Evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 4

• 1.
  Evaluation question 4 Howdid you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Research and Planning, Production and Evaluation stages
• 2.
  Hardware
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  IPhone- We used Iphone7 Plus to take all of the footage for the behind the scenes footage and vlogs, as it allowed us to get high quality footage quickly and efficiently. One main use of this was to create time lapses so we could show a long period of filming in a short amount of time. This became very useful to us as it allowed us to not be distracted from getting the footage for the actual music video, yet whilst still being able to get behind the scenes footage. Stills camera- We used a Cannon camera as we agreed prior to filming that this would be the best to use as we all prefer it over the Nikon. E tested both cameras before production began to ensure that we could be productive and work well with the camera. This camera created high quality footage and we were able to easily focus the camera which was very important whilst filming footage where there was a lot going on e.g. in the performance where we had a lot of people moving about. Tripod- The tripod became an essential to us during the filming process as this could divide the professional looking shots to ones that looked messy and unstructured just from removing the shakiness of the camera whilst being held by hand. We had a mix of hand held shots and steady shots, however the tri- pd was extremely important to have whilst filming the performance as this needed to be more structured and still. It allowed us to pan across the band as well as keep the camera in certain places, such as focusing on one band member to get a variety of shots throughout the video. Imac- The imac was the basis for all of our work. This is what we used during all the stages, from research and planning to the final editing. The Imac was an essential during research and planning, as was easy to navigate as we are very familiar with them. Scanner- The scanner became very important during the production of the products, as we created all of our own original images for the digipak, once they were drawn we used the scanner to put them onto the
• 4.
  Software
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  Photoshop- Photoshop is whatwe used to create our digipak on. This allowed us to have a plain base for the digipak and allowed us to have full freedom. We started with the 24x36cm portrait divided into 6 panels each 12cm each. This have us the basic outline for our digipak so we could work on the individual pannels. It was also useful to refer back to youtube for tutorials when we needed help. Wix- Wix is the website used to create our website. We explored the different layouts given on the website to get a feel of what would work best for our product. Personally, we found this website to be very temperamental and hard to work with as it would stop responding randomly and wouldn’t let you move things around, however the overall effect of the website was successful and it did allow us to add in many different features. Although we found it hard to work with, some features that were useful was how you can add in important features so fast, such as the merchandise, links to social media pages etc. which made the website look professional and mirror existing products. Youtube- Youtube was a main feature during this whole process, from researching existing products to uploading our video, we found this a good place to refer back to for anything we needed when thinking of how to make our product mirror professional products. Blogger-Blogger was used to post all of my work on during each stage. This allows us to embed any of our prezis, presentations etc. or just a blog post along with images, videos. This allowed us to also have proof of all of our work and is somewhere to store all of our ideas. Prezi- Prezi is a presentation software I used in the research and planning stages. This allowed me to present my ideas in a more creative as well as making it more organised and interesting. This was helpful to use as it was a place for me to keep my ideas and findings so that I could refer back to them when needed. Facebook messenger- At the start of our planning we created a groupchat on facebook messanger so that we could share ideas, arrange filming days and keep in touch with each other. This became useful as we mainly used it to share ideas that we had and the progress of our products so that we could have have opinions and suggest changes to the products so that everyone was happy with the
• 6.
  Hardware and Software Weused photoshop in two different ways to forward our research and planning. Firstly we created a mock version of an album cover - this allowed us to become more familiar with the software and helped us a lot more when it came to constructing the final version. We also created a mood board/collage. We chose to use photoshop again just to get more familiar with it. The hardware we used involved: Apple iMac, Canon Scanner, Canon DSLR. The iMac was used throughout the whole process, and gave us many options when it came to choosing software to use. The iMac gave use access to Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and many other Adobe softwares. The Canon scanner enabled us to scan our flatplans and original artwork, and then import them into our chosen software. The Canon DSLR was used for test shots - and by using it in the research and planning process, we become more familiar with it and how it worked. How we used online tools Blogger was a crucial part of the production process as it allowed us to record our progress. Moreover, using its social media aspects, we were able to share and embed links to and from our blogs with ease. Without an online tool like Blogger, it would have been very difficult to effectively plan our products. We also used Wix - a website designer. Without Wix it would have been extremely difficult to make our website as none of us have past experience in coding or website design. Wix made this process a lot easier by using a simple but effective design which gave it more of a Microsoft Powerpoint type of feel - which made it seem very familiar and easy to use. Furthermore we used Prezi, which is a presentation website. It’s a good alternative to the traditional presentation tools. In addition to this we used most of the online tools provided by Google such as Google Slides, Google Docs and others. Their online tools provide easy usability and a great ability to share documents. This allowed us to work better as a team and share ideas.
• 7.
  Evaluation of howwell we used media technologies Our skills vary across all of the technologies we used in the production process. In some we’re still amateurs and in some we’re semi-skilled. We didn’t use Photoshop to its full potential, as we didn’t make use of over half the features adobe offers. There are so many features of photoshop we didn’t use that it’d be hard to list them - this is because photoshop is a professional digital design software, made for industrial use. However we could have made more use of more enhanced neon effects which can only be created using certain methods. If we more skilled we could avoided issues such as settling for sub-par neon effects that we used, we also could have sped up the entire process as we struggled a lot when trying to use the software. In photoshop there’s a lot to still learn, but this is because it’s intended for professional use. In final cut pro we simply used the razor tool to cut down footage, and then we aligned the footage to the audio. There’s a lot to still learn in final cut pro. We could have made use of visual effects, colour filters, we could have had effects such as moving animations on the screen also. This may have helped us create a more visually pleasing music video. We had problems such as learning how to cut down video clips, exporting and how to organise footage. If we were more skilled at the time we could have avoided all of these problems and sped up the whole process. With online tools we’re quite skilled. This is because they all seemed very familiar and easy to use. We used quite a lot of their features but only the ones we felt we necessary, but by doing this we didn’t use them to their full potential. To improve our products even further we could have made our planning process a lot more clearer in our saved documents - this would have made the whole process a lot smoother and easier.