Evalaution Question 4

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

In terms of using media technologies throughout the whole process of my product, from research, planning, creating and the evaluation stage I have used a whole range of technologies. For this evaluation question I am going to take each stage separately and discuss how I’ve used media technologies for each stage.

Research and Planning

When it came to planning and research, I believed I needed a lot of information to help me construct my own product to a high level of standard. Main areas that I found needed extensive research was key conventions used in music videos, genre conventions and looking at existing products both videos and ancillary texts. Below I have discussed the media technologies I have used in the research and planning stages.

The first part of my planning and research was to look at exiting music videos to understand the key conventions used to create a successful music video. To access these music videos the main media platform in which I used was YouTube, I also used Google as my main search engine to find sites that suggested key videos to watch such as BBC Radio 1’s top 40 chart, to display the YouTube which I have viewed on my blog I used the embed feature available on blogger.

As well as using YouTube as a media platform to research existing products I have also used it as a public platform to display my own videos throughout the process for example all my video drafts and final product are available on YouTube for the public to view.

When I had researched my existing products the main way to display my research was to create a PowerPoint then use slideshare that give me the ability to upload and share my PowerPoint publically and embed it into blogger. Furthermore another key presentation method to use was creating a Prezi, I used a Prezi for one of my textual analyzes it is an easy way to present work that is more visually pleasing and interactive for the audience rather than a written up version on my blog of my research findings. As I have a Macbook there are specific apps that are available in which I had the opportunity to use during this process, for example with iPhoto I was able to edit the pictures for my ancillary texts on the mac before transferring them to Photoshop.

When it came to planning my own products I decided to create a moodboard, this helped me gather all my ideas together in a collective manner. For these images the main search engine I used was once again Google images, however other than using Google images to get inspiration I also used social media to look at exiting images related to the lyrics within my song. For example I used Tumblr, Pinterest and Facebook to look at existing images and to ask other people for advice and opinions on my ideas. To create my moodboard I did initially think of using Photoshop, however I found it easy to once again use PowerPoint to copy and paste images then crop them to fit together then saving the moodboard as a Jpeg so it could be viewed as in image in blogger.

Another major part of my planning and research was audience research and feedback; in order to get feedback from a range of sources I created a survey using SurveyMonkey. Once I had created my survey I emailed my teacher asking if they could email the rest of the college the link to my survey and complete it so I could get a varied response. I also posted the link to my survey on Facebook so that I could also get a response from people further a field than Hull. To analyze my results, SurveyMonkey immediately puts my results into easy to read formats such as graphs, which I have screen shot and talked about in a previous post on my blog.

SurveyMonkey is a free online questionnaire and survey programme.

Organization was a key area in the process of this production, before I began shooting I had to create a storyboard and animatic to get a rough idea of how my video should look like. To create my animatic I had to scan in my hand drawn images using a scanner I have at home then using final cut pro to edit together the scanned images, which I then eventually then uploaded to YouTube. I also posted some of the storyboard images on a separate post showing the notes I had put next to the image that showed my organization and preparation for filming. When it actually came to shooting my video I first had to organize all my actors to meet at the right time and the right place to do this I used Facebook messenger as it was an easy way for us to contact each other as group rather than messaging each other separately. When I was on location I used my iPhone to take images of the locations in which I filmed at. For filming I used one of colleges own cameras, as from my test shots and using my own camera I found the quality was not good enough for filming.

Construction

Before I could construct my video together I first had to upload the song I was using to final cut pro, as I had not purchased the song I used YouTube converter to get the song from YouTube and convert it into a mp3 file to use on the editing software. 

In terms of creating my final products, used various different media technologies to construct my products together. Firstly for my music video I used the software Final Cut Pro this allowed me to import all my footage and edit it all together and add effects to my footage to create a conventional and high standard product. For the videoing equipment I used a Panasonic VSK0784 and a tripod. When filming I used my own 18GB SD Card so that all my footage would be in one place. Also when filming I used my iPhone to play the song for lip-syncing purposes and for indications for my actors to known when to do a specific thing. In terms of editing I was fairly new at using the software so used YouTube tutorials to figure out to do certain editing techniques. When it came to producing my ancillary texts, I used the programme Photoshop, as I have had previous experience with Photoshop there was no need for tutorials therefore did not take me as long to create my ancillary texts, the images I used for my ancillary text I used my camera iPhone rather than a camera from college. Another technique I used on my iPhone was the slow-mo app on my camera so that for a certain piece in my video I was able to shoot it in slow-mo.

For my evaluation I have also used a variety of media technologies to present my work. For example I have used PowerPoint and SlideShare to present my work as well as taking screen shoots from YouTube of existing music videos and my own. Another major social media site that I have used to gain audience feedback is Facebook as I posted my final product on the site I was able to get feedback and likes on my video this helped me with understanding whether my final product was successful or unsuccessful.

To briefly summarise all the media technologies I have used I have listed below; 

Here is an example of how I have used media technology in my evaluation stage to present my work in a more inventive and interesting way. The site I have used is Imgflip.com, to make a GIF from my own images. 

The above screen shots show step by step how I have used this media technology to create a GIF from my own uploaded images. As shown above the GIF can be altered in terms of height width and the delay time between images. I have used this media technology to represent my work in the evaluation two.