Evaluation Script - Question Four

Q4)
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


The planning and research stages of our project were very in depth and we used a range of different "media technologies" to collect the information and resources we needed. Firstly we needed to look at existing music videos that fell into our chosen genre (pop and R&B), the reason we chose this specific genre is because we wanted our video to be fun and up tempo, these are some of the words I would personally use to describe the genre, as being a pop and R&B fan myself I have encountered a variety of videos and songs. We used YouTube to search for certain songs we believed where a part of that specific genre and watched the whole clip before collecting the embed code and inserting the video link onto our blogs, each of us then analysed 2 videos and linked them to media conventions. Collecting the embed code was simple as it was available just underneath the video link and was transferred quickly and easily and because YouTube is a world renowned website we knew it was highly unlikely that viruses could be caused.
After completing that task we went onto analyse both digipak and advert examples, again from pop and R&B artists, this would help us with our future tasks of creating our own digipak and advert as we could get tips and be able to notice clearly the elements used throughout each. For example; artists name, song title, an image of some sort, record label e.t.c. To collect these images we used simply Google Images and it came up with a range of different ones for us to choose from so meant it wasn’t hard for us to separately analyse 2 each, the images were of a average size so the examiner can look at it clearly and notice each aspect we have talked about but also Google allows you to save the images free of charge, which was useful for us as the process of saving the image and adding it to our blogs to analyse was completed very quickly. However a downfall to this program was that some of the images had no relevance to our genre and meant we did have to take a lot of lesson time to search for specific digipak and adverts that would link to our work.
When it came to filling in things like; the treatment sheet and call sheets for each destination and risk assessment, we simply used Microsoft Word as it meant the work was presented in a more professional manner compared to hand written and was another use of media program to show on our blogs. When it came to filling out the call sheet our subject tutors gave us mock ups of what to fill in for each destination, however the treatment sheet and risk assessment was all our own doing, from scratch we added all the information which meant it was easier for us to understand and put into our own words but also if any spelling errors should occur then this would show up on Microsoft Word and give us suggestions of what we might have meant, this small element could result in our work being of a higher level so it’s critical that we do check our spelling and grammar. After writing up our answers we copied the documents across to our blogs.
The final technology we used through the research and planning stage was the Sony Hard Drive Camera, in which we used to film our audience research, it’s a small hand held camera and very easy to work with, the only settings we used when collecting our research was the play and stop buttons; play when we were recording a person’s answers to the question and stop when they had finished and we then moved onto another student before the same process was put into place again. In previous lessons I have had problems with the camera’s running out of battery after a certain time; however this one was fully charged and lasted the duration of our recordings. When finished we simply used a wire to attach the camera to the MAC before selecting the file and copying it into I Movie which is the program that allowed us to select the best clips and put them into place in sync, this is a more simple program to use compared to Final Cut (which we used for our music video) as it has less settings to concentrate on, but overall throughout the duration of our research and planning a variety of technologies where used and all at the highest ability to show off each group members skills.
When we had completed the research and planning section of our blog, we then moved onto the construction of the music video. This included posts from discussions in the group to how we had put adverts and digipak together and the final version of the music video. The equipment in which we used to film our music video consisted of a Sony Hard Drive camera; this allowed us to create a variety of different shots through the cameras features such as zooming in to create meat shots. For some scenes we connected the camera to a tripod to allow smooth and steady camera movements for example the use of whip pan in our frantic running scene. However a downfall that came with the camera was its lack of battery charge as when filming some scenes the camera's battery descended rapidly. Also for the beginning scenes we filmed the tripod was of an unsteady quality and this did interfere with our clips which we reported back to our subject tutor with so she could bare it in mind when it came to viewing these clips in our video.
When it came to uploading our footage we used I movie in order to change each of the clips to a .mov format so the quality would be at its highest and at a more professional standard, then opened each of the clips into Final Cut where we could watch them in full and decide which would be successful enough to be included in the actual music video itself, due to the extreme quality of this program it meant we could cut back to specific parts of the video and separate them from others if it meant making the whole video look rushed and unedited. This is also the program we used to add on various effects to our clips; the jerky screen movement of our main character during the couch scene, we added this effect because we thought that the scene looked slightly boring compared to the rest of the video and by adding the effect to each separate clip it made each one of them more eye catching and interesting to look at.
It had elements which included a razor, where you could cut off a small part of the clip that we may not have wanted to use due to “camera faults” or “focus of the characters” e.t.c this was a process that took a small amount of time, it was the rendering of the large clips that took the longest, especially when we added effects on top of the clips, Final Cut had to select the clip and change it to the new version but because of the large files we were compressing it sometimes meant half the lesson was taken up by just rendering, so for next time we know to cut down our clips into sections.
An element that our group especially found useful was the fact we could speed up the clips to as fast as we wanted, we also had the option to change the clip to backwards these both came into use because the whole video is about making her look disjointed and mental and by changing these small things the small clip can look completely different. We added these two effects on a group of clips towards the end of the video, they all made a montage and linked into together well.
The final main point that Final Cut has compared to any other program is the amount of space you can use to edit clips, we made around 5 layers of different clips so they didn’t get mixed up, but you have the option to keep adding layers when needed but also locking the layers so none of the clips involved can’t move when we were focusing on a specific one, because as we found out if you don’t lock each layer and you make changes to one it moves the rest of the clips out of place.
After fully completing our music video each of the posts that came with it were basically just updating our blogs so all written work was done on there, apart from the rough cuts which needed to be compressed into Quick Time before being added to You Tube, we then took the embed code and updated them to our blog. We created 3 of these and it showed how each time we had changed the video to make it better.

