Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction research planning and evaluation stages?

IMAC

I have been using an IMAC since GCSE Media Studies, therefore I have the skills needed to use this computer. Also the Programs on the IMAC were very helpful and easy to use. The disadvantage of using the IMAC was that it was very time consuming and most of work would get deleted if you did not save it every 10 minutes.

InDesign InDesign is a software that is already familiar to me as it was used last year as part of my media coursework. In ‘InDesign’ you could create Multi-Page flyers, newsletter, broachers books, reports etc. It helped me to design the Albums for my Music Video Project. This software gave me more control over the text, font, colours and adding or deleting multiple pages, which made it easier and faster to use. The disadvantage of this software is that it was confusing as you might accidently delete the layer that was needed.

Photoshop

Photoshop was used to manipulate the pictures of our Artists. An advantage I found when using this software was that it improved the quality of the images used for my album cover as I was able to edit the pictures in the way I wanted. However it was time consuming as there was different tools that do different things and so it took time to familiarize myself with the tools.

Final Cut

It took me one and a half lesson to get used the Final Cut because it was my first time using it. I also had to get used to the idea of cutting the bit you wanted and using the Chroma key and the different background colour schemes. It was really fun using Final Cut because it helped me to use different types of effects in designing my music video. The negative effect of using Final Cut is that the Chroma Key didn’t work well because of the bright colours we used on the green screen which made it difficult to get rid of the green.

Camera

Camera was really easy and fun to use. We had use the camera for our Album cover, which went really went. This camera was fast to use and had a really good colour effect and the buttons on the camera were easy to use, when you wanted to zoom in and zoom out. Also the use of flash was not needed because of the Lighting effect that was in the studio. But overall camera was the most easiest technology that I used throughout the project.

Connecting Wire

Connecting wire was a tool I used to connect the camera to the computer to get the images I had taken with the camera onto the computer to be used for the album cover.

Video Camera

The Video Camera was essential throughout the project. Without a Video Camera there is no music video. It was hard using this video camera at first because at the same time I was shooting on a green screen which we had to make sure the camera was set on the right mode. After being told how to use the video camera it was really easy. I used this video camera four times for our music video, and every time it became easier to use.

Video Camera and Tripod

The tripod was very easy and useful to use. It helped me to get the positioning of the camera to be still and focus on the artist, instead of using my hand I used the tripod. Also I needed different high and low angels and instead of taking the camera off and placing it on the floor. All you had to do is remove the legs.

Lighting

The different types of lighting were essential. They gave us the image we needed for both our video and print product. It was really easy to set out and put in the right places to get the effect. It was fast, so did not waste time setting out the studio. It gave our project great effect especially in the print product for our Album cover. However even though the lighting did work for our video, it did not give the ‘pop’ look we were looking for like you would see in a pop music video.

Green Screen

Green Screen can provide various background options without leaving the studio. The Green Screen was the main thing I used throughout the music video. This was really easy to use and gave me the chance to replace the background with images or different coloured backgrounds that I needed. The green screen was useful because as the location that was going to be used in the music video could not be used because of the bad weather, the green screen provided an easier way of inserting our own background in. The disadvantage was that as bright colour outfits and props were used and worn, it was really hard to take out the green, which did not give the effect that I wanted for our footage.

Google I use Google on a daily basis and so I am very familiar with it, so it was very easy and useful to use for my project. Google helped me in researching information about our music genre and also information about branding. This was useful because Google is constantly updated with new information, so we were sure we were getting up to date information for our research. Images were also gathered from Google Images which were used for our research planning and footage. For example the Hollywood sign, McDonalds etc. This website is fast and easy to use than other search engine.

Blogger

Blogger is really simple and easy to use because I had used it last year to post our blogs for our media project. It was easy posting blogs on the blogger because you won’t end up losing your work. Also its really easy uploading pictures to blogger from the computer and links from You Tube. The disadvantage of Blogger is that it won’t let you change the layout to what you want, which was really hard and annoying, but overall Blogger made it easier to go back and forth through the work that you had posted and see what you needed to do and so it made everything organised.

You Tube

I used You Tube because it helped me research music videos for our planning. It also helped me to produce Screen Shots of a Music video, for example Taylor Swift. It also helped me look at other artists who were in the same music genre as the artist we were going to use.I also used You Tube to upload my weekly progress reports for my final music video and also the audience feedback, which was really helpful and easy to use and it looked good on ‘blogger’.

Amazon

I used Amazon to purchase and look for the mask. I was already a user and often shop on Amazon so I knew I could get some good celebrity face mask for a good price, which I did.

PowerPoint

Power Point Presentation consist of a number of individual pages or ‘slides’. Slides contain texts, graphic, sound movies and other objects, which may be arranged freely. Power point is something I am comfortable in using. It is easy to use and helpful in organising your work. I used Power Point software a number of times. I liked the idea that you could decorate and design the Power Point in a way that you wanted. It also made our blogger look more organised and interesting.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft is a Word Processor that was used for typing up the two questionnaires for our audience. I felt that this was the best software to use because it includes features such as a spell checker, numbering options and printing options.

Slide Share

Slide Share is an online slide hosting service. Users can upload files such as Power Points, Open Office etc. I enjoyed using slide share because it was really easy and free to use. I didn’t need no help, even though it was my first time as I found it easy and simple to use. I used this website to upload all the power points I had designed for planning and researching and evaluating.

ITunes

ITunes is a useful downloading website for music. I used iTunes to download the song for the music video. I am comfortable in downloading songs from iTunes.

DaFont

DaFont.Com, is a website with thousands of different fonts, which was really helpful as you could see which font would look great with the image of our Artist. The fonts are free to download and fast. Also, we could use these fonts in InDesign , for our Album Cover.

Create a Graph

Create a Graph explains and illustrates the different types of graphs available, and provides a step-by-step guide to creating a graph for example a pie chart that we used. We used ‘create a graph’ for our evaluation of our audience feedback. It was really fast and simple to use, for example to create a pie chart and evaluating our audience feedback.

Prezi Presentation

Prezi is a cloud-based Presentation software that opens up a new world between whiteboards and slides. It was my first time using Prezi Presentation, and it was very easy as tutorials were given in how to use it. It is a creative way of presenting your work, which I really liked. It was also fun to use.