Evaluation: Question 3

Q3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


Here is a list of the technologies I used 

• Cameras - These were the most important and also most expensive equipment we used, as without them we would not have been able to film anything. We only used the cameras in the production stage and filmed in 720p HD. I found the cameras easy to use as we used them in the AS year to film our thriller openings. This year I experimented with different angles and camera movements, such as moving the camera in time with the music. Also, more experimental editing prompted me to film some different kinds of shots, such as long shots of a character running, which would then be sped up/slowed down. When filming at night, we tried filming in different levels of light as we had portable spotlights with us. Filming in low light while still making sure there was enough light to be seen was quite difficult, but I think we got this right as it looked perfect on the computer & at the cinema screening.
• Still Camera - We used still cameras to take pictures of many different things during the planning and production stages. Firstly, we took pictures of our storyboard and then used this to take pictures of little figurines to create our animatic. Click here to see our Animatic
• Flip Cameras - I used these small handheld cameras several times throughout the year to record things quickly and easily, such as feedback from teachers and classmates.
• Memory Cards - The 16GB memory cards we used allowed us to film hours of footage (until the camera batteries ran out)
• External Hard Drive - We used a 500GB external HD to store all of our work. This was important as we did not always work on the same computer every lesson. It also meant that our work was safe, and no one could interfere with it. The 500GB capacity meant we could store lots of footage on the HD and not worry about deleting any we didn’t need.
• Apple iMacs/Mac Pros - We used dual screen Mac Pros for most of the editing, as the two screens made it easy to see the different windows of Final Cut Pro easily. After the music video was finished, we used the iMacs for creating the ancillary work on Photoshop. Both types of Mac had the same software installed, but editing was easier on the Mac Pros with two screens, and using Photoshop on the iMacs was more practical and compact.

Our finished music video in Final Cut on a dual screen Mac Pro

Software:

• Final Cut Pro - This was the most important software we used, as it allowed us to edit the footage we filmed and create the music video. Without Final Cut or a similar editing software package, we would have just had lots of separate clips. I did almost all of the editing for my group, and experimented with effects such as slowing down clips.

Here is a video of myself using Final Cut to show how we created the 'flickering' effect between the two clips, and how I changed the speed of some of the clips to convert them to slow motion.

• Photoshop - Photoshop was only used for the production of the ancillary products. I used it to manipulate an image of the artist and add text and logos. My digipack was quite a simple design, which the video below shows, in which I hide all the layers one by one so every element of the design can be seen.

• Handbrake - Handbrake is what we used to convert video files (.mov) that had been exported from Final Cut Pro to smaller file sized .mp4 files so we could upload them to Blogger. The downside to this is the quality is significantly reduced, but on the plus side the upload time is short.
• Fontbook - I used Fontbook to install fonts that I downloaded from the website Dafont.com so I could use them in my ancillary work.
• iShowU - This is a screen recording program which I used to create the two videos seen above. It records everything that happens on screen and exports it as a video file. I have found it very useful in the evaluation stage to illustrate certain things that I have done on the computer.
• Powerpoint - We used Powerpoint to create our pitch before delivering it to our teacher and the class. It is very easy to use, and enabled us to add text and images to different slides in the presentation.

Websites:

• Blogger - Blogger is the most important website and has been used in every single stage of the process. It enabled us to document/record our research, planning, production and evaluation in a way which is easy to access and use.
• Youtube - I used Youtube extensively in the planning and research stage to watch music videos and find examples of shots and editing techniques that I could use in our music video. It was very important and helped a lot, as their are thousands of music videos on there which can be viewed any time.
• Vimeo - Vimeo is the site we used to view previous student work in the planning stage, and also upload our music video to at the end of the production stage.
• Prezi - This site is useful for creating online slideshow presentations which can be embedded into other sites (such as Blogger)
• Dafont - This website has thousands of free fonts which can be downloaded quickly and easily. This was vital for my ancillary work, as the most important feature of the front of my digipack is the title font. Luckily I was able to find a suitable font on this website.
• QRcodeGenerator - I used this website to create a QR code image which could be scanned with any smart phone and would then link to the artist’s website for my advertisement. 

The font I used from the website Dafont.com