Evaualtion Qustion 4

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

Blogger is an online platform that we use throughout our media Alevel, it’s a way for us to publish all of my coursework onto a digital presence. Using this online software it allows us to keep a back log of all our research and planning we have done during the course. We are also able to update and adapt any recent posts uploaded at any moment in time. This has proven to be a very useful and easy way of structuring and presenting work to my teachers, as they are able to leave comments underneath each post of what we are doing well, and certain areas we need to improve upon. Overall using blogger to publish and present my media work has been beneficial during my media Alevel.

Throughout my media Alevel I have used a variety of social networking sites from Facebook to Instagram, using these particular sites enabled me to create small online focus groups of my particular target audience, where I was able to receive an overview from the target audience I was marketing my product too, of what they thought of my finalized product both my music video and ancillary task. Giving them a preview of my product they were able to give me criticisms of certain things they personally felt I should change and improve in order to make it more appealing to the audience. Early on during the planning process I created several questionnaires about music videos and what my target audience would expect to see in a music video and album cover of my chosen genre. Using online sites such as Facebook and Instagram it was easy and a time saving way to publish the questionnaire to my target audience as theses social media sites are largely mass marketed into today’s society therefore it was easier to communicate to them and receive a response rather than a written questionnaire.

To produce and create both my music video and ancillary task I had to learn how to use a variety of software ranging from photoshop to adobe premiere. I found using photoshop in order to construct both my poster and digipac fairly easy as I had used it prior during As media, therefore this enabled to be more creative and experiment with designs and texture icons within photoshop as I had already under gripped the basic features of photoshop. Photoshop also allowed me to adjust and blemish my photos beforehand improving the clarity of the image, giving off a more professional look. After finalizing the images with the added effects, I was able to import text, and choose range of stylized fonts that helped portray and relate to mise en scene of both my poster and digipac. However the main software I used was adobe premiere pro which is a timeline-based video editing software application, which includes video editing, graphic design, features and icons. This particular software enable me to create my music video, my importing scenes of my filming footage and attaching a backing track mp3 of my chosen song “Royals” I was able to create basics of my music video. I also able to use features such as the razor tool which allowed me to cut down unneeded footage, it also allowed me to change the speed of scenes in order for the lip singing to link and flow at the same time as the song, making it more appealing and  professional . However I wanted to make my music video more appealing to my target audience, so after experimenting with the software I was found I was able to import transitions and video effects to make it more colour and upbeat. Overall I found the software used throughout my course easy and efficient to follow and use.

The majority of my filming and photos used within my music video and ancillary task were taken and filmed with a digital SLR camera a ‘Canon EOS 450D’.Using such equipment produced excellent quality photography’s due to the high pixel featured on the camera, because the camera had such good clarity and lens focus it was fairly easy to gather the filming footage at a professional standard. I also had access to an SD card which allowed me to transfer both my footage and images across to my computer where I was able to being editing the footage in a simpler and less time consuming way.

Throughout the entire course there were a number of items/objects I used to help me construct my music video. Such as during my filming shoot I used tripods and stands to steady the camera to get a good quality shoot it also allowed me to take my footage in a range on different angles, which was very useful as from an audience perspective, it makes the music video more entertaining and appealing to watch. I used my IPhone 5s to access my social networking sites such as facebook when conducting research and planning questionnaires. I also used Creative GigaWorks T20 Multimedia Speakers to project the music, this was a useful element for my actor as it allowed her to sing the lyrics in time with the music rather than just guessing the timing and pace of the lyrics.

Overall I used a variety of different technology throughout my coursework, it piece of technology played a major part in the construction of both the music video and ancillary task. However all the products work together to make the process much more efficient and has enhanced to standard of my work due to the use of these technical advancements.