Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction,

research, planning, and evaluation stages?

bridge camera and video camera

Nikon Coolpix L120 Bridge CameraThis camera was my own personal camera that I chose to use to take the stills for my digipak and advert, as well as the separate shots for the animation in my video. I chose to use this camera as it is high quality at 14 mega pixel, therefore ensuring that the images I got would be of a high quality. In addition to this it was very practical for me to be able to use my own camera as it meant I was able to take images at any time- so if for whatever reason I couldn’t take the images when I had originally planned, I didn’t have to worry about booking the camera again. It was always at my disposal and therefore relieved some of the time pressure, meaning I was able to be “picky” over my images.

Panasonic SD40 Full HD CamcorderLike the stills camera, I chose to use the camcorder from home as it would be very practical for me to be able to use one whenever I needed to without having to worry about booking it in advance. The full HD element of the camera was again beneficial as it meant the images were high quality. The camcorder also would’ve helped with my animation, however due to my inaptitude with it’s more advanced features, I chose to do it manually on Premier Pro. This sense of technological determinism is something I regret as I think the camera wasn’t used to it’s full capacity, and if I had known how to use it properly, I may have been able to achieve some more ambitious shots.

smartphone and tablet

iPadMy iPad was invaluable to me in countless ways over this entire process. I used it continually on all of my shoots and in the research and planning process.

-Twitter and Facebook appThe use of these two apps helped me reap the benefits of 2.0 technologies all the time as it gave me instant access to my focus group via the Facebook page I set up to gain feedback. I was able to read comments and reply to them regardless of where I was. This was particularly beneficial when I was outside shooting with Kam, as it meant I could check audience feedback to remind myself what kind of shots I wanted to be taking etc. Twitter also gave me quick access to Laura and Kam who I often needed to get in contact with about filming. As the majority of people who use Twitter check it in continually, it was a very useful method of contacting them both as the majority of the time they replied almost instantly. I could also upload draft edits of my video to Facebook where I could receive feedback from my focus group. I definitely think being able to use interactive 2.0 technologies like Facebook and Twitter on a portable device like an iPad definitely helped me in this process and I think my coursework is of a higher standard because of it as being able to share my work and receive instant feedback was invaluable in making it more suited to the target audience and focus group.

-YouTube appLike the Facebook and Twitter app, the YouTube app was extremely helpful to me, particularly in the research and planning section. In order to create a high quality video and marketing package- research into existing videos was essential. Again I was able to do this whenever I wanted to as my iPad is 3G. I did copious amounts of research into existing products (most of which is on my blog) and YouTube was obviously the main place I went to to do this. It also helped a lot with inspiration, as quite often a friend of mine would ask me if I’d seen a certain video, and if I hadn’t, I’d watch it there and then before I had time to forget about it. As these friends were mainky part of my focus group, often the video would have certain elements that would be suitable for my own, and therefore I was very inspired by a lot of what I’d seen on YouTube on my iPad.

Blogger appThe Blogger app was great in helping me access all of my previous research and planning when it came to shooting and my evaluation. Having all of my work at easy access was really helpful as it saved me the hassle of turning on a desktop or laptop and having to log in every time. Again the portable element of it was really helpful as I wasn’t limited to just accessing my Blogger at home. As it was so easy to access all of my previous work, I think I definitely did use Blogger more as a result, and therefore kept better tabs on what I was doing, what I’d achieved, what still needed doing etc. I think my blog was kept far more up to date as a result of the app and therefore the standard of my blog and my work in general increased.

Weave appThe Weave app is an organisational app that I used religiously throughout the whole process to ensure I was sticking to time schedules. I was also able to use push notifications to my advantage, so even when I wasn’t on Weave, my iPad would notify me of deadlines and tasks that needed doing. This again was incredibly useful as I had struggled a lot with time management and coursework during my AS course, and I definitely think the Weave app made me more proactive as it showed me how long until deadlines etc. I was also able to prioritise tasks according to urgency, so I think I was more time efficient as a result.

Overall I think my iPad was one of the most useful pieces of technology I had available to me over this whole process. It’s portable design and 3G capabilities made it extremely practical, whether I wanted to interact with my focus group via 2.0 apps or if I just needed to play the song loudly during recording, I 100% think that my work was of a higher standard because of it as well as far less stressful than it could have been!

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo

Like the iPad, I was able to access my social media sites on my smartphone whenever I needed to, to upload work and read/contribute to the focus group page on Facebook. However what I couldn’t do on my iPad, which I could do on my smartphone was ring people- particularly Laura and Kam, as on the rare occasion they hadn’t replied via Twitter, I could just ring them instead. My phone was also good in forwarding e-mails/texts to people I needed to be in contact with. My smartphone was useful to me in the creation of my coursework, however the iPad proved slightly more effective as the internet worked faster and it was easier for me to manage the focus group page on a bigger screen.

Photoshop

Photoshop was very valuable to me in the production stage of my print work as it enabled me to use advanced technology in order to achieve a piece of professional looking work that may not have been achieved on software with less capabilities. However I do think that my lack of ability to use the software to it’s full capacity is a shame as it limited much creativity or experimentation, and therefore if I were to do this again I would spend more time familiarising myself with it. With that being said however, I do feel I was more confident in using the software in comparison to how I was with my AS coursework and I think my work is better as a result.

