EVALUATION: How did you use media technologies in the construction, re-search, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the course of my A2 project I have used numerous technologies during the development of my project. The first technology used in the course of the construction of my main product was an underwater camera. This was an average camera with the ability to shoot moving image which came with an exceptional case that enabled us to take the camera underwater to shoot. For the other filming that took place for the rest of the footage for our music video, we used an HD film camera. As the setting were already set to the ones we required there wasn’t any need to change them. To enquire a stable shot Rachel and I used a tripod to enable this.

As for the editing process we used Apple Mac computers which had the programme iMovie on it. Considering Rachel had not been familiar with this until the construction of our prep project we decided to take some more time to get familiar with the tools and methods that were on offer to create our final project. The transitions that were used in our final project the most were the fade; we used this mostly to show a passage of time. Other tools we used were the speed tool. This enabled us to slow shots down to show tension and makes the chase scene in our music video more dramatic. For other adjustments we made to our project we changed the lighting by using the brightness tool, we did this after our audience re-search to make it clearer to our target audience that there is a passage of time and the beginning of the video is the past and the end of the video is the present time.

As for our ancillary tasks just like last year we used Photoshop CS5. Hopefully this year with previous experience my work will appear more advanced as I used a range of tools that I hadn’t during the course of my AS project. As a few examples I used the magic wand tool to get rid of the background quicker and more efficiently. An adjustment tool I used was Brightness/contrast; I did this to make the images of my ancillary tasks more vibrant which enabled them to stand out more to my target audience. However, before I could do this I had to take the images first in which I used a digital camera which allowed me to take still shots.

During the re-search stages I used YouTube and several search engines to determine the conventions of typical music videos.  YouTube permitted me to observe real media texts to determine these conventions. Then later on use what I had learned to make my video look as much like a real media text as I possibly could.

By using my blog this enabled me to become a prosumer. I used this to display my work which enhanced my project to become more multi-media.

Another programme I used to display my work was Slide Share.  This is a website that allows you to post your presentations on the internet, therefore I was able to post mine on the blog. However, before I could upload my presentations, I had to use Microsoft PowerPoint to create my presentation first. This is another example of the type of technology I used.

Another way of displaying the re-search and planning that I had accomplished was Moviemaker.  By using this programme I could transfer my presentations into the programme and add transitions, sound and so on to make it a more interesting way of displaying the information I had recently discovered.

During the evaluation stages I used Slide Share again as it is very simplistic, yet an easy way to communicate ideas and information to people. I also used a HD Film camera again to do a face to camera piece as it is a simple to consume and your audience isn’t continuously reading through screeds and screeds of text. I then posted it on YouTube as a way to post the video onto the blog.