How did you use new media technologies in the

construction research and planning, and evaluation

stages?

Introduction

As an A level media studies student I have become more exposed to all of the technologies that we can obtain easily today. Due to all the the easy access we have to all of them this has enabled my work to be the best of its ability with very few problems over the course of my A level media production.

During research we used to film

interviews, to fulfil

questionnaires, to edit the

questionnaire videos, as a main

search engine, and to look at

existing work. These programmes

and websites were only used vary

briefly, apart from YouTube which we

used to gain inspirations and look at

other A levels students work.

When researching about digipak’s, I used ITunes to

look at the artists artwork and photography to gain

some insight of the conventions of a pop album

design.

This involved typing a name of a song or album I

wanted to look at, and would simply come up on

the screen.

For the webpage research using the Internet, I researched many

mainstream artists websites to look for similarities and differences

between artists such as, The Scissor Sisters and NikiMinaj.

This was easily done through the use of Google, and most of the time

selecting the top link on the search engine will give you what your

researching for.

When applying this thorough research towards my project I felt well

equipped and prepared having explored several case studies before

designing, and brainstorming as a team. This is exactly what I wanted

to produce in my music video for ‘Lollipop’

As the digipak and website are ancillary tasks, they contribute huge amounts

to the launch of my final media product. Working in an ambitious group of

two permitted me to operate constructively and independently to get my task

done. We decided to constantly convey our ideas throughout the process of

planning, filming and editing. When looking at the idea of sharing

ideas, when we were at home the use of various methods that helped us

communicate as a group, where we could share, photos, video’s, links and

ideas for one an other to look at. We did this through creating a ‘media’ group

on whats app messenger on the I Phone and blackberry, and also a group on

Facebook. This was a huge advantage as all of our ideas were shared

therefore they wouldn’t be forgotten as they were written down.

Whats app

The first task we set out to do in the production stage was the film. The filming

process was done over 2 shoots, through the use of a canon X1H1 camera. The

reason that we used 2 cameras for our music video, was due to the fact that every

shot we had filmed we had filmed from two angles thus when It came to editing we

could create more innovative shots and use match on action shots. For example; the

two pictures below present a girl playing hopscotch from two angles, which

enhanced the realistic view of her. However this did mean that we had more filtering

and shots to choose from which was indeed extremely time consuming considering

that we had a deadline. Therefore the use of this camera and the use of 2 of them

both constrained and enabled our work.

When filming outside the only source of light we had was natural light, this is

because we filmed the 2nd shoot outside so that the days were bright and clear on

sunny days. There was however other shots I filmed in the professional studio in

which we had rented out, such as a pan shot and tilt shot. When filming the lip

syncing and the previous shots mentioned in the music video as there was no

natural light we used red heads being pointed in the right spot to create a silhouette

of those singing to the camera, this did however involve a lot of trial and error for

the singer to stand in the correct spot.

Red Head ^

Filming wasn’t actually too hard as we had learnt the basics at AS, although last

year for our opening sequence to the thriller we used a man and 4 professional

actresses. In contrast to this year where we used over 25 children! It was extremely

hard work working with the cast as we had to act like responsible adults, and take

authority, yet it was a fun and lively experience.

During the two shoots for our music video I managed to take pictures on my

IPhone throughout the day of what was happening on set, as I knew some of

these pictures would come in great use for my ancillary tasks. Through taking

pictures on my IPhone it was extremely easy to upload to my laptop through

the use of ICloud, which uploads straight to my laptop whenever I take a

picture. Not only did I take pictures for the ancillary tasks, but on shoot I

tweeted pictures on twitter of some of cast to their friends at home to show

their friends and family what they’re up to. One could say that although this

was for out media A level, in fact the children really gained many skills and had

lots of fun throughout the shoots. Once the pictures were uploaded to my

laptop, I then edited the brightness and changed the contrast through the

application IPhoto on my Mac book pro.

IPhoto

ICloud

Mac Book pro

To create my web page I used an online programme calledWixthat

provided me with a template that I worked with, and added my own edited

images and text as well as the soundtrack, which was uploaded through

the use of Soundcloud. The web page was something that I wasn’t used to

using so it did take time to get to grips with all the innovative tools and

ideas you could use to enhance my websites authenticity. There were

however tutorials online to help me, thus I did not encounter any major

problems.

The editing for all of the footage was done on the school computers, with a

double screen to work with making it easier to see what we were doing. After

plugging the camera in to the computer with a connecting wire a syncing the

footage on to the computer. The programme that we used to conduct our

editing was Adobe Pro Premier, The song we had chosen we had bought of

off Itunes, was also added to the time line. This programme was known to me

as it was the programme I used last year, however there were a lot of new

features that did not use prior to my as level. The tools that were used most

of the time were the cutting and selecting tools, which were placed on the

keyboard so we had easy access to the timeline as these tools, were a major

part of editing our piece. The timeline is where all of the footage is and it can

all be sided along to put in the correct places.

The newest feature I had leant, allows you to play with the speed of the

footage, as I increased the speed of a few shots. For example, the girl with the

running in a circle with bubbles, to give a rapid effect of the bubbles. Also making

the Mario game faster to sync with the lyrics, thus amplifying them. The colouring

was also played around with as most of the shots were brightened up to look

more appealing and exciting to the audience. This was done by dragging and

dropping ‘warm up’ and ‘summers day’ tools which enhanced the shots portraying

the message we wanted to send to the audience. As time went on, the

programme became better known to me, allowing it to get increasingly easier and

also less time consuming. Over all the editing process did take time initially, but

as I got more and more familiar with the features that I was using for the

project, my skills developed more.

Throughout the entire process of my work, I had taken screen

shots of everything I was doing, through the button on the

keyboard which allows you to do so, and I was constantly posting

on blogger, of what I was doing, and what I was up to during my

progression. When posting on my blog I used various

programmes, which help me develop my innovative and special

blog. For example; the use of

Kizoa, Prezi, Eamaze, Scribd, Smilebox and Slide share really

made my blog interactive. Besides this, I managed to obtain more

creative skills when presenting a piece of work, not just on

Microsoft word.

Through creating a blog, I managed to put all of my research

and planning onto a an internet page, which made my work

easier to manage and is more efficient way to keep track of my

progress and ‘things to do’ for my media products. Using this

blog has been useful and easier than using a physical file due

to the fact that I can’t actually lose any paper or important

notes; everything is automatically by date. Through having a

blog, an advantage would be that I could access my work

where I was and I didn’t need to find my folder to find anything.

Also, a blog made it possible to embed videos from YouTube

and insert Prezi’s and current music video clips at the touch of

a button. My blog is visually intriguing and exciting to scroll

through. Yet it is also extremely organized and labeled.