Media evaluation question 4

1. How did you use new technologies in
the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?

2. Hardware

3. Camera & Lenses
•We used a “Canon 650D EOS” DSLR camera during the construction of our music video. It
was also used in some of our production stages when we needed to record audience
feedback.
•A “Nikon D7000” DSLR 4K camera was also used at some stages of recording the music
video as certain shots required better camera quality to capture detail. This was especially
true for night time shots in which we used this camera.
•Due to the two cameras we had during production we had a large range of possible lenses
to fit each shot and give each shot a different feel. We used the lenses also distinguish from
far range and close up shots by changing the field of view for different shots. This gave the
final product more life in each shot due to the lenses.
•Both Cameras also allowed for us to control many aspects of the frame by fixing colour
saturation, aperture, visual noise and also both cameras came with handy rule of thirds lines
on the camera screen so we could control rule of thirds.

4. Computer
•We is used computers as the main hardware when it came to a lot of aspects of our pre-
production, production and post-production stages of the product as well as the evaluation
stages.
•“Apple iMacs” were the main type of computers used when working in school. They were
very useful when it came to editing as they provide access to “Final Cut Pro” an exclusive
editing software for apple products, however were a problem as most of the features were
very different to what most of us in the group were used to by being “Windows PC” users.
Additionally “Windows’ PCs” were used for any research that was constructed at home or
away from the school iMac. These computers allowed us to access other digital technologies
to create whatever we needed and so were a very essential pieces of technology.

5. Smartphone
•We used Smartphone technology in every part of this brief, from research to planning to
production. For example in research we might have used it to search things through our
phones. In planning it was to organise when and where we were to record by using maps to
scout for locations as well as plan when to meet each other to film. In the actual production
it was to play the song so that the singer could sing to the music in time to make it sink up
with the recording. This was just some of the examples in which we used our phones and as
a result it managed to make the whole process to be much more efficient and more
organised.

6. Graphics Tablet
•During the planning stage for the storyboard, as well as the production of the digipak and
magazine advert a “Wacom Intuos pro” graphic tablet was used to draw up the designs.
•For the storyboard this was done along side the software “Photoshop” to draw the
different tiles of the storyboard. This made it efficient as this meant that they did not need
to be hand drawn or drawn onto a computer using a mouse as this would have been very
difficult.
•For the digipak and magazine advert it was used to brush up little touches to the images
when editing them to make the quality of the image look better and create a more
professional looking product.

7. Software

8. Final Cut Pro
•“Final Cut Pro” is an exclusive professional video editing software made for Apple iMac
computers. We used this software when it game to editing most of the video content that
went in research, planning and construction such as the group pitch, animatic and the final
music video product.
•It was very useful as it offered a giant library of special effects that could be done to the
video as well as way to clean up the quality of video by removing visual noise or changing
colour contrast.
•Additionally it was very easy to cut footage and replace it with little effort, making it very
efficient to use.

9. Photoshop
•Photoshop is a photo manipulation software that was used mainly for in the construction
of the digipak and magazine advert. There were some other uses of the software in planning
and research when making concept work such as for the story board and animatic.
•The software was very easy to use as I understand the tolls at a decent level and so could
use the software to create the work I needed for the task.
•The software also allows for the creating of higher quality graphic images which would not
have been easy to do in many other software.
•When making the digipak and magazine I used Photoshop to create the visual effect of the
main character fading into the distance as the software allowed for the use of creating
layers and as a result was easily creatable.

10. Windows Movie Maker
•Windows Movie Maker was another video editing software I used to put together some of
the smaller video works. One example of this was the group mini pitches in which I used this
software to edit the sound together with the images.
•This is a very basic video editor so I could not do much of the complex stuff from “Final cut
Pro” so was kept for the use of smaller works.

11. Microsoft Office
•The Microsoft office package was used a lot during the research and planning stages of the
project and in different ways. Since the package offers diverse forms of software to use
different things were used for different elements of research.
•One example of this was for the audience profile post on blogger I used Microsoft Excel to
draw up the tables used for the post to visually represent the numbers and data for
audience.
•Secondly Microsoft PowerPoint was used for creating PowerPoint presentations such as this
one so show research.
•We used Microsoft Word to write up notes and to-do lists when in the research stages to
be more organized and prepared for the research elements we constructed.

