Evaluation Question 4

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

Construction and Research

In the construction and research stages we used a variety of new technologies to aid us in the making of our final product. When filming our trial lip syncing video we used a standard definition camera, and iMovie to edit it together, at this stage we were planning to use Final Cut Express to edit our final video together, and we were planning on using a HD camera, as this would give our finished video and much more professional outcome. The use of a standard definition camera meant that the time it took to import the video to the Mac was a lot less, meaning we could edit it together a lot quicker. Also the use of iMovie, as we all knew how to use it well, meant we could edit it quickly and have it on our blog quicker. Throughout the research element we used the Internet, mainly news websites to gain information about current trends in music videos and what videos were popular at the time, this helped us work towards making sure our video fit with the genre of the song we has chosen, while also making sure it contains elements that will appeal to a wide audience. We also used YouTube a lot, firstly as a platform to upload our trail lip syncing video, but also to view previously created music videos and one which were of a similar genre to what we wanted our one to end up like. Doing this enabled us to do an even deeper analysis into the conventions of the genre we were working with, while also giving us a wider knowledge of other types of genres.

Planning

In the planning stages of making our Digipak and Magazine advert I used paint to make some very rough drafts of what I wanted the Digipak and magazine advert to look like, after getting feedback from people about what they thought of my designs I decided to use Photoshop to make new ones as people said they didn't look professional enough. Photoshop, although it is a very complicated programme was easy to pick up, I already had basic knowledge on how it worked so I made everything on there from that point onwards. I liked Photoshop more than Paint because it gave eve

rything I made a much more professional finish and look, also because it gave me a much wider range or effects and font that I could use.

In the planning stages of making our video we used iMovie once again to make an animatic story board, making this gave us a much better idea of what our finished video would look like and also gave us a chance to play around with the positioning of clips. Using iMovie also meant that we could do things much quicker and importing images into iMovie is a very quick process. We also used the Internet a great deal throughout the planning stages as we used Blogger to document all of our progress, which allowed us to keep everything organised and in order so it was easy to access when we needed in later on. We also once again used Youtube as a site to upload our animatic storyboard to, this was helpful as you can upload directly from iMovie and also it is easy to embed the uploaded video onto our blog and use in the Filming and Editing stage of our project.

Filming and Editing

After much deliberation we decided that due to the nature and genre of our video it would be much easier and save a lot of time if we edited it in iMovie, as opposed to Final Cut Express. Our video is in the genre of 'Indie' which means it doesn't contain many on screen special effects or text on screen, this means that we can use iMovie and still achieve a high quality, professional outcome. However there is a section towards the end of our video which we knew would require a filter so we decided that we would edit the raw clips we wanted the filter on in Final Cut Express then move them over to iMovie and add them to the editing timeline in iMovie, doing this saved us a great deal of time and also allowed us to achieve the filter effect which we wanted.

During the filming stages of our video we used many things to aid us in achieving a professional finish, the first of which was a tripod. Despite some of our shots being hand held, we required a tripod for a lot of the group shots and also the main lip syncing shot which is seen throughout. The tripod allowed us to keep the camera we were using steady and meant that  the focus in the shots we used the tripod in was more on what was going on in the clip rather than the shakiness that would've been present without the tripod. We brought a Dolly

along to the shoot as well, which came in handy not only while we were filming but also when we were moving the equipment from room to room while on location, because we did many shots outside and in different positions in the main room of the house we used the dolly to move the camera around these location with ease.

The camera we used was a Canon Full HD Camcorder, the camera had a large amount of built in memory which meant we didn't need to worry about how long the clips went on for or how many clips we ended up filming because we had plenty of space on the camera to experiment and re-do the shots which we didn't like or weren't 100% sure about. The camera also has auto-focus, which was extremely helpful for us because we were filming in an environment where there was a lot going on in shot so having auto-focus meant we could focus more on what there people in the clip were doing and less on minor things like whether the camera was in focus or not.

After trailing the programmes we were going to use for our Digipak and Magazine advert we decided that our best option was Photoshop, it allowed us to add a broad amount of effects and fonts onto our Digipak. I liked using Photoshop as it was easy to pick up and also allowed us to give our Digipak and Magazine advert a very professional finish, meaning it looked like it had been created by an actual institution.

Evaluation
Through-out the entire process of making our project I have used Blogger to document my progress and create a timeline on my blog similar to that of a Diary, showing the journey we have made from our initial ideas and choosing the song we wanted to use to having a final video, Digipack and Magazine advert. Blogger is a really easy site to use which allows you to not only create individual post which can contain slideshows, images and videos, but it also allows you to organise everything in a way which is easy to look back on and use in each stage of our project. The evaluation stage has been made a lot easier by blogger because I knew I wanted to do every question in a different way, using different forms of technology, and using blogger allows me to use any type of technology I want, because I can just embed it onto my blog and it will appear there.