Evaluation- Question 4

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

Research and planning:

To help me with my research and planning, I used many different media technologies. Firstly, the main program I used whilst researching was Prezi, an online presentation software. I used this a lot to help me with the deconstruction and analysis of music videos. Another program I used was slide share, I used this to produce a presentation on Andrew Goodwin's theory on music videos. I also frequently used Google to help me research into the indie music genre. Wikipedia also allowed me to research the artist I had chosen to find out what genre he fitted into, what awards he had won and what albums/EP's he had published. Another program I often used was YouTube. I used YouTube to get inspiration for my own music video and to see what the stereotypical conventions of an indie music video was.

For my planning, I used Hotmail to email the record company, Island Records, to request permission to use the song I had chosen. I also used 'Survey Monkey' to produce a questionnaire to find out what people liked in a music video, what they expected and how they viewed the video. Survey monkey allowed me to analyse my results quickly and accurately, in my opinion, Survey monkey was quicker and more effective than creating the questionnaire myself and then analyzing the results by myself, I had never used Survey Monkey before therefore at first I struggled, however once I was used to it, it was easy to use very effective.  I also used blogger throughout all of the stages of my work. Blogger enabled me to quickly and easily look through my work and edit any work. Blogger also allowed me to put my work in order so it was easily accessible, I used Blogger last year for my AS blog therefore I had no problems with Blogger.

Construction

In the construction stage of my project, I used a Sony camera and tripod to film my footage, although most of my footage was handheld, most of my footage was handheld to make the viewer feel like they were apart of the adventure with the characters. I found the camera easy to use and I was pleased with the outcome of my footage, the only negative was that some of my footage wasn't very focused. I also used my phone to allow me to take photos of my cast. Once I had gathered all my footage, I had to import it onto the Mac to allow me to edit my video, my use of Mac's before this project was minimal and not very advanced therefore my skills were not very good, but once I got used to using the mac's, I found it very easy. To edit my footage together and create my music video, I used i-Movie. Before creating my music video, I had never used i-Movie before therefore I struggled with my video in the first few days of creating my video, however once I got the hang of it, I found it fairly easy. I-Movie allowed me to add transitions, effects, text, and slow/speed up/to my footage. Once I had completed my music video, I had to upload it to YouTube to be able to upload the video to my blog.
Once I had completed my music video, I moved on to creating my digipak and poster however beforehand, I had to research these to allow me to see the stereotypical conventions of the indie music genre. To display my findings, I used Powtoon. Powtoon is an animated presentation, I had used Powtoon last year and found it very useful therefore I had no problems with it. I also used PowerPoint presentation to display my results. I have used PowerPoint numerous times therefore I found it simple and easy to use. To create my digipak and poster, I used Photoshop. I used Photoshop last year for my AS project therefore I was pretty familiar with Photoshop, however, my ancillary tasks allowed me to learn skills that I did not have last year, for example, I learnt how to use the tool 'free transform' which allowed me to adjust the size of my images without effecting the quality of the image. I also learnt how to use the grid tool to allow me to make sure my work was fully aligned and wasn't wonky.

Evaluation

For the evaluation stage of my project, I used Facebook. Facebook allowed me to send my video and ancillary tasks to people and ask for their unbiased opinion. I also uploaded my video to YouTube, where my video has already received several 'likes'. To answer the evaluation questions, I used Prezi, PowerPoint and Blogger. I did this because I was familiar with them and they allowed me to present my work in an organised, neat and simple way that was easy to read.