Evaluation Question 4

From planning and researching at the initial stages of producing my music video and ancillary tasks, through to shooting and producing the finished products, I have used a large variety of media technologies to assist my work. The first thing I did when considering my A2 Media production was create a blog using blogger.com. Using Blogger allowed me to track and log details of my progress and ideas throughout the course. I found this to be an efficient way to keep all of work together in an easily accessible way.  Using labels, I split my blog into sections such as ‘Planning’ and Research’ and ‘Construction’; this allowed me to access certain parts of my coursework quickly on one page. I found that using a blog throughout the progression of my coursework was beneficial in many ways, for example being able to view other people’s blogs for ideas and inspiration.

Before I could begin to produce my music video or subsidiary tasks, I had to research into the range of equipment and softwares that were available to me alongside looking at similar products to those that I would be creating. I did this by using internet servers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer to gather information on possible equipment and images of existing digipaks and magazine adverts. I then used programmes such as Prezi and PowerPoint to display my analysis. Additionally, I utilized Blogger to research work from previous A2 students and I created a video using Windows Movie Maker to analysis these for inspiration for my own work.

In terms of planning, I first created a mood board for my music video. I collected a variety of images from the internet that I felt best illustrated the themes, colours and moods that I was trying to enhance within my products before copying these on to a PowerPoint document. I then had to use Scribd in order to convert the document into one that I could embed on to my blog. Another aspect of my planning was creating drafts, for which I drew out initial sketches onto paper before using my Epson scanner to save them onto my computer and post them to my blog. Additionally, I had to scan in my storyboards and images which I used for my animatic. I created my animatic on Windows Movie Maker, a slideshow of all my storyboard images, edited in time with my chosen song. Finally, I used PowerPoint to create a basic first draft of my magazine advert. I copied the image that I has chosen to the document and used the text box and shape tools to put together a brief initial layout for the design.

The construction phase of my products was where I feel that I was most reliant on technology. First of all, I held a small photo shoot in order to take the images that I wanted to use on my digipak front cover. I used a Canon DSLR for my photo shoot because I was able to attach the camera to two large flashes in order to improve the image quality and make the photos look brighter and more professional. I was also able to edit these images further using tools on Adobe Photoshop such as changing the contrast and colour intensity. I filmed my entire music video on a Nikon D3200 outdoors as this allowed me to film for a long period of time and use the zoom to take abstract shots with shallow and deep focuses. I also used the Nikon camera to take a variety of images on location to use in my digipak and on my magazine advert. Once I had shot my music video, I used a card reader to export the clips onto my home drive, where I could then import them to premier. The editing software that I used to edit my music video was Adobe Premier and this allowed me to cut down each clip to the length that I needed. I could also add effects and transitions to the shots such as fades which I used at the end of my video to fade to black.

In terms of my digipak and magazine advert, I created these solely on Photoshop and I was able to apply certain layers to make my images black and white or give them a ‘vintage’ effect. I used the shape tool on my magazine advert to create a button, before using the lasso tool to cut out certain parts of the outside of the shape to make it look worn and ripped. I then used the burn tool around the edges of the shape to make it look 3D and old. I used the text tool to add text to my products and added effects including drop shadows to make the text look as though it stood out on the page. I also used the drop shadow effect in one of the inside pages of my digipak to make it appear as though there is a pull-out booklet in a pocket. I had to change the opacity of certain shapes in the inner pages of my digipak to create the look of a CD. I also chose to download a bush from Brusheezy to place across the bottom of my magazine advert and the back page of my digipak.

Lastly, I was able to use a variety of technology to present my work during my evaluations. I began with using InDesign to create a double page spread in which I answered the first evaluation question before using Issuu to convert it to a PDF so that I could embed it on to my blog. I answered question two with a short video that I created in Premier accompanied with a recording of me reading the transcript using a Dictaphone. I produced question 3 on PowerPoint and then placed the document on a Scribd file to embed on my blog before completing question 4 using Prezi. Additionally, I feel that another evaluative stage was gathering audience feedback for which I also created a video to display the feedback that I received, regarding the three final products that I produced.