Throughout all the stages of production I used a range of technologies to help me create my work. Most of these technologies were used all on the same device such as Photoshop, Blogger, Microsoft Word are all on a computer. Because technology has evolved it has allowed me to plan, produce and distribute my product all from one device such as a phone or tablet. However we used a range of technology on different media platforms, most predominantly from a computer.

Pre-production

During my pre-production I researched 9 different real media texts in order to form my product research. I used several different technologies including web 2.0. For my music video research I used YouTube and Vevo so it would be easier to analyse the videos. The conveniences of these websites are that they are free to use so I was able to research into different music genres and styles. However depending on the video some of them have age restrictions on due to language or older themes which is bad especially if your video contains such language or themes. But fortunately I didn't come across such problems when choosing music videos. Google Images was another website I used to get the images of the digipaks and adverts. Google was the best one I used because it had the largest range of image for me to choose from and seemed to have the latest ones making it easier for me to research the new conventions for my products. The limitations with Google is some of the image won't be the full image or could be fan made images as Google is a large conglomerate and come up with various images for the thing you looked for even if it doesn't link to it. Another technology I used was Survey Monkey. I used this to create my questionnaire and send it out to people for my market research. The benefit of using Survey Monkey is you can send the survey to people on a range of media platforms like email or through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. The website is also free which is a plus however its only free up to ten questions which means the questions I use have to be specific and to the point so I could get the information I want. When planning my music video I used Microsoft word to note down all the narrative of my video. It was very good to use because I could write down all the plans and talk about what editing to do and what camera shots I needed to get. Word is one of the most reliable pieces of software and I had no limitations with using it. Finally when searching for lyrics of the song of our video I used a website called Azlyrics.com. This website I find is very reliable as I used it a lot in my spare time. I think the only disadvantage of the website is its fan made so its some of the lyrics might be incorrect.

Production

For the creation of our music video we used a Nikon DSLR D3200 camera to film our footage. I have had experience in using this technology last year when making my music magazine. I used my skills and knowledge from last year on camera angles, lighting camera setting to take pictures for my ancillaries. Filming on this camera was little more difficult because I have had previous experience at filming from my other lessons but on a different camera, this one is new and more technological but it wasn't too bad once we got going. Using such evolved technology to film meant we were able to have higher quality images and footage making our video look more professional. It also makes it easier to transfer on to a computer without having to worry about changing the file type or formatting it. In addition to this we also used Spotify; an online music streaming website. We used this to film the lip sync scenes so the actress could sing along to the music. If we didn't use this the miming of the lyric could have gone completely wrong and the words might have not matched up. There's only one problem with using Spotify and that's the adverts but if you have an account you don't get any so fortunately I have an account and we didn't have any problems. Again I used Word to note down in my production planner about what I have done that week and what I need to do in the next week.

Post-production

After filming and taking photo shoots I used a range of technologies to edit the footage and images I got. Adobe Photoshop is a programme I used to create my ancillaries. Last year I used the software to make my music magazine and used the skills that I attained last year to help me make my digipak and advert. This year I was able to expand on my skills and use them to make my products. Because of my skills I was able to create graphics such as a record label logo for my label Sound Purge Records and was able to create stars for Q's review of the album on my advert. I think the problem with Photoshop is that it's very advanced and there are some editing skills and styles I don't know how to use yet. For the editing of my video I used Adobe Premiere Pro. Again I have some experience from last year in another lesson and I used my skills to edit the footage. The programme allowed us to create basic cuts and apply simple transitions to our footage. Much advanced settings allowed us to create transparent videos to change the colour and saturation of the footage to give the music video an overall emotional effect. I think the disadvantage to Premiere Pro is the fact that the footage can slack if you don't render it and will keep slacking every time you make a new edit or add new footage.

Evaluation

For my overall presenting of my work I used a website called Blogger. Blogger is an online blogging website where I documented all my research, production work and post production work. The great thing about Blogger is that it's free and you can upload as much as you like. You can also create labels to put different piece of work under which is good for when I put pieces of work online so it's easier to find a particular piece one is looking for. The one problem with Blogger is that you can upload work straight from Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. However we used a website called SlideShare where you can upload the work on there and embed the document onto the blog. SlideShare is one of the most reliable technologies I have used and there's not really any disadvantage to it.

For my actual evaluation I used a range of technologies, again I have used Word to plan out my questions. I also will be using software called Prezi. It's like PowerPoint but more advanced and online. It's really good for presentations. I have had experience in using the software last year during my evaluation and have used my skills again to present one of my evaluation questions. For question three, we had to create a closed group on the social media website Facebook. We did this with goal of getting feedback from our target audience so we can comment on what they thought of the product. Facebook was useful because our main target audience are youths and tend to use this technology to contact people. The problem with Facebook is that not everyone will reply straight away as some people will not have the notifications for it. I will also be using is Sound Cloud; I will record my voice on my IPhone another technology and put it on Sound Cloud. I used Sound Cloud last year too but I haven't really had much experience in using it so to me that is the only disadvantage because I won't really know what I'm doing

To conclude digital technologies have proved useful throughout my coursework in all areas of production. It has allowed me to plan, produce, edit and exhibit my work almost entirely from one device. This just how's how technological convergence has shaped the way of the media over recent years especially since technology is constantly evolving.