The document discusses how various media technologies were used at different stages of creating a media portfolio, which included a music video and ancillary texts. Blogger was used to plan and track progress, conduct polls, and host all work. YouTube, Wikipedia and social media helped with research, planning conventions and target audiences. Photoshop and Publisher aided text production. PowerPoint, Prezi and Slideshare supported research presentation. Premier Pro was used for video editing. Communication tools like Facebook and phones coordinated with actors. Different cameras, tripods and phones were used for filming. Overall, these technologies helped complete the portfolio.

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

2. In this question I will be discussing how I used
media technologies in the planning, research,
construction and evaluation of my music video
and ancillary texts. I will explain how these
technologies have helped me throughout the
process of creating my A2 media portfolio. Each
of these media technologies have helped me with
much of the creation of my portfolio and will as
such be dedicating a section of this PowerPoint to
each, pointing out how it has helped throughout
each stage of the coursework.

3. Blogger has been an important tool throughout my AS coursework and this continued into
my A2 coursework where it continued to be the place all my work would be uploaded. Due
to experience using it in my first year I was able to jump into using Blogger quickly as I knew
how it worked and what I would need to use it for. Using Blogger allowed me to keep track
of the work I had completed and the work I still needed to do as I could look at the titles of
what I had uploaded to see what was already completed. Also, if something was only
partially completed or if it was a section I had yet to complete but knew I would need to
upload it at a certain point on my timeline I would create a post for it but as ‘need to upload’
or ‘need to finish’ after the title. I was also able to embed all of my that I had completed on
Prezi and Emaze or uploaded on YouTube and Slideshare which made it easier to have a
place which would have access to all my work without having to include multiple hyperlinks
that would take people away from my blog and the rest of my work. Blogger was also helpful
during the production of my music video as I was able to keep a recording diary on the site
which helped me to keep track of the shots I had already completed and what still needed to
be shot. Using Blogger I also created a poll which I used to find out what my audience would
like to see in my music video. I used this poll to form how my music video would look and
believe it was influential in the final outcome of my music video. Overall, Blogger was
helpful during the creation of my portfolio as it was a way for me to keep track of my
progress in the creation of my music video and ancillary test, as well as a good place to keep
my work stored for viewing by my teachers.

4. Web 2.0 was helpful throughout the pre-production and research of my
music video, specifically the use of YouTube allowed me to view music
videos and take inspiration from them which helped me to plan out how
my music video was going to look. This helped me create a video that
looked realistic. Using Web 2.0 helped me to determine conventions of
my genre and who my target audience would be as well as how I would
go about making a video that would aim towards this audience.
Wikipedia was helpful in determining my target audience as I was able to
search a list of artists under my genre and watch videos of their music on
YouTube during the period of time when I had to research conventions of
the music video and videos under my genre. This was also helpful in
deciding on videos I would look to for my textual analysis as I was able to
find out that Imagine Dragons, American Authors and Charli XCX all fit
under the same genre as my song and find videos for songs that I wanted
to take inspiration from. From YouTube, I screenshot the bits of the music
videos that provided me with the most inspiration.

5. Another form of Web 2.0 that was helpful during my course work process was social
media. I used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram throughout the process of making my
portfolio. Facebook was probably the form of social media that provided me with the
most help throughout the process as it gave me a way to communicate with Danny
after his phone had broken. Due to this happening I was worried I would not be able to
get in touch with him to plan out the filming I needed to do with him. However, this
did not turn out to be an issue because I was able to get in touch with him through
Facebook Messenger and we were able to plan shooting through this. Another thing I
used all three forms of social media for was to see what my target audience would be
looking for in a music video. I did this by sending out surveys through all three forms
of social media so that I would gain the most responses I could on my surveys. I again
did this once I had completed my video and ancillary texts, posting them on social
media and asking people to comment on them, stating what they liked and what they
thought I needed to change. I feel this was an effective way to get response on my
product as most people I have on my social media sites are people of that are the age of
my target audience which would directly lead to me gaining my target audiences
opinions. I was able to take the responses I got from my audience and make changes to
my product appropriately.

6. Dafont is a website that I used to gain many of the fonts
for my ancillary texts. I had some experience using this
website in my first year meaning it would be easy for me
to understand what I would need to do to get the fonts. I
used this website as I knew it would give me better fonts
than the regular fonts on Photoshop which would have
looked plain and unprofessional. I think the fonts I used
from this website work well with the theme of my song
and also look good when compared to other digipaks. To
add the fonts to my digipak I would type in what I
wanted it to say and then screenshot the page, crop the
text on Photoshop and then use the paint bucket tool to
change the text to the colour I wanted it to be. Overall,
dafont was a great help in keeping my products looking
professional.

