Evaluation - Question 4

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

Throughout my media project I have had a huge range of possible media technologies to use for my production; I specifically chose certain technologies over others to give me the best possible outcome for my final product.

In the research section of my production, the internet was a major factor in using media technologies to gain a higher understanding before starting the planning and construction of my own media texts. I used specific sites to help me with researching the music industry, different genres, target audiences and music videos to discover common forms and conventions. I also used the internet to help researching my ancillary texts to find previous CD covers from Owl Cit and CD adverts already available to give myself the highest knowledge before starting my own work. ‘YouTube’ was one of my most used websites so I could analyse existing music videos to determine particular forms and conventions of the Electropop genre and see already successful music videos to help with the planning stage of my product. My school intranet also has its own media webpage which was also a big help to me throughout my research stages as there were helpful links, our media production specification and information on specific media theorists, it also contained previous work by other media students. I looked at ITunes which is a music site by Apple and other downloading sites which were useful in showing me different categorisations of genre and also hugely helpful at looking at my own artists CD artwork, which helped me with developing forms and conventions of Owl City’s previous CD covers. Owl City’s own website was also useful as it had information of his genre, song lyrics and also his interpretation of some of his songs which provided me with useful insights into the band’s style and brand image. Looking through different music magazine’s at existing adverts, their promotional techniques and where they were placed in the magazine enabled me to see how effective little details can be and as a media encoder, realised that to have a successful media product, a lot of time needs to be spent researching and planning before beginning to construct a media text.

Planning my music video and ancillary tasks required organising my camera and editing software so that the times available to use the camera correlated with our filming session dates. This is why I chose to use my dad’s video camera so I always had it readily available especially if I needed to do some extra filming in short notice. I also used my own laptop for the majority of producing my video as I could work on my products more and had them easily reachable. Another piece of technology which I found useful was my digital camera which is what I used to take any photos within my research and for my ancillary tasks. Using my own technology meant I could work thoroughly on my product on a more regular basis rather than relying on school computers and with a busy school aren’t always free when I need them.

As our original idea of The Fray’s song didn’t work out it meant I had a practise session of using the camera and playing around with different angles and lengths which proved useful when filming ‘Hot Air Balloon’ as I was already familiar with the camera and had more of a insight as to what angles and shots would work well. After my first filming session I found that a lot of my shots were unsteady. My media teaching assistant had his own monopod which I was allowed to use to help with my filming, this was a huge help to my production as my shots were much steadier and meant they looked more professional. Lighting was another big factor in my production as after I put my first set of film onto the computer it appeared to dark and made the shots look distorted, I then re-shot some scenes and brought extra lighting to the set to brighten the shots.

After the researching, planning and filming it was time to begin editing my music video. I used two separate editing software programmes, Windows moviemaker and Pinnacle studio 12. When first starting my editing I was using Pinnacle for my editing software but found that it wouldn’t let me save my work as there wasn’t enough space on the hard drive for this software, this caused a bit of a dilemma. I then came to the conclusion of using Windows Moviemaker until I had deleted other software off my school computer so I didn’t have to fall behind with editing. However after using Pinnacle then Moviemaker I found that Moviemaker, although less advanced was much more user friendly and quicker to use so I continued using Moviemaker for the majority of my editing and because the programme was already on my laptop it meant I could use it regularly. The limitations of using Moviemaker were that there were many restrictions in terms of effects and transitions. Moviemaker also wouldn’t let me mute the video clips and just have the song playing; this is why I used Pinnacle for the remainder of my editing. After the main edits were finished I imported my video to pinnacle to add some effects that were limited in Moviemaker such as playing some clips in reverse, enhancing the brightness and contrast to create a magical paradigm and to mute the sound of the video clips. I practised using Moviemaker and Pinnacle before starting my project by using the previous footage I had shot for my initial idea of The Fray’ song, and in my media lessons we had some instructions on how to use Pinnacle before we began so we already knew how to use the software and the effects available to us.

For my ancillary tasks I used a number of different technologies to design and produce my media texts. I used my own digital camera to take the photos for my CD cover and magazine advert and imported them onto my laptop, to choose which ones would work best for my products. After decided which images I wanted I used Photoshop to edit my photos. I adjusted the brightness and contrast of images to create a more stylised finish and also cropped the images. I used Corel draw for the CD cover and magazine advert, I used this software as I was already familiar to working with CorelDraw from my AS magazine coursework so I was aware of how to use it and the techniques available to me, which helped me to get the best effect possible. The only problem with CorelDraw was that it was only on a few computers in my school so this meant I was limited of when I could access it, so my time management of my ancillary texts had to be successful to finish them on time. CorelDraw was great for importing images and being able to use a wide variety of fonts and colours to get my ancillary texts to a high standard.

We used an interactive white board for screening our music videos to our focus groups, to gain feedback on our production and also to watch previous music videos when researching common forms and conventions and developing ideas such as intertextuality and voyeurism. All of my research, planning and evaluation were documented on my own blog. I made this at blogspot.com and uploaded all of my work to this site; this helped me easily access my work from school and home, and also allowed me to keep updated online with my progress. The website was simple, user friendly and easily navigable, so provided me with a useful environment to keep all my work in and provided an easy way to look back over work throughout the production. On my blog I also uploaded PowerPoint presentations of my work on analysing music videos and other information, using a website called Slideshare.com, this website allowed me to import all of my presentations quickly and easily. Another helpful technology with my blog was Microsoft excel which is where I made all my graphs from my audience feedback to provide simple ways of showing my data.

Using many different technologies within my media production has provided me with a better understanding of the media industry and how much time, skill and effort goes into to producing different media texts. Having many of these technologies easily accessible to me has increased the productivity and success of my main media task and ancillary texts.