Evaluation: Question Four

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

In terms of the research, planning, construction and evaluation the first piece of media that I used was a blog, within the blog I continually uploaded any tasks that I have completed throughout the entire process. The benefits of creating a blog was that it provided me a place where I could access any completed work to reference, review, or to enable other people to feedback my products, it also allowed me to remain organised throughout the project and keep up to date on completing the tasks for example one feature available to me on the blog were the ‘labels’ this is where I could easily organise my work into different  categories and therefore enabling me to access any of my work much faster than I would if I had to continually scroll through a blog.

In the research and planning stages the use of the internet was vital; I mainly used it as a tool to research the genre, target audience, and typical codes and conventions of my music video all of which were important to make a successful music video. To display the work that I have research I took full benefit of online presentation tools e.g. Prezi which allows me to create an interactive online presentation where I can input images and videos, this became extremely useful as the initial stages involved me looking at a variety of music videos and analysing them; therefore, this was very helpful. Once again I used my blog to upload any work completed and any progress I made on certain tasks e.g. when completing planning tasks I would upload drafts of my storyboard/digipak and magazine advert.

During the actual construction stages I used a variety of different media technologies. Firstly, I created my music video on Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and used the tools provided on the program to complete the final cut e.g. cutting, trimming, lighting effects (this had to be done a few times due to the re-shoot as the lighting was different on the two days), and video transitions. I was also able to use the program to sync the music video I shot to the song itself which I found very easy to do due to the simplicity of the program which was down to me having previous knowledge on how the program works. One of the problems with the program however is that it was very slow on certain computers and would sometimes crash due to the video being shot in high definition; in addition, this program was only available at school so I occasionally found it difficult to fit all my editing during school therefore, I was fortunate to take a laptop home from the media department that was equipped with all the up to date programs. To actually shoot my music video I researched a few pieces of equipment that I could use before I eventually filmed, eventually I chose to shoot my music video with a Cannon 550D as it has the ability to shoot videos in high definition, a tripod as this allowed me to easily alter the shots I want to take as I could change the levels, and two studio lights which were place on either side of the white screen that I set up these essentially lit up the area my performer would be positioned and ultimately provided me with a bright location to shoot my music video which would overall create a happy and upbeat atmosphere.

Finally, I created my digipak and magazine advert to coincide with my music video in Adobe Photoshop CS6. Even though I had used this program before I decided to familiarise myself with it before creating my digipak and magazine advert, for example I relearned what certain tools were called, the purpose of the tools, how to effectively edit an image and the use/purpose of layers. Overall, the reason of this was so I could complete my digipak and magazine not only at a faster pace but so I could produce them both to a high standard so they could be enjoyed fully by my audience and so I could effectively follow the codes and conventions of the Pop genre. The first step to creating them was to actually take some photos which I again used a Canon 550D as this camera can also capture high quality images. The photos for my digipak and magazine advert were taken at the same location I shot my music video (in front of a white screen in a studio); once I had taken the desired photos I then individually imported the chosen images into Photoshop to begin editing them. A lot of the photos I took consisted of my model holding a piece of card with either the artists name or song name on, this is so it would directly link to music video and my target audience could make the connection; in addition all my photos were taken on a white back drop. As a result, the second step I took in creating my digipak was by removing the white background from the chosen photos, I did this by using the ‘magic wand’ tool which worked very well on the photos I had taken; however, if I found any of the edges to be too rough I took the eraser tool and changed the brush hardness to soft so I could successfully soften the edges. Next depending on the photo I experimented with changing the brightness and contrast levels as I wanted my photographs to be bright and vibrant so they fit into the Pop genre and portray the bright and happy atmosphere; therefore, I also increased the vibrance and exposure level on all my images. In terms of my digipak’s front cover I also looked at increasing/decreasing the threshold of an image. When creating my magazine advert I used the shape tool to create the signs illustrating key information about the release of the artists and album and once more changed the brightness, contrast, exposure, vibrance levels of any photos included. Overall, the appearance of the magazine advert mirrored the digipak.

In conclusion, the use of different media technologies were partially responsible for the successful creation of all three of my products and the research and planning behind them and ultimately benefited me to reaching the needs and wants of my target audience and finally for me to be able to challenge and follow the typical codes and conventions of the Pop genre.