How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?
Throughout the process of this project, I have used a range of media technologies that have helped me along the way with producing my final production, ancillary texts and evaluation tasks. Without the availability of these technologies, I would not have been able to produce a music video, digipak or magazine advert to the standard that I have.
Research:
In order to publish my work for my audience to see, I had to use a website-making site and for this I chose 'Wix' which is an efficient, fast site that allowed me to produce my work in all different pages and sections. This website is better than the one I used last year called 'Weebly' which was slower, more difficult to use and also less professional than Wix. Wix allowed me to appear professional and gave me a variety of effects and options when publishing my work. It was easy to use and allowed me to be navigated effectively through the site in order for me to imbed anything into my site that I desired i.e. I was able to simply upload my youtube video onto my home page. I mainly used the 'Google' search engine to complete the research tasks on my website. The main thing I had to do in relation to research was find out about my chosen genre of music in order to complete the planning tasks to make my music video. However, firstly I had to watch different music videos to find out which genre I actually wanted to recreate a music video for. In order to do this I used Youtube as this was the easiest way to watch music videos fast, and I could also view different music videos whilst at home because I have an iPhone that has the app 'YouTube' too.. After finding the song that I wanted to use: 'Hard Times' by 'Paramore', I used Google to search what genre they were and then researched certain expectations and mine en scene elements within that genre. All of my tasks were produced on an 'Apple Mac' laptop provided by my sixth form. This was useful as I would not have been able to use certain Adobe applications such as 'Premiere Pro' and 'Photoshop' if I had to use another laptop/computer.
Construction:
On the Apple Macs, I was able to use Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro. Photoshop was used to create my magazine advert and my final digipak design. I ahve used this application before and therefore, I was fairly familiar with it and could use a lot of its features to produce my best work. My digipak required me to produce a front and back cover with inside right and left pages too. Using Photoshop, I brightened and contrasted the image of my band in order to see them as clearly as possible also, I added in 2 pieces of texts which were the name of the band and the song title. I made the name of the band 3D to make it stand out even more and more memorable for the audience and I added an image of a butterfly from google images to help convey the idea of mental health issues being confronted within my products. I erased the bottom parts of some letters so it would fit behind the head of the band and make them the main aspect of the digipak cover. Other aspects of Photoshop that I used for my final digipak design was the gradient tool the was done to create a black and white ombre effect for my background on the back and inside left covers. This all helped to conform to my particular genre as black and white are common colours associated with it. For the other ancillary task: a magazine advert, I again used Photoshop and produced a copy of my digipak front cover to make it a quicker process. However, because obviously a digipak is square and a magazine advert is more rectangular, I made the background image longer so it was plain black at the bottom. Then, due to me not wanting it to be just a plain background, I included an image of black and white stripes and then used the darken effect to change it to black and dark grey stripes. After doing this I added in more text in order to let the audience know about my product and where they can get it from. Using Photoshop enabled me to produce my work to a high-quality and also made it look professional. All of the pictures taken for my ancillary tasks were shot on a Canon DSLR camera which was provided to me from the photography department at my sixth form. This produced excellent quality images and allowed the shots to be taken with a black and white filter effect already placed upon them which was easier when it came to the editing side. It also allowed the person behind the camera to zoom in and out easily and fast but still produce clear pictures. Another feature of the camera was that the button could be held down in order to receive a burst of numerous amounts of pictures and therefore, capture the moment. Adobe Premiere Pro was used to produce my music video. This was a lot more professional and effective than iMovie which is what I used last year when making a horror film opening scene. In Premiere Pro, it was easy to lock the audio in order to freely edit the video without worrying about affecting it and vice versa therefore, I was able to lock my videos and then quickly delete unwanted sound that came from that video. It was also easily accessible to apply a variety of video transitions and video effects. For example, there is a fade to black transition between a narrative and a performance clip within my final production, and I have used the brighten effect in order to make a dark clip lighter, allowing the audience to be able to see all details. Premiere Pro enabled me to efficiently speed up or slow down clips which was especially useful with the performance scenes as this was needed in order to make the band appear like they were playing/singing in time with the music. Therefore, these features allowed my band to appear more professional and talented. However, in some clips it still doesn't look that convincing and so, if I were to redo my music video, I would make sure to sing the lyrics out loud in order to be in time and include people in my band who could actually play the guitar and drums. After finishing my music video, I then had to export it and then upload it onto YouTube. This proved quite a hard task as the image quality was not up to a high, professional standard which was an unfair representation of my work as filming it on a iPhone 7 made the videos good quality but Premiere Pro somehow lessened that quality. After receiving feedback for my video, I re-exported it using a better-quality selection and the it slightly improved. YouTube was an important media technology for me as this has allowed my target audience to view my final production and share it with whoever I wanted to.
Planning:
After conducting my research on my chosen genre and band, I then started to plan what would be included in my final production. I also published these pages onto Wix as it allowed me to include anything I wanted. I used an iPhone SE to take pictures of equipment, locations, my storyboard, people involved and mine en scene elements. This phone is my own and therefore, it was easily accessible to me whenever I needed it. Also, the camera has a fairly high quality and produced clear, detailed pictures. After taking vides of my storyboard (using my iPhone SE), I then imported them onto iMovie and edited it along with my song in order to allow myself to see how far I had come in terms of planning my music video and I I missed anything out. It also enabled me to see how long each scene should be and if anything needed to be improved before I actually started filming. Because of this software, I was able to manipulate the timings of the clips and ensure that they matched up with the lyrics of my song also, I could mute the sound on the clips to diminish any unwanted noise. iMovie was fairly easy to use because I have used it plenty of times before for my AS projects and this is simple and quick to save and upload the video onto YouTube which could then be shared onto my website. I completed a survey using the site 'Survey Monkey'. This was efficient and quick to use as I could simply conduct a survey and then email it to whoever I wanted to ask. I chose to send it to mostly people of a similar age range to me as this was my main target audience. After everyone had answered my survey, I then was able to screenshot and analyse the results onto my research pages on my Wix website. This survey website was helpful to me as I was able to change my plan for my music video to fit in with what my target audience wanted and therefore, help to make my video as popular and liked as possible by my audience.
Evaluation:
I wanted to use a variety of media technologies and websites for my 4 evaluation questions. The first one I used was a site called 'Emaze' which was good as there were a variety of different background designs to use however, I went with a plain and simple one as I wanted the main focus to be my answer to the question at hand. This website allowed me to easily embed images, gifs and videos that helped to get my points across and show different examples of my work. The second website that I used is one that I also used last year called 'Prezi' which is easy to use but sometimes slow and unreliable. However, I was able to answer the question effectively with relevant images and pictures to use as evidence. The design that I used was once again, plain and simple but all placed neatly with colours relating to my genre. I used YouTube again for my third evaluation question in order to help with the variety of platforms. This enabled me to talk about what audience feedback I had received throughout the process of making my products and I included an image and detailed descriptions on the wix website with the YouTube link too. This was because I couldn't include it within my video as I didn't add them in when making the video on iMovie. If I was to improve on this question, I would've pre-written a script in order for me to know what I was to going say throughout the whole video instead of just having some notes, this would've stopped me from rambling and missing out important detail. The final evaluation question was done on my website on Wix which was easily accessible and allowed me to include a variety of images and layout my page exactly how I wanted it.