Although I wasn’t as skilled with using Photoshop as I would’ve liked to have been, some of the features of Photoshop were useful to me and I was happy using them. On the back cover of my digipak, I used a drop shadow effect on the track listings to make the font look slightly less 2D and dull. I think the font was made far more interesting by this effect and when I showed my focus group the “before and after” images of the font before and after the effect, they much preferred the font with the effect. Therefore in this instance, technology definitely improved my product as it made it appeal more to the target audience.

Due to a combination of my inaptitude with Photoshop and the simplistic style my focus group requested I didn’t attempt anything too ambitious on Photoshop. However I often went to tutorials on YouTube in order to progress my knowledge of the software tools and how to use them effectively. This is another example of how YouTube helped me in the production stage, and not just research and planning.

One generic and necessary feature of a print advert, were reviews- often accompanied by ratings. Therefore I decided to use Photoshop to create stars to use alongside quotes. Here’s the link to the site I used to learn how to do this.

http://damiensymonds.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/how-to-make-star-shape-in-photoshop.html

As I have already said, my lack of confidence with the technology did limit my creativity and design to some extent, I still feel I was more proactive in learning how to do things than I was last year. I spent more time on blogs such as these and YouTube tutorials.

Premier Pro

At the start of this process I dreaded the editing stage due to bad past experiences with editing software! Consequently I do think it restricted my ambitions towards what type of final product I wanted to achieve. I also think I was further restricted by the genre of the song, as slow indie music videos aren’t renowned for spectacular visual effects. Consequently I do think that I definitely wasted the opportunity to use software like Premier Pro as various factors meant I was neither confident nor willing to experiment more with Premier Pro as I felt it would stray too far from genre conventions and my realistic capabilities.

Although as I mentioned, slower songs aren’t associated with fast paced or exciting videos- there were still effects that I needed to include in order to follow some necessary conventions. One of which was using lots of cross dissolves and super imposition to create a sense of nostalgia and distance between individuals. I was able to do this via the “video transitions” section and within “dissolve” I was able to click and drag a cross dissolve over to the two clips I wanted to merge together. Although this was clearly rather simple, for some shots I wanted more control over the duration and opacity of the dissolve so had to do it in a more manual way, moving the play head and changing opacity percentages for the clips involved.

My focus group responded well to this, saying how it met their expectation of what a music video to a relatively down beat song would look like. Although I used plenty of basic cross dissolves, I think I should have included more of the advanced transitions that involved the manipulation of opacity levels etc as they gave the video more of a professional look.

One part of my video that I was particularly pleased with and my focus group particularly liked was the Scrabble tile and rose petal animation. Premier Pro enabled me to do this, as I was able to edit frame by frame- something that is more difficult on more basic software like Windows Movie Maker, therefore more accurate animation was made possible. This was especially useful with the Scrabble tiles as I wanted them to spell out the lyrics in time with when they were sung.

As there was limited movement from actual visuals on screen as I felt it wouldn’t suit the song to have fast paced movements etc, it was important that iwas able to involve slight camera movement to stop the video from looking completely stationary. Premier Pro allowed me to do this, as by zooming in to the shots slightly, and using the key heads, I was able to slowly pan across certain shots- giving the video a sense of flow. Although these movements are very subtle, I still think being able to use Premier to achieve this was very important as otherwise I think the video would’ve been significantly lacking in camera movement.

Premier Pro was essential in creating this, as I hadn’t really considered this before filming. Consequently I didn’t use any panning or tracking etc when shooting, so I had to rely purely on editing software to achieve this. When I showed my focus group the video before and after I’d added this particular post production effect- the response was unanimous in its agreeance that the post production version with slight camera movement was “1000 times better.”

Finally, something that I wanted to achieve but was unable to due to errors from myself and limits of the technology was the “Sin City” effect where the majority of an image is black and white, with just one or two features in colour. I was inspired to do this after watching Pleasantville, and I thought it would work really nicely with the rose petals animation. My focus group were also very keen on the idea, so I attempted to recreate the effect on Premier Pro.

Although the tutorial I watched on YouTube on how to create the effect was very clear and easy to understand, I was still unable to create the effect due to the lack of clarity in the colour. Therefore the petals didn’t look their solid original colour and instead looked overly patchy. Although the lack of lighting I used may have been a large factor in this, I think if I were using a software more advanced than Premier Pro, I may have been able to edit out the patches manually, and therefore been able to successfully create the effect.

In conclusion, I think technology did determine the outcome of my work- however it was due to my reluctance to experiment too ambitiously with it, rather than the limits of the technology itself. However, I do think that the research and planning of my work was done to a higher and more extensive standard because of the range of technology I used- particularly in the way of iPad apps, and the technological convergence that tablets enable. Being able to interact with my focus group via 2.0 technologies improved my knowledge of what my target audience wanted from a media product, and I could make a more suitable product as a result. Despite this, I still think my work could have been more interesting if I’d taken more time to learn how to use the software more thoroughly.