12. Skype
•This is a video call software which we used to keep in contact with eachother to share and
communicate ideas, thoughts and feedback with each other through out the whole stage of
creating our music video, digipak and magazine advert, from the research to even now the
evaluation process.
•This service allowed us to easily contact each other when there were times of struggle or
problems.
•Additionally the software was also used when we had to record group posts like the mini
pitch, in which we all sat in the Skype call and recorded the conversation.

13. Websites

14. Google
•Google is a search engine that also comes with a verity of useful features. These features
include the main search engine to search for websites, a image search when I wanted to find
images like those for the moldboard for example and also comes with useful online tools
that fall under the Google name such as blogger and YouTube.
•The search engine was the main go to when we had to do any research on music videos,
digipaks or magazine adverts or even artists themselves. This meant that we could easily
find want we needed and made the research process a lot more efficient.
•However it was not just the research stage that this website was used. It was used in
almost every post and every stage for simply browsing ideas and to navigate around the
varius websites that were used in the project.

15. Blogger
•Blogger is a blogging software we used in every stage of the process. This was used as a
way to display work for research to the final finished products to have an archive that we
could follow and navigate around. this made it very useful as it meant that everything was in
one place at easy access.
•Additionally blogger was useful as it allowed for the tool to embed and place things such as
videos and Prezi presentations into the blogs. This as well as the many other tools it offered
made it useful and a good tool to use to have as a central hub for all the group and
individual knowledge with collated through the process.

16. YouTube
•YouTube is a video website with an achieve of millions of videos from every form of
interest and hobbies. It provide as a useful tool during the research as well as a place for my
group to post our video works for the use of the blog. Additionally this was also the platform
the final music video was posted on.
•It was very useful during the research stages as we could use this digital technology
platform to browse through different music videos and construct our research into the
tropes of the music video industry.
•Also it allowed for the creation of channels to upload our own content to post on the site
to gain traction and to be available for public viewership.

17. Facebook
•This was a key bit of social media used to get feedback from our audience during research
and the production stages of the product. In research we used this to spread surveys to our
Facebook friends to get their feedback on genre, while in production we used it to survey
our audience to see what they thought of rough cuts of the music video product.
•This was very useful as everyone in our group has access to over 200 people in get
feedback from so potentially opened up a large group of audience for use to get feedback
from. Also the way in which the website works meant that we could get the survey to
spread easily and got plenty of feedback.

18. Prezi
•Prezi is a presentation website in which I used it during the planning, research and
evaluation stages of the construction of the three products.
• It was useful as I was able to present the work in a better way as the website allowed for a
larger variety of different effects to make it look more presentable. The presentations were
also easily compatible with blogger in which I could paste the presentation directly into by
blog to use for the research achieve.

19. Survey Monkey
•This is a website in which the user can make their own surveys to send to the public to
receive data for research or for feedback. We used this website during the research stage for
our music video by asking the audience questions about genre and Survey Monkey was
used as the place to make the survey.
•The website was good as it allowed us to access our audience for research purposes and so
we could get some valuable feedback from them through our survey.

20. Strawpoll
•Strawpoll is another surveying website that we used in the construction stage as a way to
get feedback from our audience through the diferent rough cuts of our music video to see if
they liked it or not.
•This was a easy website to construct and distribute to audience members as long as we
have access to an audience, which is a limitation of the website. Since we did however we
were able to distribute the survey easily and get many useful responses due to the websites
user friendly interface.

21. Soundcloud
•We used this website during the research and evaluation stages of our project. It’s a
website that serves as an achieve for music as well as a place for small music creators to
upload their work to be recognised.
•During the research stage we look at different songs from this website to find artists to see
if their music was the one we wanted. Although we never picked from the site we did look
at a lot of potential choices from Soundcloud.
•We used the website for one of our evaluation questions as it allowed for a recording
software directly onto the website and to easily upload it. This meant that it was easy to use
and upload onto blogger for the blog.