How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Below is a transcript of the Prezi.
Adobe Photoshop - After using this programme for AS Media Studies to create our music magazine and edit photographs, we already had a rough idea on how to use it and what some of the tools do. However our knowledge was nowhere near as effective compared to the skills that we now have. For example, layering two images on top of each other to turn it into one, as seen on our print advertisement which displays the dripping green paint running down our main stars back transforming into the landscape of the city. These individual streaks of paint dripping down denote the different flaws that society has today. This also links to our digipak and our music video which is absolute key. This software was used again whilst we were creating our digipak so that we could enhance contrast levels, monitor colour balance levels and again, layer images (skyline into blue sky). Without this programme, we wouldn't have been able to create the professional looking products that we have achieved in making.
YouTube - YouTube allowed us to access millions of music videos, helping my group and I to discover the conventions of our music genre, look at popular techniques used and analyse what looked good and what didn't. We also uploaded our video onto YouTube in order to gain feedback and see what our target audience really thought of our music video. By doing this, we were able to take into account constructive criticisms which then helped us to improve on our work. So that we could upload our music video on to YouTube, we had to render it to an appropriate format that YouTube accept. As there was a long list of different formats, we had to carry out research in order to find out which one was best. We ended up saving it as a Windows Media Video 5.0 file. The one problem that we had with uploading our video to YouTube was that the lip sinking went out of time meaning that which did ruin it for audiences watching it for the first time.
Sony Vegas PRO - We used a video editing piece of software called ‘Sony Vegas Pro’ to compile and edit our music video. When we first began using the software, we didn't have any experience of using it and were therefore unable to do very much. As we started to experiment and get used to the different tools and features, we began a lot more knowledgeable and become a lot more confident with using it. By the time we had finished editing the video, it was extremely obvious that we had learnt a lot and put in a lot of hard work. Whilst in the process of editing the video, we learnt how to split, cut and trim clips, change the pace of them as well as adding in transitions and special effects. We also learnt how to colour isolate a black and white background with a green hand by watching various different tutorials and split screen clips as a special effect element, which could be used as a USP.
Facebook, Twitter and Google+ - We relied heavily on these websites in order to receive our audience research. By using the most popular social media websites, it enabled us to receive audience feedback from both our target audience and others interested in our work. We all use these websites on a regular occasion and therefore it was very easy for us to upload our work for others to see. These websites helped us to receive a wide variety of different comments which we were then able to use to improve our music video.
Weebly - This website was used to store all of our coursework on effectively and easily. We found that this website was very useful as we were able to upload different file formats, videos, documents and text without having it all in different places. It also helped us to keep all of our work structured and organised using a navigational system, meaning that we were able to constantly keep up with where we were in the project and what still needed doing. The only disadvantage that we encountered was that when uploading videos to the website, we had to upload them to YouTube and then copy and paste the link over, which at times was time-consuming.
Canon Camera - The camera that was used to film all of the footage for our music video and take the photographs for our digipak and print advertisement was a Canon EOS 600. This camera is an 18 megapixel digital SLR camera which meant that we were able to produce the highest quality images for our products. It records video footage in 1080p HD which again ensured that the footage was always of a high quality. We carried out a trial session of using the camera in order to experiment on how to use the different settings and to have a look of what camera angles worked best with the camera. During this session, we were introduced to focus shift and white balance which was very helpful as it meant that all of our footage and photographs were kept consistent and realistic looking. One problem that we did have whilst using the camera was that the focusing did take a while to get used to because if the camera moved the tiniest bit, the focus would disappear. (The camera was also used to film interviews with our target audience during evaluation stages)
Lighting Equipment - Whilst filming, we had to ensure that we had the right lighting levels in order to achieve the effect that we wanted. We made use of one or two portable L.E.D lights which we attached to our tripods so that we could clearly see our main star in the footage. The light had different variation levels so that we could control how bright we wanted it. This was perfect for our skyline footage where the main star was singing as we filmed these parts at night meaning that it was pitch black and the only source of light was the L.E.D and the street lights which gained to our advantage.
StoryboardThat - During researching and planning stages of the project, we came across this website when carrying out some research on Google. We decided to take out a trial subscription in order to create a story board plan for our music video to put together some rough ideas of visions that we had so that we could see if they were likely to work or not. We found that this piece of software was extremely useful to us as it allowed us to use little people, locations, props and costumes to put together our shots. Due to all of our drawings skills not being very good, we felt that this was the best option for us and it world extremely well.
MusicMetric - This website was used again during research and planning stages when we were researching music videos that are in our chosen music genre. This is so that we could look at statistical data and graphs to find out demographic and psychographic data of who we are going to be targeting our products at so that each of our products specifically meet their requirements. Each of us took out a months subscription because otherwise there was no way of accessing the data that we needed. Instead of using untrustworthy websites such as Wikipedia, having to take out a subscription shows that the data is reliable and protected for a reason.
Mindmap Version 2.0 - Whilst planning out our music video, we used this piece of software to brainstorm our initial ideas. The first mind map included possible locations and then the second and third mind maps brainstormed our ideas in much more detail including costume, props, cinematography and locations. This was very helpful as it displayed our work electronically and kept our ideas in a clear structure.
Prezi - Prezi was used in the evaluation stages of the project. For a few of the questions, we decided that it would be a good idea to display our work through the use of a presentation to make it more engaging for the reader and to expand on our skills of technology even further.
External Hard Drives - When we were in the filming and construction process of the project, we were having problems with saving all of our work into one specific place due to storage space. To resolve this problem, we decided to use an external hard drive which can store around 80GB of files. This was good to have because it meant that everything could be saved in one place and we didn't have to save it all on different memory sticks and risk losing things.
Mircosoft Publisher - This programme was heavily used in AS Media Studies and therefore we already had a good understanding of how to use the programme and the different features that were available for us to use. We decided that it would be a good idea to create both our digipak and print advertisement using the software seeing as we all had experience in using it, stopping any problems from occurring. We found that the baselines, guidelines and rulers were extremely useful in helping us to lay out each of our products in a professional looking way. This also meant that for the digipak, we could insert a template in to use to ensure that we kept to the correct size guide.
Microsoft Word - Several different documents were typed up on this programme such as the risk assessment.
Dafont - We used this website specifically to get fonts for both our print advertisement and digipak. This was because there was a wide range of different fonts that looked a lot more professional compared to the ones available on Publisher. We were able to look through pages and pages of serif and sans-serif fonts to find the one that most suited our products.
Adobe Photoshop - After using this programme for AS Media Studies to create our music magazine and edit photographs, we already had a rough idea on how to use it and what some of the tools do. However our knowledge was nowhere near as effective compared to the skills that we now have. For example, layering two images on top of each other to turn it into one, as seen on our print advertisement which displays the dripping green paint running down our main stars back transforming into the landscape of the city. These individual streaks of paint dripping down denote the different flaws that society has today. This also links to our digipak and our music video which is absolute key. This software was used again whilst we were creating our digipak so that we could enhance contrast levels, monitor colour balance levels and again, layer images (skyline into blue sky). Without this programme, we wouldn't have been able to create the professional looking products that we have achieved in making.
YouTube - YouTube allowed us to access millions of music videos, helping my group and I to discover the conventions of our music genre, look at popular techniques used and analyse what looked good and what didn't. We also uploaded our video onto YouTube in order to gain feedback and see what our target audience really thought of our music video. By doing this, we were able to take into account constructive criticisms which then helped us to improve on our work. So that we could upload our music video on to YouTube, we had to render it to an appropriate format that YouTube accept. As there was a long list of different formats, we had to carry out research in order to find out which one was best. We ended up saving it as a Windows Media Video 5.0 file. The one problem that we had with uploading our video to YouTube was that the lip sinking went out of time meaning that which did ruin it for audiences watching it for the first time.
Sony Vegas PRO - We used a video editing piece of software called ‘Sony Vegas Pro’ to compile and edit our music video. When we first began using the software, we didn't have any experience of using it and were therefore unable to do very much. As we started to experiment and get used to the different tools and features, we began a lot more knowledgeable and become a lot more confident with using it. By the time we had finished editing the video, it was extremely obvious that we had learnt a lot and put in a lot of hard work. Whilst in the process of editing the video, we learnt how to split, cut and trim clips, change the pace of them as well as adding in transitions and special effects. We also learnt how to colour isolate a black and white background with a green hand by watching various different tutorials and split screen clips as a special effect element, which could be used as a USP.
