Evaluation Part 4

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

Construction and Research

This is an example of my blogger dashboard. Blogger played a huge part in the construction of my A2 task. Using blogger I was able to frequently record my work in chronological order which allowed my work to have an overall sophisticated presentation.

From my blogger dashboard I was able to change the template of my blogger which enabled me to present my work in many different ways. I chose the dynamic layout as I allowed me to have a range of different ways in which my work could be shown. For example, using the sidebar structured my work, whilst the flipcard showed my work through the use of imagery.

Blogger was continuously used throughout the production of my work throughout my planning, production and evaluation process. This is because there is no limit to how much work can be shown on blogger. This heightened my creativity and therefore allowed me to produce work frequently at a professional level.

Continued…Alongside Blogger, Prezzi also helped hugely through the continuation of my work onto my evaluation. From this I was able to express my creativity as Prezi turns your work into a moving, interactive way of presenting my work. The many different themes also helped to show the establishment of my work. For example, even though I chose to create a spider diagram effect, one of my options could have been a pathway. This would of helped me to show the process of my work and the journey I went on. However, I had some difficulties using Prezzi as it was a relatively new software for me. From this using Web 3.0 became very helpful through the means of using ‘how to’ guides on Youtube.

Here is a clear example of one of the ‘how to’ guides I used for Prezi. Here I learnt how to create some simple tasks such as adding a text and changing the colours of my created Prezi. This allowed me to present my work differently and make it stand out in comparison to my previous presentations all made on PowerPoint. Using a Prezi also allowed me to show how I developed from my AS work, and from the start of my A2 work. Using Prezi for my evaluation yet again allowed my work to be shown at a professional, artistic level.

Research and Planning

Our research and planning revolved primarily around Google and YouTube. This enabled us to gain quick access to the websites in which would direct us to previous Pop artists music videos and Digipaks which gave us clear ideas for the production of our work. This allowed us to not rely purely on what we thought were conventional aspects of a Pop music video, but instead research into them which effectively changed our perceptions of music videos. From this we realised that a narrative based music video would be most conventional of our target audience, and targeting our audience would need to be done through the means of colours and body language. This was shown in our music video and our ancillary tasks, all of which would not have been possible had it now been for the planning and research.

Production and Creation

Throughout the production of our music video, we understood that we needed to use an advanced editing programme in which would allow us to use sufficient editing techniques throughout the creation of our work. Therefore we decided that Final Cut Pro was an appropriate software to use. Even though at first, this programme was difficult to grasp, with practice we was able to complete our music video at a professional level. Using the banding tool to cut our footage up into different sections allowed us to match together our lyrics with our visuals. There was also a vast range of effects in which were placed onto our footage. This allowed us to portray clearly the narrative of our music video. By adding the ‘Combat’ effect on our footage we were able to let our audience know the differences between memories (through narrative) and natural lighting in which was our performances.

However, the Mac computers in our editing room was not always available to us. Therefore, we were able to continue editing via iMovie on an Apple Mac from home. Using this allowed us to continue our professional level of work however away from our school environment. The creation of our work through the use of iMovie was no different from what was created via Final Cut Pro, and was easy transferable through the means of a USB. This allowed a continuous level of work, and a successful production of work to be inevitable.

Continued…Through planning our work, we used the online editing software iPiccy in order to experiment with different styles and techniques. This was helpful in being able to identify with what fonts looked good and which images would be most representative of our target audience. Once decided, we developed our ideas through the use of Adobe Photoshop whereby our knowledge had broadened from previous experiences through our AS task. Our progress throughout this task was made prominent through our final products.

As shown below, I have added a clear image of our finished digipak print advertisement whereby we merged the layers together to achieve our overall look. This was very successful through the production of our work as we was able to create an advertisement in which was both representational of our music video and target audience, whilst also challenging the general conventions of the Pop genre. The creation of our ancillary tasks would not have been possible had it not been for the use of photoshop. Using the various editing techniques allowed our work to be completed at a continuously artistic level.

Crop Tool – Resizing original image to fit our advertisement.

Magic Lasso – Cutting our artist out of the original image.

Defining Brush Preset – Changing the physical appearance of the image.

Auto Contrast – Adapting the brightness of our print advertisement.

Stroke – Changing our font to stand out more amongst our image.

Colour Overlay – Highlighting our fonts.

Web 2.0 sites and audience feedback.

Using Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook allowed us to gain a greater in sight into our audience feedback and how well we targeted our audience. This allowed us to decide whether or not or work needed to be developed. The comments received were mostly positive, however the negative comments were very helpful as we received feedback from our primary target audience making the feedback even more reliable. Overall, I believe that the planning and research in which lead to the production and construction was hugely successful throughout the process of our work. However, had there been more time as a group we would have gathered more audience feedback in order to receive a broad range of feedback, and then change our ancillary tasks and music videos in order to make them hugely conventional of our target audience. This, had it been done would have been very helpful, however I believe the work in which was created was at a continuously professional level and conveyed our creative making skills through the use of digital technology.