Evaluation Four- Final

I have used a wide range of different technologies both traditional and new, within my entire coursework project. These technologies have opened up a range of different opportunities which I could use for my coursework. All of these pieces of technology were accessed on my laptop or computers supplied by the college, meaning that all of my work was computer based. This was effective because it allowed me to share work between myself and my group easily and effectively, ensuring that we could work together efficiently. Overall these technologies have helped me develop a professional looking blog, successful products and well-presented work. I have used technologies such as: My phone (LG G3), laptop (Lenovo 710S) and college computers to access all of the other technologies which I have used throughout pre-production, production and post production stages.

PRE-PRODUCTION:

To start off my coursework I used a piece of new technology called Blogger, which allowed me to create a blog where I could present all my work in a neat and chronological way. This allowed me to regularly post and present my process throughout my coursework, in a variety of different formats. This was effective in allowing me to convey my work in a creative and professional way, allowing anyone to easily access it. Using this new technology is a lot more effective then completing it all on paper, where work can get lost easily and it would look less effective when finished. Throughout my media coursework, I would state that I have used Blogger the most because it has acted as the hub for all my work and other technologies that I have used. Over this process I gained knowledge into how to use Blogger in an effective and efficient manner, I started off by choosing a theme and then further customising it by changing fonts and colours, to ensure it fitted in with how I want my coursework to look when displayed. This choice of personalisation was really effective in making my use of this technology more worthwhile because it makes my blog stand out and made my work appear more unique and quirky-which paper wouldn’t achieve. Also, having all of my work on blogger, allowed me to easily access it whenever and wherever I wanted - regularly using it on my phone to show or look at certain aspects when I was producing my products. For example: when myself and my group were filming our music video, we kept going on Blogger (on our mobile devices) to look at our mood boards, storyboard, animatic, test photography and filming schedule - to identify what process we needed to complete and how to film our artist in an effective manner.

To present my work on Blogger, I have used other technologies to enable me to complete this in an effective and interesting way. Firstly, I have utilised a technology called Microsoft PowerPoint massively, to produce posts such as: music video analysis, my mood boards, audience profiles, 25 word pitch, filming schedule, test photography, risk assessment, filming days 1-5, CD mood board, digipak analysis, creative journey, editing updates 1-3, magazine advert mood board and magazine advert analysis. This technology helped me place and organise photos and construct a more unique layout, due to the simple controls that PowerPoint involves. This technology was a lot more suited to these processes - rather than Microsoft Word or a blog post, due to my personal opinion being that they are more difficult to control and use, when placing in photos compared to PowerPoint.

For the written aspects of my work I used Microsoft Word because that allowed me to easily write large passages of text in a simple but effective format. I used Microsoft Word for: decision on artist name, artist biography, feedback posts, representations of your music video, narrative theorists and evaluations 1-4. I am experienced with using word for this kind of essay based work, which is why I chose to use this type of technology; it ensured I played to my strengths, to eventually end up with a sophisticated and professional appearance. To enable these formats to be presented on my blog, I had to use other new technologies to transfer them over. For example: I used Scribd to present my word documents in - such as my evaluation drafts. This different format makes my blog more interesting to look at because it gives a different visual appearance, making it more enjoyable to read. I also used Scribd for some of my work which I produced on PowerPoint e.g. my music video analysis. I decided to complete this instead of using Slideshare technology because it gave a more professional appearance - due to when I put my PowerPoint into Slideshare; it destroyed the layout- which looked very unattractive. 

Throughout my research and planning I have used a wide range of different technologies which have contributed massively to the success of my products. In recent years, there has been a significant proliferation of the internet and new technologies. This means that there are millions of interconnected networks which can be accessed by everyone. This is proven in the theory of web 2.0 from Tim O’reilly, where it conveys the fact that people make full use of the internet and are able to access information instantaneously. We fully utilised this idea throughout the entire process of our research and planning. This is especially evident in the post-production stage, where I used web based technologies such as: Wix, Gifs, Piktochart and YouTube. 

