Evaluation Activity 4

new media technologies used in the construction

of our music video

We used our PC’s to construct the majority of our Blogs with a number of online programs. We also used the PC’s to contact each other and members of the band via social networks.

The iMac was used for the creation of our music video and our ancillary products. We had previous experience from our AS coursework where we created our film opening. Because of this we were quite familiar with how to use the iMac in general, however had no experience with the programs we would have to use for our A2 coursework.

Video Camera We used a Canon HFR 16

hand held video camera to shoot the majority of our music video. The fact that it was a hand held allowed us to have greater mobility during the shot, however the majority of footage was taken on a tripod. The video camera gave us a high quality image which we were able to upload and convert on our PC and then transfer to the iMac for editing.

The HUE animation studio allowed us to turn our storyboard in to a series of animated drawings which was then put together with our chosen song. This gave us a great visual image when filming and editing our actual music video.

Camera We used a Fujifilm FinePix

S1500 to create the stop motion for the opening of our music video. We chose to use this camera over the HUE animation studio as it had a slow shutter speed. This allowed us to take 100’s of detailed pictures which we then placed in series to create the stop motion sequence.

We also used the camera for taking shots of our band to use in both of our ancillary products.

USB Sticks/ SD Cards

USB sticks and SD cards were used to transfer footage between the camera, PC and Imac. This was an easy and efficient way of transferring the data between the three media devices.

FCE was the program most used throughout our A2 media coursework. This was the first time using the program and so it required a lot of trial and error and online tutorials to develop our understanding. Although it was slow to start with, as our knowledge developed we were able to deal with problems quickly and transform our ideas on to the screen. An example of this was the use of the green screen where we learnt the best techniques at filtering the background to leave a clear and consistent image.

We used the Photoshop program to create our two ancillary products. We had never used this program before and so used many instruction manuals and You Tube tutorials. Although it took a while to master we now have a good level of understanding of the program and are capable of carrying out tasks effectively.

Hotmail was used to contact the original ‘Village Musicians’ when asking permission to use their song. It was also used as a way of transferring data across computers from home to school.

Facebook was used to co-ordinate availability with band members and our actress. We created a group which allowed us to easily contact the group when they were needed.

Evaluation Activity 4

new media technologies used in the research, planning and evaluation of our music video

Blogger was used to keep a group blog diary on our progression throughout our A2 media coursework. We spent time designing the aesthetics of the blog and then posted ideas and progressions on to the page with a variety of technologies expressing our thoughts creatively.

The Microsoft Office programs were normally used for very general tasks, such as writing out the lyrics to our song or creating our editing schedule. Although these were simple tasks, they were vital for our progression in our A2 media coursework.

You Tube was very useful throughout our A2 coursework and was used in a number of ways. Firstly, any videos that we wanted to put on our blog were uploaded on You Tube and then embeded on to our blog. You Tube was also a great teaching tool when using Final Cut and Adobe Photoshop as there were a number of tutorials which were effective in showing us how to solve certain problems.

Survey Monkey is an online questionnaire tool which aided us in our market research. We were able to create the questionnaire on the site and then send it to friends via email and social network. All the answers were then collated on to the site allowing us to review and analyse the results with ease.

Bubbl.us enabled us to productively brain storm our creative ideas for our music video. Once we were finished, we were left with a wonderfully designed spider diagram which we could embed on to our blog and refer to when needed.

Prezi was another online program that we used. Prezi allowed us to create interactive presentations such as our project proposal. We were also able to embed these presentations on to our blog and show the progress we were making.

Glogster EDU is an online program that allows you to create collage style presentations with interactive images. We used this program to create fact files for ‘The village Musicians’ and to create a mood board for our music video.

The online program wordle allowed us to create a word cloud out of important lyrics in our song. This helped us concentrate on what words the visuals would best relate to.

Slideshare allowed us to convert PowerPoint presentations to an online format (similar to this one). Like other online programs it was then easy to embed our work on to the blog.

I used Go Animate at the beginning of the year for one of my introductions to the A2 media course. The program allows you to animate characters in different scenarios to make a small 2-3 minute clip. My video was an animated interview with the director David Fincher. This program is great for presenting information in a fun and interactive format.