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

Before planning my media products I first had to research into existing products in order to understand the codes and conventions that are specific to form and genres. This included watching music videos of my preferred genre – indie rock- and noting the key elements that made Indie Rock music videos recognisable to their genre. This included deconstructing the music video in terms of the mise en scene, cinematography and editing. To be able to do this I used the online video site of YouTube to access the videos and to be able to post them onto my blog to make an analysis of all the areas I intended to look at including location. From analysing several existing media I was then able to understand the conventions of form also, such as music video's and editing to the beat of the music and the element of narrative such as performance, narrative and abstract. To access both YouTube and blogger and other online devices I had to use Web 2.0 in the form of Google Chrome. It was Web 2.0 that allowed me to conduct a huge part of my research. Additionally, I used an online presentation called Prezi to not all my research, alongside Microsoft office power point that I was already familiar with.

Web 2.0, formally known as the internet, provided me with the exploration I needed to research into the convention and forms of my campaign. These were a music video, a magazine advertisement and a digipak. It is the access to web 2.0 that allowed me to access Blogger, to present my work, YouTube to gain inspiration and to produce analysis’ and to produce online presentations and animations on Prezi and Go Animate. With out the use of the internet I do not think I would have been able to research into the forms and conventions to the extent in which I did. The used Google chrome for my research and planning as it allowed me access to videos that required flash player. As I am very much aware of how to work Google and what to search in order to gain the information I want I used google frequently throughout my research and planning.

Google Chrome – Web 2.0

Blogger allows other media forms to be posted on blogs therefore because I wanted to use as many different media forms as possible to make my blog more interesting I used Blogger to keep all my work in one place. I uploaded my conventions of form in the form of a Prezi and created the identified conventions of indie rock on Go Animate. These additions to my blog meant I could access my work from anywhere as long as I had access to web 2.0 and therefore could keep referring back to them to keep with conventions. Additionally some of my findings I posted straight on to a post on blogger to present my work in a variety of media forms. On blogger I also created a blog poll to find out who visited my blog and what kind of music they were interested in. this helped me to define my target audience as well as understand what they would like to see in my music video.

YouTube allowed me to access a variety of different music videos and from this I conducted my analysis of the mise en scene, narrative and setting, cinematography and editing. YouTube was the main media technology that allowed me to gain inspiration into what I wanted to create with my media products and what features work well within a music video. This gave me the confidence to feel I was able to produce a music video and ancillary texts that fit in with my chosen genre and featured both the codes and conventions. A task set involved looking at the history of music videos and without the use of YouTube I would not have been able to access the material I needed to understand how the developments of music videos have occurred over time. I also used YouTube to upload my draft music videos to gain feedback from my target audience and peers.

Prezi is an online presentation site that allows you access to your created presentations as long as you have access to web 2.0. This was a very helpful site to use as I could work on my coursework in my own time from home and could also work from my phone which was very helpful. I created several Prezi’s in the research and planning of my media campaign to present my findings and ideas in a more creative way rather than simply on a blog post. Prezi has set layouts that help you to achieve the presentation you want to achieve and these layouts can also be altered which was hand for me when I wanted to add an additional slide when researching into media theorists. I presented my ideas for costume and make up on a Prezi to allow a more interactive feel to my coursework and it allowed me to understand just what look I wanted to create with the characters in my first idea of narrative. My first story board was also out onto a Prezi which allowed me to keep all of my storyboard in one place and made it easy to follow for both myself and my media teachers who were overseeing my work. As Prezi also allowed videos from YouTube to be uploaded to your presentation I was able to show my animatic I had created alongside my storyboard which was very helpful.

Go Animate is also an on online website that allows you to create animations. These animations can also be in the form of presentations with moving art and images. I chose to produce a Go Animate style presentation for the findings of my research into the conventions of the indie rock genre. Go animate allowed me to present my findings in an interactive way and enabled me to use moving art and images which made it more interesting to read, alongside illustrations that were able to explain my findings as well as just written.

Microsoft Power Point is a presentation software that allows you to create presentations which can include images, videos and apply transitions. Blogger does not allow PowerPoint presentations to be uploaded so therefore I created slides which then I turned into jpeg images. This was the format that allowed my to upload my work on to my blog. As blogger does not allow you to change the positioning of images and add shapes etc. , I created my textual analysis on PowerPoint and then uploaded them onto Blogger as a Jpeg this allowed me to conduct a clear analysis that I could refer back to when I needed to. I also created an audience profile on PowerPoint that enabled me to understand what my target audience’s other interests are and how I can appeal to them for example through the social media and the type of food, products and clothes.

Microsoft Office is a word document that allows additional features such as creating tables. I used Microsoft word to create a health and safety table in the planning stage of my campaign. Creating a health and safety table allowed me to assess the possibilities that could occur in relation to health and safety whilst filming. By creating this table I could assess the risk and put in place preventative measure to ensure both myself and cast members were safe during filming.

The camera I used for the images for my ancillary texts and images of my original cast members is a Nikon Coolpix L120 which is a bridge camera. This was my own camera which meant I has access to it all of the time which was handy when I was filming at locations out side of the college and in New York. I used my camera to take images of hull marina for the ancillary texts and in New York also for my ancillary texts. As I was very familiar with the use of the camera I was able to adjust the settings such as macro and portrait to suit the image I intended to capture.

iMovie is a movie editing software on apple IMac computers. This is the editing software I started using when I had my initial idea of a narrative video with the song ‘Breezeblocks’ by Alt J. I chose to use this software as I was familiar with it from my previous school. I felt this software was very straightforward to use as it involved essentially dragging and dropping the my selected footage on to the time line. On iMovie it is very simple to split and trim clips to the length you wish, and changing the speed and duration is very simple it is because of this I chose to use iMovie.

Other tools such as ‘Ken Burns’ allowed me to change the size of my clip by altering to the start point and finishing point of the clip with a zoom. This tool is under the cropping & rotation option and was useful when I wanted to slowly zoom into his face for effect. You can also alter the speed of the zoom by moving the arrow which indicates speed.

To add my music clip to my time line I had to first add my track to iTunes and then select it via the sounds option and

drag and drop it. This proved very easy and allowed me to use my skills of iTunes in combination with the iMovie

programme.

Adding transitions and effects to the clips is very straight forward as it is simply a drag and drop process allowing editing to be quick and simple. There are several different effects that are able to be added to the clips to get the desired effect you want. These include vignette, day to night, romantic and sci-fi along with others. The day to night effect was very useful for me in creating a dark scene connoting a glum atmosphere, this was essential as after analysing music videos of the indie rock genre I noticed that dark lighting and shadows were used as a convention of indie rock.