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

Whilst planning and researching I used lots of different programmes, including

Research

• YouTube bared the brunt of the research as it was the main website I used to watch and get inspiration from existing videos, other websites such as dailymotion, vimeo and beck were also helpful but none had the same depth as YouTube does when it comes to music videos. The majority of my research was from the internet, I used the iMac and my personal windows computer.
• Google was also heavily used to search for album covers and digipacks, it provided information and videos about my specifically chosen genre. Google was also very handy when shooting on location I was able to quickly access the lyrics of my song and information about the band of the song I was using and make changes.
• Googles array of information helped me gather a data base of knowledge about the generic conventions and subversions of my chosen genre, it also helped my product look more authentic and true to the EDM genre.
• Google images and maps helped me plan where I was going to film and what locations had to offer us.

Blogger- Research and planning

• During the course of the year I managed to use a wide range of media technologies through planning, research, construction and evolution stages. I used a variety of platforms in order to be able to achieve the highest quality media products, trying to emulate the existing products in the current market. It was easy to coordinate between every member involved in the process from filming editing and acting as we all shared a group chat on WhatsApp, this made it easy to transfer data and share ideas to achieve the best possible product, it also made It easy to schedule what days we were all free. I used blogger frequently during this process to make sure uploads were constant and up to date. Blogger was very useful as I was able to embed a vast amount of research and information onto our blogs to show the source of our inspiration. The use of media technology helped me keep my work within a good structure and the category system makes it easy to navigate each segment using the labels.

Microsoft Office – research and planning

• I used Microsoft office frequently throughout my research and planning. It was very useful and as each school computer and my personal computer at home have this programme and I'm also familiar with it, it proved to be a good place to produce work and display it in a simple clean format.
• Microsoft PowerPoint also readily available on all the computers I used is very good to make PowerPoints and you can also export them onto other websites to create a different look without having to remake them on said websites.

USB, Mobile phones, laptop, IPad, iMac-Research, planning and production

• My mobile phone aided me a lot during the planning and research stages as I was able to quickly document my progress each step of the way.
• During the production stage, I took several pictures which I then sent to my own email account to have it on my computer, I also sent things to my computer via Bluetooth. Both these tools were very helpful in getting pictures and information to my computer very quickly for quick use.
• I also used my home computer to carry out independent research.
• I used the internet to research, with sites such as youtube,vimeo,dailymotion and beck. By doing this I also visited my selected artists website for inspiration and how to get an idea on how to present my website.

Construction- Camera

• Before any filming was taken place, I firstly had to pick a location. Using the camera to decide what location had to offer me more for filming potential. I also took pictures from my own personal photography portfolio to design and create the digipack(all original pictures). I used my own camera to document both of these resources. Luckily I was also able to use my friends go pro camera for some of the footage along with my Canon. The gopro was very helpful as it was suitable in all weather conditions as appose to the canon that cannot be used in wet weather.

Editing- Photoshop, Fotor, PicMonkey

• I used Adobe Photoshop to edit the images of the Digipack and on the final video. I changed the background und colours, background effects such as shadow drop, gradient background and other effects. This made the image look more suited to my convention and also look more appealing and professional. To create the digipack I predominantly used PicMonkey, this programme allowed me to apply different filters and superimpose text and layer other images onto each other. It also allowed me to edit the front and middle and back of the digipack once I had edited the images and fixed them in Photoshop. PicMonkey was easy to use because it allowed me upload images from Facebook and other social media platforms, this allowed me to edit images quickly adding different frames and free editing tools. Fotor was used to create the correct measurements of the digipak 142x 125 then I was able to add saved images from Fotor to PicMonkey.

iMac

• The school had great facilities to help with my media production. The schools iMac were very helpful as they had great photo editing software such as Photoshop. The macs also had video editing tools such as final cut. The editing process was eased due to the iMacs as its vast amount of storage something I didn’t have access to with my home pc, this made the large video files easy to upload. Although the use of the macs was mainly positive I did however encounter some difficulties on the mac to get entry to Final cut express and to be able to export the files onto it.

Filming- construction

• During filming I used two cameras one was the GoPro and the other was a high quality Sony camera. The gopro was excellent for fast paced action shots as it was easy to mount onto people and due to its small size was easy to transport and carry. The gopro however did have a shorter battery life then the other camera and its quality of footage wasn’t as high as the other camera. Along with the camera I used a tripod for the still shots and a selfie stick to gain vantage points we wouldn’t be able to reach normally. The Sony cameras only flaw was its small memory card this meant I had to constantly export the footage to my computer when the camera was full. After filming I uploaded the footage onto the iMac and my personal computer using a firewire and a HDMI cable. The process of uploading the files was very simple as my home pc is very fast and was able to transfer the data across quickly, the schools iMacs although slightly slower were still acceptable and made the transferal process not to lengthy.

WIX

• I used wix.com to construct my website. Wix is a cloud based web development platform that enables the user to create websites and mobile sites online, either using a mobile device or computer. Wix was a great tool as it had several different templates to get the correct feel and fit within the conventions of my genre. It also allowed me to test different fonts and features. This makes my website look appealing to my target audience that engages with my genre of music and culture. Using Wix to create mock ups and drafts also allowed me to get feedback and help me in improving it. Wix also showed me how to get the correct number of links and detail as initially in my flat plan I think I lacked several key elements that Wix then showed me.

Evaluation

• Throughout my evaluation process I used a wide variety of different media technology to showcase my work.
• To present my work and make it look more attractive when reading the information I used various presentation programmes such as Prezi, Zoho, LinkedIn, Slideshare. Using these programmes help make the work look more structured and clean cut as oppose to just uploading a huge chunk of text. It also breaks down the large information making it easier to read.
• I used a new media technology for my evaluation called Emaze. Emaze enables the user to create a presentation in a slightly different way to the other presentation programmes. It has more animation features then other programmes with 3D animation it is very engaging and interactive programme.

Glogster

• I used Glogster for my evaluation question as I had previous experience of using this programme from year 12 media studies. Glogster is a cloud based platform for digital story telling, it is very interactive and it enables the user to intertwine all different media technologies onto one programme.

Untitled Slide