I have used many different new generation social media technologies to help me understand what kind of concept I want my products to follow and all about my target audience. I have used these technology sites: Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Google. I have used Pinterest to gain inspiration for the styling of my artist and for the visual appearance of my target audience. This technology has helped me construct our mood board for the visual styling of our music video, which was one of the elements that contributed to our video looking visually pleasing- especially regarding our choice of outfits. Also, Pinterest helped me look at different photography stances and poses, which helped me to take the photography for my digipak and magazine advert successfully. Also, I utilised Pinterest to gather inspiration for my digipak and magazine advert layout because it has many indie genre inspirational photos present on its website. This can be identified through my creative journey. 

I used Instagram for a similar process to Pinterest but for more detailed research into my specific audience e.g. Maddi Lane and Alex James, where I found a variety of different pieces of their photography, whilst also discovering their likes, dislikes and interests- which helped me cater my products specifically to appeal to my target audience. In addition, Instagram allowed me to research similar indie genre musicians e.g. Phoebe Green and get an idea of how they present themselves on camera, also what kind of fashion style they wear.

I used the media technology Twitter to create a profile for my artist, which gave a professional and authentic look to our artist, making her more realistic and believable because most young musicians have a twitter account. In addition, my target audience are more likely to use Twitter because the majority of 16-25 year olds have mobile devices and computers where they can access these sites easily. Overall, we used this technology to promote our artist effectively, attracting our target audience.

To access all of these, I used the internet platform Google. This technology allowed my research to happen effectively and efficiently, due to the ease of locating these websites on Google. The use of the technology called Google Forms allowed me to gather audience feedback on my initial ideas, which made my products more successful because by using this technology I could cater my products to be ensured to attract my target audience.

Throughout the planning stages myself and Nieeve stayed in contact with our artist, passing all of our ideas through her- to ensure that she would feel confident and prepared when we were filming and photographing her. We stayed in contact through our mobile phones where we used group messaging technology on Facebook, which allowed us to send written text, pictures and videos. This helped us get the best performance out of our artist because it allowed her to act confidently, with a good understanding of what she needed to do -which gave a more realistic appearance.

Production:

To produce the music video we used a LG G5 UHD camera to film all of the shots. We decided to use a phone instead of a video camera because it is very portable and also it produces the same quality as a professional video camera. As well as this, I was able to alter different settings - such as the white balance on the phone, meaning that I could get it to the highest quality and the most effective picture. This piece of technology was very easy to transport to each location, which made each shot occur very efficiently and we were able to take more shots in one time period-this made our editing process simpler because we had more footage to choose from.

We used this technology for both our draft and final version of our music video because from filming the draft video, we realised its potential and liked the quality of the image.

 We found that the camera that we chose was very suitable because it was very simple to operate and if there were any features that we were unsure how to use, then we could easily use Google to find instructions. This allowed us to have the best quality outcome because the camera accentuated all of the colours in the shots and made our artist appear admirable. We experimented with different photography technology to allow us to choose the one which will be most suited to our project and give the appearance that we wanted.

We used the same camera to take the photography for our digipak and magazine adverts because we liked the filming quality and we wanted this same appearance for the photos of our artist. Also, due to the portable nature of the camera, it made it a simpler job carrying it around the derelict warehouses because there was a lot of rubbish and obstacles - which could have caused injury if we had heavy technology to carry around.

Due to the fact that we filmed on a phone, it made the file transfer a very simple process to my laptop, without reducing the quality. Also, this use of technology is more reliable than using a traditional camera with an SD card because a phone automatically backs every shot onto Google Drive technology, which we used as a safety back up, if we accidently deleted any of our clips. This is more of a reliable system than using an SD card because there is a chance that the SD card could corrupt, ending in losing all of your work because the SD card doesn’t back up the files - it is not as sophisticated in technology.

During the filming of our music video, Nieeve used her IPhone 5 to play ‘Watercolour Envy’. This use of technology was very effective because it allowed our artist to stay in time with the music, making her more likely to perfect the lyrics- giving more of a successful editing process.

