Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research:


I spent several months of the project in the research stage. Research was vital for this piece to determine demographic and what was already out there. The first thing I knew I had to do was to see what products were on the market and what artists were releasing them. For this I used social networking sites (Facebook, twitter and tumblr). Once I had established a base of popular trends I listened to hundreds of songs on Youtube to see what there video’s consisted of and how I could take elements from them and adapt my own idea’s into my video. The development of social networking has made it so easy to keep up to date with trends and to find new artists and a huge variety of them. This made the process very easy for me to create some criteria for my own project. I documented my progress on Blogger and copied the same data on word.

 Once I had collated what was already out there and had developed a few of my own idea’s I had to distinguish what was popular with my chosen demographic. For this I used survey monkey to create some questions to see what was popular and what wasn’t. I spread my survey out on different social networking sites and collected a large number of responses to look through. I used windows powerpoint to present some of my research, especially theorys such as Goodwins and Star image theory, I then uploaded this to Slideshare and embedded them on my blog. 

 

In lessons I used an Iphone camera to take picture of work in class, I then uploaded my images to movie maker and made a short video, this was an appropriate editing tool for something this basic but I later on went on to use more complex editing software such as premier elements 8. I also used an Iphone to record conversations during class and then later uploaded them to soundlcoud and embeded them onto my blog.

I was new to filming so I did some filming practice with a Canon DSLR 600D, I then uploaded my videos to premier elements 8 to practice editing. This was essential so when it came to the construction process I would know what to do.

 Planning:

After I had chosen my final idea I had to begin planning the tone and content on the piece. The first thing I did was to just go out with my camera and take taster shots and go recce's around my local area to discover appropriate locations. I used my canon 600d dslr camera aswell as my Iphone to collect hundreds of pictures of locations as well as taking tester shots with my friends to find a tone I like that fitted with the tones I had researched in the research stage of the process.

 


Once I had a basis of what I wanted to do I began creating shot lists and stroyboards of my idea's. For this I used the traditional pen and paper aswell as documenting them on word and prezzi. I used soundcloud when discussing health and safety, risk assesment and concerns discussion. I also made a mood board to have a visual representation of the theme of our music video and how we wanted things too look, I found some images on google and others on social networks such as tumblr, these were images directly liked and reblogged by our target audience. I also use animoto to make a short clip of images that represent our music video.

I used premier elements 8 to create an anamatic, this was our intial idea of how our music video would look, this became a vital guideline for a music video in the construction 


Construction:

When filming for our music video we have planned a specific time to go to our location so we could have the picture lighting for continuos shooting, so once we got to our location we started filming on a Canon DSLR 600D, we followed our shooting schedule and took nearly an hours worth of footage to be sure we had enough in the editing process. We also had an Iphone 5 on site and an Xperia One to ensure that if anything ha been left behind or anyone was late they could be contacted immediately. Once I had all my footage I could begin editing, I edited my music video premier elements 8, as I had already done some test filming I was not completely new to this software, I went on to do several edits of the music video based on audience feedback and finally came to final piece which I uploaded to youtube and embeded in my blog.

 

    

When constructing my digipak I collated the several images I had already taken and whitttled them down to the ones that I thought were appropriate for my digipak, I then went out and took more photos on my Canon DSLR 600D. When I had found my chosen images for the different sections of the digipak I had to edit them on Photoshop, even though I was fairly new to Photoshop I soon picked up the techniques best to use it. I knew that I wanted the image for my music magazine advertisement to be the same as the image on my digipak so finding the image was an easier process, I had cropped an original image for the digipak but used the full size iamge for the music magazine, I edited this image on Photoshop editing logos and barcodes from real media products too make it look more professional.

Evaluation:

I wanted my evaluation to be multimedia, for question once I used my own clips from my music video, clips from videos from youtube and still image to create a video on premier elements 8, this video made up part 1 of question 1. I then edited my voice over the top explaining them. Two of the videos I used were banned on youtube, so I changed them into still images so my video could be veiwed. Part two of question 1 involved me making a slideshow, with my own images and from the internet. I used diffrent tools too make the images stand out more and too make my presentation look more interesting.
                 


In question two I made an interactive presentation on prezi, I included my music video from youtube and various of my own image such as my digipak and music magazine advertisement and already existing digipaks and music magazine advertisements. I then embeded this into my blog.

I decided for question three that I would make a video on my Canon DSLR 600D, I spoke directly to the camera and then I edited this on premier elements 8, I used youtube videos over my voice aswell as clips of my own work, presentations ect, whilst have my face on a smaller window answering the question.

  




Finally for question four I used bubbl.us a spider diagram building website to create a mind map of all the different media technologies I have used in the different stages of my process, I then made a blog post, included text for more information an images of my own and google to make it more visual.