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

BLOGGER! Throughout the planning, research, and production stages of our products we have used a large range of media technologies. To begin with when we initially started the year we each set up our A2 blogger account and had to blog about our lessons and blog the research and planning and development of our tasks. When we initially began using blogger nearly 2 years ago now i had little knowledge of how to use the website and became confuddes easily however over time i have learnt how to use different aspects of blogger and now have a greater understanding of its cappablities.I now understand the software in greater detail than previously. We had to blog images of actors and locations and costume ideas, analyse and discuss ideas which we had and show that we have looked at how these would compare of challenge existing media products and artists. Within our blog we had to ensure we included a story baord of our ideas. When it comes to blogging it seems that you can never really do enough, theres always going to be more that you can blog about and ways in which you can expand on what youve already discussed. In general our blogs were a way in which we could keep a note of our progress and track whether we were behind or not. Blogger is also a vital took when it comes to evaluating your work as it allows you to easily access your previous work and review your progress and then carry out a clear evaluation.

VIDEO CAMERA! In order to create our music videos we had to use video cameras to film the footage. The video cameras were used throughout the filming process in order to capture the clips. Our group used a combination of the cameras which were available from school and my own person video camera however the only issue which arrose in this situation was the quality difference between the two. Another issue we had when using video cameras was that on a couple of occasions we was given camera which did not have any charge and were not provided with a charger which led to delays in filming and a severe issue with technical problems and therefore the group fell behind scheduale.

CAMERA! As mentioned the group had to capture images of costumes ideas, location ideas and actor choices ect and therefore we had to use the media technolodgy that is still-imaging in order to capture these image to show evidence of planning for our final products. Cameras were also used within the creation of the anciliary tasks in order to capture the images which would be used within the work.

APPLE MAC PRO! Within our groups we were each asssigned a MAC in order to be able to carry out the editing stages of our main product. The MACs held the software which we would need in order to form our clips we had taken into the video which is now our final product.

IMovieHD! IMovie HD was used throughout the editing stages of our final product without this media technolodgy our product would not be what it is. We needed this software in order to put the audio of our chosen track together with the video clips which we had captured for our final product. IMovie HD allowed us to apply transistions and effects which would add to the overall final product as a whole. Examples of how my group has used these effects include how we have adjusted the lighting within the story line clips in order to show the contrast and difference between the mood and emotions which were being expressed within the two. Our group also used a fade in effect between the clips in order to show a smoother transition from clip to clip rather than the clips just jumping around randomly and unevenly. Once wed uploaded our clips and editied and arranged the clips in order we wished ensuring that they were synced correctly with the audio we had to then compress and save our video using IMovieHD in order to make it compatiable and ready to be uploaded on to youtube.

YOUTUBE! YouTube is a website which allows us to discover, watch and share videos with billions of other world wide web users. We have used this media technolodgy in order to initially research for ideas and inspiration of existing media products which we could use within our own product. This is where we found the evidence of the existing video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra-Om7UMSJc and was able to research for ideas which we could use of other simualr artists of the same genre including assesing aspects of our favourite videos which we wished to include within our final piece. You tube was not only used for planning but was also used as a method of sharing our video with our audience in order to gain feeback at each stage of the process. Evidence of this can be seen here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra-Om7UMSJc

FACEBOOK! We used Facebook in order to initially show that we have used a variety of media technologies within out work. We had discussions with each other via the social networking site about ideas which we had for our video evidence of these can be found within our blogs. Personally i chose to also use the social networking site as a method of gaining audience feedback from fellow peers. I posted the link to our initial video on my facebook account in order to gain feeback from out target audience of whether they enjoyed the video and comment on aspects for improvement. I carried out the same process with my ancillary task in order to gain feedback from both my audience and friends who are part of other media insitutions evidence of this can be found within the question on feeback.

TUMBLR! Tumblr is a social networking/blogging site used by many i personally used the site as a method of gaining audience feedback from a large audience on my work. I have posted both my ancillary and main task to the website in order to gain more feeback and ideas which will help me within this evaluation stage of my product.

PHOTOSHOP! PhotoShop was used through out a large proportion of my work for creating my anciliarry tasks. PhotoShop allows me to combine and overlay images together with text to come up with my finished products for both my advert and digipak or both my preliminary and final tasks. Not only does photoshop allow you to combine images and text but it also allows you to add special effects to your images which can ulitmatly transform the images examples of such are tools such as the airbrush tool and liquidfy which allows you to completely re-adjust and manipulate your image in order to produce your desired final product. Evidence of how i have used this software can be seen here:

Finished product:

During Production Stages:

Brush effect used for pink strokes. Colour Effect Warm Filter used for overall image. Text overlay Used for text. Original Image: