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How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?For the whole year, I used an Apple Mac Computer throughout all of the stages. Since I used the same computer last year for my AS work, I was very comfortable with using this computer.
RESEARCH
For my research, I used various search engines and websites using the Apple Mac in order to find the correct conventions of a music video, digipak and promotional poster and to research into my specific genre. At the very beginning of the year, after deciding to follow the rock/pop genre, I then had to find a song to go along with my vision. For this, I used YouTube.com and websites such as Deezer.com, a free online music website. I looked at a number of videos and searched specific bands that included a female singer, as I knew who I wanted to be my main actress and what I wanted my video to sound like. I eventually found Paramore's song "Ain't it fun" and was able to download it using iTunes to use for my video.
Another helpful website for my research was Facebook.com. I used this website for my audience research to gain feedback. Having a website where I could immediately reach out to over 300 people all within my target audience was very helpful and allowed me to get immediate feedback quickly and easily.
PLANNING
The most helpful piece of technology during my planning stage was blogger.com. Creating my blog and being able to track what I had done all year long really helped me to remember important information and also dates; such as when my actors would be coming. This helped me to plan when props and locations needed to be ready and what I needed to do in order to be ready for the date. This was also essential as our school did not have enough cameras for every group to have one at the same time. This meant that, to use a camera, I had to book one for the time that I would need it. Keeping all of my important information, dates and tasks together on one website that I was able to access from any computer or device has been very useful.
I planned out my digipak by hand on paper. This is because I wanted to quickly create a plan that I could then follow and develop on the computer using Photoshop and other programmes. I was then able to scan my plan onto the computer using a Canon Lide 110 scanner. This enabled me to put my drawn plan onto my blog so that I could keep it saved with the rest of my work.
CONSTRUCTION
Music Video
To film my music video, I used a Nikon Coolpix bridge camera and a Canon Legria camcorder. The Coolpix is my own camera and so I was more comfortable using that one. However, that camera does not have a light on it and so, for the darker, outside scenes, I had to use the camcorder which does include a light. I also used a tripod in many of my takes in order to get my desired still, straight shot.
After filming my video, for my post-production I used the Apple programme,'iMovie'. This is a fairly basic,easy to use video editing software. I found this programme very useful all the way through my post-production. It was easy to import my videos from the cameras straight into iMovie using a firewire cable and iMovie displayed my video clips in a way that was easy for me to view and choose which videos I wanted to add to my project. This programme also allowed me to add text and images to my video, such as my logo and the end text of "AVAILABLE..". I was also able to add transitions and effects to my clips and overall, I believe that this helped to make my video look very professional. A huge benefit of iMovie is that it allowed me to edit the brightness of some of my shots. This was a very helpful feature as some of my shots were originally too dark. I was glad that I was able to brighten these shots so I did not have to waste them.
If I were to re-create my music video, I would probably use a more technical video editing software that would allow me to make more precise adjustments. However, for this video, I believe that iMovie was sufficient. After finishing my video, iMovie allowed me to directly share my video to Youtube.com so that it could be viewed.
Ancillary Texts
I took the pictures for my ancillary tasks on the same day as I filmed my video. I used a Nikon Coolpix Bridge Camera to take these photos. The main programme I used throughout the construction of my ancillary tasks was Adobe Photoshop. This is a programme that I am very comfortable with using, however, I am always learning new ways to use it.
On the cover of my digipak, I chose to use an image of my 3 actors surrounded by balloons. However, there were not enough balloons around them to cause the effect that I wanted. Instead of re-taking this image and attempting to get more balloons in the picture, I instead turned to Photoshop. I used the clone, copy and eraser tools on Photoshop along with other various tools, and added balloons to the image. I used balloons from this image and also from other very similar images taken on the same day. This is so that the balloons would be the exact same colour (brightness) and so that the flash could be seen in the right place in the reflection of the balloons. I also used this same method on the image on the back cover of my digipak.
I used the same image for my poster but created an A4 template on Photoshop in order to make it fit into a magazine. I decided to fill the top and bottom in black to portray the darkness of the rock genre in contrast to the bright colours of the pop genre.
Photoshop has a very large range of tools and so it allowed me to add all of the text and my logo and everything elso on my digipak and poster. Photoshop was very easy to use and I would happily use it again if I were to re-do these tasks.
As part of my digipak, I wanted to create a design to go onto the CD as I believe the digipak is not complete without the CD. I decided to go along with my theme and used Photoshop to edit together balloons to fill the CD shape. I then decided to print this as a real CD to see how authentic it looked. For this I used a software called 'My Image Garden' and a Canon Pixma CD Printer.
EVALUATION
The main thing I used when doing my evaluation was blogger.com. As I said earlier, it allows me to keep all of my information together meaning that I can look back on tasks in order to write my evaluations. I also used a programme called GarageBand on the Apple Mac computer. On here I created a podcast of Evaluation 4. GarageBand allows me to record my voice easily and to add images along with what I'm saying.
I also used a website called Prezzi to create an interesting slideshow of one of my Evaluations. This was very easy to use as it supplies a template so that I can easily place my work into it. It also makes my evaluation more interesting to read.
Overall, I used a range of technologies and over the course of the year, I have become more confident with a lot of these.
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