Facebook, Twitter and Google+ - We relied heavily on these websites in order to receive our audience research. By using the most popular social media websites, it enabled us to receive audience feedback from both our target audience and others interested in our work. We all use these websites on a regular occasion and therefore it was very easy for us to upload our work for others to see. These websites helped us to receive a wide variety of different comments which we were then able to use to improve our music video.
Weebly - This website was used to store all of our coursework on effectively and easily. We found that this website was very useful as we were able to upload different file formats, videos, documents and text without having it all in different places. It also helped us to keep all of our work structured and organised using a navigational system, meaning that we were able to constantly keep up with where we were in the project and what still needed doing. The only disadvantage that we encountered was that when uploading videos to the website, we had to upload them to YouTube and then copy and paste the link over, which at times was time-consuming.
Canon Camera - The camera that was used to film all of the footage for our music video and take the photographs for our digipak and print advertisement was a Canon EOS 600. This camera is an 18 megapixel digital SLR camera which meant that we were able to produce the highest quality images for our products. It records video footage in 1080p HD which again ensured that the footage was always of a high quality. We carried out a trial session of using the camera in order to experiment on how to use the different settings and to have a look of what camera angles worked best with the camera. During this session, we were introduced to focus shift and white balance which was very helpful as it meant that all of our footage and photographs were kept consistent and realistic looking. One problem that we did have whilst using the camera was that the focusing did take a while to get used to because if the camera moved the tiniest bit, the focus would disappear. (The camera was also used to film interviews with our target audience during evaluation stages)
Lighting Equipment - Whilst filming, we had to ensure that we had the right lighting levels in order to achieve the effect that we wanted. We made use of one or two portable L.E.D lights which we attached to our tripods so that we could clearly see our main star in the footage. The light had different variation levels so that we could control how bright we wanted it. This was perfect for our skyline footage where the main star was singing as we filmed these parts at night meaning that it was pitch black and the only source of light was the L.E.D and the street lights which gained to our advantage.
StoryboardThat - During researching and planning stages of the project, we came across this website when carrying out some research on Google. We decided to take out a trial subscription in order to create a story board plan for our music video to put together some rough ideas of visions that we had so that we could see if they were likely to work or not. We found that this piece of software was extremely useful to us as it allowed us to use little people, locations, props and costumes to put together our shots. Due to all of our drawings skills not being very good, we felt that this was the best option for us and it world extremely well.
MusicMetric - This website was used again during research and planning stages when we were researching music videos that are in our chosen music genre. This is so that we could look at statistical data and graphs to find out demographic and psychographic data of who we are going to be targeting our products at so that each of our products specifically meet their requirements. Each of us took out a months subscription because otherwise there was no way of accessing the data that we needed. Instead of using untrustworthy websites such as Wikipedia, having to take out a subscription shows that the data is reliable and protected for a reason.
Mindmap Version 2.0 - Whilst planning out our music video, we used this piece of software to brainstorm our initial ideas. The first mind map included possible locations and then the second and third mind maps brainstormed our ideas in much more detail including costume, props, cinematography and locations. This was very helpful as it displayed our work electronically and kept our ideas in a clear structure.
Prezi - Prezi was used in the evaluation stages of the project. For a few of the questions, we decided that it would be a good idea to display our work through the use of a presentation to make it more engaging for the reader and to expand on our skills of technology even further.
External Hard Drives - When we were in the filming and construction process of the project, we were having problems with saving all of our work into one specific place due to storage space. To resolve this problem, we decided to use an external hard drive which can store around 80GB of files. This was good to have because it meant that everything could be saved in one place and we didn't have to save it all on different memory sticks and risk losing things.
Mircosoft Publisher - This programme was heavily used in AS Media Studies and therefore we already had a good understanding of how to use the programme and the different features that were available for us to use. We decided that it would be a good idea to create both our digipak and print advertisement using the software seeing as we all had experience in using it, stopping any problems from occurring. We found that the baselines, guidelines and rulers were extremely useful in helping us to lay out each of our products in a professional looking way. This also meant that for the digipak, we could insert a template in to use to ensure that we kept to the correct size guide.
Microsoft Word - Several different documents were typed up on this programme such as the risk assessment.
Dafont - We used this website specifically to get fonts for both our print advertisement and digipak. This was because there was a wide range of different fonts that looked a lot more professional compared to the ones available on Publisher. We were able to look through pages and pages of serif and sans-serif fonts to find the one that most suited our products.