Q.4

How did you use media

technologies in the construction

and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

During my research and planning for my print products, I used Google to find the images for my CD album case studies along with the adverts. I also used Google to search for images that I wanted to use for my CD, inserts, front and back cover and advert mock ups. In doing this, it made the photography easier as I knew what poses I wanted my model to do and I knew what pictures I wanted to take.

Through google, I managed to search and get to the websites that I had to use nearly every day and had to have a google account to log onto, which included YouTube and Blogger. I also got the record label name and their logo to put on my front cover of the CD single, I also got pictures of a barcode, the parental advisory logo and the lyrics for the song that I annotated.

Lastly, I found the sizing and dimensions for the CD case and the actual CD on google. This was essential at making sure the size I made everything was accurate.

GoogleResearch & Planning

YouTube was used for me to find my case studies of three music videos. I also watched other videos to see how different types of videos were shot and edited. This was also used when researching a song to do for our project as we had to check whether or not the song had a video to it already.

Timetoast was used in both AS and A2. This is used to plan exactly when we was doing what we had to do. This gave us deadlines of certain parts of the project and we were able to note down when we were doing shoots.

WhatsApp was used for my group and I to communicate with each other. This is where we discussed our availability as we had two group chats, one for just the me and my other two group members and the other one was for my group and the actor. We didn't’t have the actor in our main group chat as these were overall team meetings which started with the original ideas for the video, and went on to taking about editing times and things the actor didn't’t really need to be a part of. In the group chat with the actor, we spoke about when he was available to film and to do the photo shoot for the print products.

I used Moodle to get the templates for the risk assessments, call sheets, location releases and talent release sheets. The templates for the CD dimensions and case

I used Leyton Media Hub to access previous blogs to get ideas of how to structure my work and in some cases, what to include and what not to include.

WhatsAppMoodle

Leyton Media Hub

To edit the video, we used Adobe Premiere Pro CC. As a group, we learned the basics of how to use this piece of software when we did the preliminary task which was to create a lip sync video to a song of our choice. In doing this, we learned how to sync up a video with the audio and how to cut clips, add different ones and link them all together.

Individually, while using this piece of software for the final product, I learned more advanced skills and effects like slowing down and speeding up different clips, I found out how to play around with the colour of clips using colour correction and how to fade one clip into another using video and audio transitions, including exponential fade for the music to fade out and cross dissolve to fade two clips into each other and dip to black at the end to fade the video into blackness.

Premiere ProEditing

Photoshop was the software we used to make our print products.Using Photoshop, I was able to experiment with different layouts on how I wanted to position certain things on my print products. I was able to apply my knowledge learned from AS from making a music magazine to this part of the project. I was already aware of how to add images, text and shapes however, in A2, I learned how to make a gel lighting effect by making the whole background red, then when I added my images on it that I took using a red gel light, I started to lower the opacity to try and get it all one colour.

Photoshop

To film the whole video, we used two canon cameras. One of the cameras were provided by college however, the other camera belonged to me. As I already had my own camera, I had knowledge on how to operate them both including things like changing the aperture and shutter speed to make sure the amount of light coming into the camera was good enough. However, I have learned that while filming it’s easier to keep the camera going if someone makes a mistake than keep cutting and starting the recording again. This is because while editing you can just edit out the parts that went wrong rather than having many little clips. For the photshoot, we used a different Cannon camera but still had to adjust the shutter speed and aperture in order to make the pictures come out well.As I knew what I was doing, I helped my other team members to operate the camera as they had less knowledge on me, so hopefully they also learned something new.

Canon CameraConstruction

Presenting / Evaluation

Emaze is a simple yet effective way to have an interesting slideshow. I used this for question 3 and it’s easy to use as it’s almost like powerpoint as you can add text and new pages, however, you can embed pictures and videos onto it. I also used this website last year in AS for my evaluation.

Prezi is a creative way to make a presentation. I really enjoy using this as I first got introduced to it in my AS year, At first I found it difficult to use it and had problems but now I think it’s one of the best pieces of technology to use for planning and presentations. I used this for both questions 1 and 2 and I used it for both my research and planning presentations.

Blogger was the main website used throughout AS and A2. Before starting my media course, I had never used or thought about using Blogger before so this was a new experience for me however, using this at AS, I was easily able to navigate through the site and upload work. All of my work was posted on here and it is easily accessible to others and my teachers so they could see my progress. Being able to customise the way your blog looks, makes it more personal and interesting to look at and can seem more engaging.

I used PowerPoint to type up this question so it can be imported onto Slideshare. I had to do this as PowerPoint slideshows can’t be embedded onto blogger whereas PowerPoint slideshows can be imported onto Slideshare and from there, it can easily be embedded onto my blog. I think this piece of technology is quick and simple to use and it still looks good as it shows information clearly.