HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH,

PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

–Arthur C.Clarke

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic..”

When evaluating what type of technologies we used, without us even realising, a very

modern yet everyday necessity was evident.

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But what?

IPHONES

IPHONES

We used our iPhones to iMessage and

communicate our ideas and for when

we wanted to meet up and create our

music video. This extremely quick

source of communication helped us

out dramatically and is a brilliant

example of modern technology that

we used for the construction of our

video. As well as being used in our

video as a prop to make it look more

real and true to modern life.

As well as iMessage we also used our

phones for other reasons, such as social

networking apps such as Twitter and

Facebook. These apps helped us to not

only communicate with each other

during the planning stages but also to

communicate with other people,

furthermore for planning as well as

collecting audience feedback.

While I was creating the video I found that I had to keep on switching back and forth via two different types of hardware. Apple and

Microsoft.

This is because while I was at college I used Microsoft

Hardware and then when I was at home I used an Apple

Mac. I found that while I was at home, the hardware and

also software I used worked much quicker and therefore

helped me to research, plan and then create an evaluation

of my product much easier.

Another piece of brilliant technology which we would not been able to create our video without was the

camera we used.

Nikon SLR Camera. We used this piece of technology many times over and over until we felt we had filmed a high quality and number of shots

to ensure we created a clever and professional looking video.

Along with the camera, we always used a

tripod which helped us to create the shots

we wanted. Without it we would have

always been having to recording free

hand, making the video look totally

different that we would have wanted it to

be.

After using the Camera and Tripod we then needed to edit the footage we had recorded and then create the video. To do this we used the Windows computers

in college and a software called Adobe Premiere Pro. This top of the range program allowed us to edit and piece our clips together and mould the end

product we wanted to create together.

At home on my Mac I also used a software called Logic Pro X to edit the song we used in the video, Avicii – Silhouettes. I edited the intro of the

song to fit our music video more appropriately.

iMovie was another software available on my Mac which I used. iMovie came

in use when I was editing the footage from our audience feedback clips together. Its

easy to understand tools made it quick and easy to edit the clips together and look

professional at the same.

Mind Genius helped with the planning stages of

our video. I find at times it was difficult to use but

then after a few hours of using it got use to the

layout of it all.

At the start of research for the product we had to

create two ancillary products which then in our

evaluation we would compare with our final video. I

used Adobe Photoshop on both my laptop at home

and computer in college. This easy switch between

software on both types of hardware made creating

my ancillary products easy.

INTERNET – HOW IT HELPED?

When researching before actually producing our music video we used

many different websites on the internet. Because we use the internet

everyday and experienced in how to use it, this helped us to acquire a lot

of information and ideas when deciding what to produce in terms of look

and style. Using websites such as Youtube, Google, Twitter and Facebook

helped us to gather ideas. This helped us to plan our music video better

and also gain audience feedback when writing our evaluation of our

product.

The internet was a big part of our planning, construction, research and evaluation of our end product. It helped us out in more ways than one.

Youtube was a big part of our research before we actually started to

plan and create our video. It allowed us to look at other music

videos and then gain ideas. As we are both big fans of house music

we decided first of all to look at house music videos and then moved

onto watching other genre’s of video’s to gain a better

understanding of music video conventions and what we should

include in our own video.

Facebook was used to create Facebook focus group during research. This research helped us to gain ideas

from audiences to see what people liked the most when it comes to music videos.

A new website to me and one which I used for the very first time this year was

Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey allowed me to gain peoples views and

interests via a short and simple survey over the internet.

I used blogger to exhibit my coursework throughout my progression of it.

Ranging from product research to the final evaluation.

Blogger has been the foundation of my two years of media studies and has

helped me to exhibit the coursework I have done.

We sometimes had to use websites which would convert a certain presentation

into the correct format to then be presentable for Blogger. Presentations such

as this one its self needed converting to be put on my Blog. Slideshare allows

us to do so.

Prezi is an online program which adds a creative side when presenting information to

audiences. I have used Prezi a lot to display information throughout my blog.

One of the social networking sites we used to distribute our music

video was on Twitter. Twitter has become one of the most popular

social networking sites within in the last 5 years and also one of the

most easiest to promote and share products on.

Twitter helped us gain at least 20 views within the first

hour of uploading it onto YouTube by distributing to

friends and also wider audiences.

The search engine I used to find everything I was looking for when planning, constructing and researching was

Google. I have always used Google and it has become the most important tool I could possibly have.

SETBACKS?

Sometimes it felt like technology was against us when we ran into difficulties

loading clips onto Adobe Premiere Pro and then exporting/rendering the final

draft of the video. Quite a lot of the time I tended to do work on my Mac

laptop at home and then try to bring the work in to do on the Windows

Computers at college but I sometimes forgot to convert the file types, this meant

they couldn't open at college and was a waste of my time.

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Other than that the technology I used helped me greatly and allowed me to

create a product which was hopefully to the best of my ability.

I believe that without using the different media technologies we did we

wouldn't have been able to create the end product we did or to any similar

standard.

We have now become accustomed to modern technologies and with the

power they hold, and it proves that students with no professional media

background are still able to create a music video to a great standard.