Then it went onto the ancillary tasks (Digipak and Advert), these were both completed in Photoshop, However we used a Nikon camera to capture the photo shoot we put together especially for these two projects. When finished we selected the best few images and added them to Photoshop, because we had used a leopard print reflection not much editing needed to be done to the images themselves, except from a slight amount of contrast to increase the amount of emphasis on the print, it was just the marketing points we needed to include. For example on the digipak; the artists name, song title, list of songs, copyright information, bar code and company logo. As for the digipak; artist’s name, song title, phone scanner, release date, company logo, opinions from magazines and websites. All of these elements where added using the text tool on Photoshop we just downloaded the fonts separately from a internet font website and added them into the font selection for us to choose (Werewolf and Katy Berry), The barcode and phone scanner were both copied from Google images and transferred in as a new layer and our company logo was created in a new tab and then also transferred. The process of adding everything in didn’t take long it was more positioning each of the layers that was fiddly especially on the digipak.
Overall Photoshop was a successful program to use as I believe it had all the appropriate settings we needed to create the digipak and advert in a professional way. However some groups may have struggled to use it because it is slightly complicated, but because I am a photography student I do understand most things. Both files needed to be changed to a jpg before adding them to our blogs for analysis.

Finally we had to create evaluations to go along with our video; there were 4 separate questions which we devised out into the group equally. We decided to try and create each question using a different technology to show the examiner how diverse we are. However the options where very limited, we had the choice of a Prezi, creating our own video, Power point or we came up with our own plan for this question by writing it on Microsoft word then creating either recordings using Screenr of me showing how to use each program or just collecting screen grabs. For question 1 we decided to create a video because it’s the longest and most detailed question and would take less time talking about it and adding in other elements rather than write everything down. For this we used the media studio which is available through college to film our video because it has a green screen which we transferred our video onto as it played in the background as we talked so that viewers would have something to look at and the video was more entertaining rather than us sat in the classroom talking into the camera. There was also a range of lights available and we had the use of the ICT assistant to work all the controls and add our video to the green screen, but also add our writing onto the auto queue and control the speed e.t.c to a level that we could all read comfortably, without he’s help we wouldn’t have completed the video in the lesson time as we would of had to work everything ourselves so it was a great help. After filming all of the parts, the ICT assistant transferred each of the files onto my art drive so I could access them instantly in the classroom to start editing the video together. We again used Final Cut to put the video together, as well as including our filming from the studio we over lapped our voices with clips from our music video that linked in to what we were talking about but also downloaded videos via YouTube and Zamzar where you add the web address and convert to mov and the file gets sent to your hotmail account, these videos were the ones we were influenced by and also used clips from them to compare with our own. The same rules applied for Final Cut as above.

When evaluating questions 2& 3 we decided to use Prezi and I did one and Sophie completed the other. Prezi is an online power point website in which you can add loads of sections of writing and images and then make a path which links them all together before showing it finally in a power point. It’s a very easy program to use as you can change the fonts to what suits you and also the background and font colours using theme wizard (which I kept in with our brand identity – purple and the font – white) you also write whatever amount you need and then alter the size of how the font is shown on screen, you can also rotate it so it’s more interesting to look at. However because my question was so detailed I kept my writing all straight on and tried to separate some of the writing to ensure it was understandable for all. The only bad thing about prezi is that it has no spell checker, so this was very time consuming for me to go through everything I had written to check for mistakes, it would have been so much easier if it changed them automatically.
Finally this is evaluation question 4 which I have completed on Microsoft Word because it’s slightly like bringing everything together, so I thought it would be way too long to include in a video and too much to write about in a prezi, so this is the next most professional way to go around presenting it. It is also a program which checks spelling so has saved me a lot of time, however just presenting the question like this would be seen as “boring” compared to the way we have presented the other 3 questions in the evaluation section. So after completing the written part I am either going to record step by step tutorials using the Screenr program on the internet in which you record yourself talking through exactly what you are doing on screen, for example I could be adding text to Photoshop, as well as showing them where you add text I will also be talking through it. However with only one lesson left to complete the evaluations I may have to resort to something less adventurous, screen grabs of me completing certain tasks, both will be easy to understand just the Screenr might be more interesting to watch.

Overall I think using a lot of different technologies through this coursework module has give me lots of confidence to try new things but also made me passionate about creating each piece of my work to the highest standard I can because I have the resources to do it, I just need the motivation and I hope throughout everything I have done it’s clearly shown.