I decided to use Photoshop to create my ancillary products because I used this piece of technology in my past projects throughout my A-levels and GCSE’s. This means that I have an extensive amount of experience with Photoshop, which really helped me when producing these products because I know what the technology is capable of and I played to their strengths - by using a variety of different techniques. This process of using this technology also widens my knowledge of Photoshop, allowing me to learn new skills and be more creative with certain aspects. For example: for the blurred picture on my digipak, I played around with different blurring tools and then experimented with opacity, which then allowed me to overlay the same photo over the top of the original and move it slightly- then make it opaque.  This effectively gave a blurred, psychedelic appearance. This experimenting then led to me to use the skin healing tool, to perfect my artist’s skin on the extreme close up shot because I wanted her to appear attractive and admirable in a perfect way, which was only capable due to this technology. Photoshop then connected well with the use of Blogger because I was able to save my ancillary products as JPEG’s and then with ease post them onto my blog.

Post-Production:

To edit our music video, we decided to use the media technology called Sony Vegas Pro. We chose this from completing a lot a research into many different editing software technologies and this one scored the highest- especially regarding music videos, which is why we chose to use it. This editing software is high end and is what most professional videos are edited on - due to its wide capabilities. We knew how to edit the basics e.g. placing in clips and cutting them to different time periods on this software because we used it to produce our animatic storyboard. This gave us a subtle insight in to how to use this, however, we then developed this knowledge by completing some more complicated aspects of editing, for example: video effects, transitions, slow down or speed up, adding text and lip syncing. We read a large manual on how to use the full potential of Sony Vegas Pro, meaning that when we started editing, we knew how to complete all of these processes - to allow us to get the best quality and most professional music video. We accessed and edited our video on my Lenovo laptop, which had the technology to cope with the speed needed to edit the video. This was very helpful, when compared to editing the video on Final Cut Pro on a school computer because it allowed us to edit outside of school, meaning that we could spend more hours on the video - ensuring that we got it up to the highest of quality.

We chose to use a darker video effect over our entire music video because we believe it gives our video more of a dramatic effect and brings out the emotion visually, due to the dark undertones to the song. As well as this, Sony Vegas Pro gave us the opportunity to render our video in the right quality and format to be able to be uploaded to YouTube. However, it did take about 40 minutes to render in a high quality format, but it was worth it for the quality visual appearance. Song Vegas Pro connected to all of my other technologies which I utilised because the camera clip formats were easily imported into the editor and then the finished video was easily exported onto YouTube. 

We used YouTube to post our music video, which worked effectively with Blogger because we were able to embed it into a blog post easily, presenting it effectively with our coursework. This new technology is used to watch videos, which means it is the perfect platform to get my video to become a success because it will allow my target market to view it. Also, this technology allows my audience to share it, making it more likely to spread onto other social media technologies. Due to my experience with YouTube, I know how to use it effectively and efficiently, to allow it to be used to its full potential.

When presenting my evaluations, I have used a variety of different pieces of technology in order to present each one in a unique and individual way. For my first evaluation, I used the web based technology of Gifs to visually show the shots which I described in my evaluation. This use was very effective due to it visually proving and connoting what I had written about.  As well as this, I have used Google Slides to present a large amount of my written information. I decided to use this technology paired with the Gifs because it gives a successful equal mixture between visual explanation and information. In my second evaluation, I used a flow chart to visually present my work and make my work flow more successfully. I chose to use this because it breaks the typical essay look of an evaluation. This technology was very simple to use and allowed my evaluation to have a visual appearance because I was able to add in photos and gifs. For evaluation three, I created a website by using Wix. This was quite complicated due to the large amount of functions and capabilities which this technology involves. However, I was able to create a successful website which looks professional. I used YouTube, Sony Vegas Pro and an app called ShareX to create evaluation 4. This combination of technologies allowed me to create many videos showing directly what I did to create certain aspects of my work and how I used certain technologies. ShareX was very easy to use and had a very high quality screen recorder, which makes them more pleasing to watch.

Overall the use of technologies has been vital in making my music video and ancillary products successful in concept and appearance. I have used Blogger the most because that has been the hub for all of my work, anything that I have researched, planned or produced has been posted and organised on this platform. All of these technologies that I have used have interlinked with each other, allowing me to easily and efficiently complete all of my work within the time constraints which were set throughout the project.