed the majority of these on my iPhone as iPhones have quite good quality cameras, and also it was easy for me to upload these videos straight from my phone onto YouTube. Or I would film them using the school’s Canon 500D camera.

            When filming my actual music video and shooting photos for my ancillary tasks I used a Cannon 550D, which I luckily borrowed from a friend, and the advantage of this was that I could use it whenever I wanted with unlimited access instead of constantly having to borrow and give a camera back from/to the school. This camera was equipped with a cinematic shutter speed with a 1.8 aperture lens, increasing the quality of my footage. This also meant I could take photographs in shallow focus for a more creative and artistic look. I experimented often with different settings and tools on the camera, and found I often had to decrease the shutter speed for example, to allow Georgina to run across the camera in the woods, as it was quite an action-filled video overall. Or I would use deep focus for close ups of her face sometimes. It did take me a while to get the perfect image, constantly holding the capture button for it to focus properly which was quite a task. I also had to play around with the ISO often as I put this on manual settings, in order for me to change and monitor the amount of light in each shot. In shots where there is a lot of light coming through, you use lower ISO to get the most quality and detail in the shot. I also used a tripod when I needed it for still shots, to ensure that there was no shakiness in the shot. And the last piece of equipment I used for filming was the shoulder-cam, which I found extremely crucial to my whole filming process. I put the shoulder-cam over my shoulders, placed the camera on it and held it carefully, and because the video was such an action-filled, moving video, I constantly used this piece of equipment while moving to prevent all potential shakiness in the footage. I found overall, it created a really smooth, professional look, and I could not spot one ounce of shakiness in my footage which I was really pleased about. I tended to use this more for the performance/wood shots, and the tripod more for the narrative and gymnastic shots. In terms of lighting however, I preferred to use natural light from the sun, room etc as I felt this portrayed a more natural and realistic look. I wanted the performance shots to have a more light, airy naturistic look to them and I felt I displayed this by filming in the spring with natural light.

            In order to edit the images taken for my Digipak and Album Poster, I would place them onto Adobe Photoshop, which allowed me to use the crop tool to make the images the size I wanted, and the Magic wand tool to select which parts I did or did not want. I could also adjust the colours, contrast, brightness or sharpness of the images which overall made them look more professional and pleasing to the eye. Photoshop actually also allowed me to develop a house colour for my whole digipak, by adding a slight pinkish-red filter to all parts of my digipak so that they all matched and had a fluent, consistent house theme throughout. Experimentation of course, was key with all images, for example with the front cover of my digipak I chose a close-up image of Georgina looking into the distance, which had an air of mystery about it. Therefore I wanted to develop this mystery even more so and add a tone of dreamy airiness to it, so I was able to illustrate this feeling by adding a blue filter to her face, adding a slight glow. You can see here, how technology really helped me portray what I wanted to. I adjusted all colours, lighting etc of the image used for my album poster too, however I wanted this to look realistic and represent my actual music video as the images were all taken from the actual woods where it was all filmed, so I did not add a filter to this one, I just made it brighter and more professional-looking.

            Similarly, I used Adobe Premiere for editing my music video. This allowed me to really develop all of my footage by choosing what shots I wanted, dropping them onto the timeline and cutting them with the Razor tool and rearranging them into the order I wanted. I could add my soundtrack and any other audio I desired to have within my music video too, which was useful. I also had the option of adding titles, which I used to add the song’s title and artist name at the beginning of the music video so that the audience could identify straight away what they were going to view. I also used the film dissolve transition often, where the narrative shots would dissolve into the performance shots for example. I found this would represent the emotion softly and then I used short, quick cuts in places where I needed to, for example at the climax where the emotion is angry and high. Premiere really helped me in capturing the song’s emotion, like I said with the climax where I could cut really quickly, and I found this successful. But also at other parts too, where I could add a slow motion effect for example with the abstract gymnastic shots which represented Georgina’s flowing of emotion. A raw, non-slow-motion shot of this would be less effective as it is less dramatic. I also used the slow-motion tool for shots like where Matt pushes Georgina away from him, because this is then amplified. Finally, Premiere allowed me to adjust my actual footage, increasing it in professionalness and how appealing it was to the human eye. I did this by adjusting the sharpness, brightness or contrast of shots, which increased its appeal instantly. I was also able to colour correct some raw shots which made the overall colour brighter and ‘better’. And lastly, I was able to add filters to shots to convey emotion even more so, for example in the Gymnastic shots I used a light-pink/red filter to convey ‘love’, and in the shots where Georgina is picking up the letter for example, I added a blue filter to represent the coldness of her letting go and moving on.