7. Throughout the course of my coursework the main place
for me to present information was on PowerPoint as it
was an easy and good way to share present my work. Due
to this I used PowerPoint a lot throughout my work,
especially in the research and post-production phases of
my coursework. PowerPoint was the place I presented the
largest amount of my work on because of its simplicity to
understand and because of the wide array of ways I could
present stuff, with the only thing it not able to feature is
videos which I instead used Prezi for.
I used Publisher mainly during the production of my
ancillary texts, using it to crop my images to the correct
size to fit on the digipak template as well as creating the
shapes for the background of my digipak as I found it
easier to do it on Publisher than on Photoshop.

8. Prezi is an internet software that I used many times throughout
my coursework as it provided an alternative way to present my
work than simply creating a PowerPoint or Word document. I
was a good way to present my research and planning as it
allowed you to embed videos which PowerPoint did not allow
which made it a much better way to present some of my work
when I needed videos as using PowerPoint would have meant I
would have needed to embed the video separate from the
document on Blogger. The unique way Prezi allows you to
present your information made it a key media technology for
me to use whenever I wanted something different from a
normal PowerPoint. I also believe the way Prezi sets out work
made it the best choice for some of my research, specifically the
history of music videos as it allowed me to have it set out as a
timeline which made sense with the information I wanted to set
out.

9. Slideshare is a website that allows you to upload
your PowerPoints online which allowed me to
embed them on Blogger. I had used this during
my AS coursework so I had experience with it
meaning I knew how it worked which made it the
perfect choice for uploading my A2 coursework
and also meant that PowerPoint was a good
format to use also. I used Slideshare a lot
throughout my portfolio, mainly during the pre-
production and post production stages,
uploading my reseach and storyboard through it
as well as parts of my evaluation.

10. Photoshop was used mainly during the production of my ancillary texts as a way to get them
laid out correctly. Due to using Photoshop in my first year during the production of my
music magazine I knew my way around it and knew I would find it easy to use rather than
leaning how to use an entire new format. Also due to the many photo editing tools featured
on Photoshop it was the first place I thought of to create my digipak and poster. I used many
of the tools featured to create my texts, specifically the crop tool, paint bucket tool, spot
healing brush, text tool and magic eraser tool. I used the crop tool to crop any unwanted areas
of my images as well as when adding my texts from dafont, cropping around the text to make
it easier to cur out. I used the paint bucket tool to change the colour of the background square
as well as changing the colour of the text from dafont which all were originally black. The
magic eraser tool was also very helpful taking the text from dafont as it allowed me to get rid
of the white background around my text which I needed to do for my front and back cover
specifically. The spot healing brush was helpful when editing my images of Danny to remove
and spots he had at the time. Finally, the text tool was helpful to create any text I didn’t take
from dafont. Photoshop was also helpful during to the fact you could change the opacity of
the black and white effect on it which allowed me to add the effect and them turn down the
opacity so that it appeared as a more brownish tint. I also used Photoshop to set out my
digipak by opening the template in Photoshop and saving each of the parts of the digipak as
an image and opening each of them before moving them onto the template.

11. Premier Pro was the editing format that I used to create my music video. I
also had the possibility of using Final Cut Pro that is available at college on
the IMacs but chose to used Premier Pro as I find Macs hard to use and also
because I had access to it at home meaning I could work on my video both
during and out of college hours. I had also had prior experience using
Premier Pro when developing my film coursework during my AS year which
was another reason for me to use this software, although I had to catch myself
up on how to use it. I imported the videos onto premier pro and most of the
time, copied them into my sequence without the sound so that it wouldn’t
effect my video. However, when positioning the lip sync I kept the sound on
so that I was able to make sure the lyrics matched to what Danny was singing
on the video. I then mute the video making it so it appears as though Danny
was singing the song, adding to the realism of the video. The features on
Premier Pro where helpful when creating my video, including the effects they
had access to on the software, with the one I used most often been the cross
dissolve which allowed me to include the feature of having my actress move
around without having it be a jump cut which would have looked unclean.
Overall, I feel the Premier Pro allowed me to accomplish everything I wanted
to with my video and gave me, with it ending up looking the best I could
hope for with the equipment I had.

12. Due to not owning a camera of my own I had to
borrow a verity of cameras from college and friends
meaning my clips didn’t always turn out looking the
same because of the differing cameras I was using.
However, I believe this didn’t effect my video too
much as the clips all fit together well meaning that
the differing cameras didn’t effect my product. On
two of the occasions I borrowed a camera from my
actress Lauren which was helpful as it meant I didn’t
have to worry about borrowing a camera from college
over the weekend or Easter which could be tricky as
many people will want to use them over this time.

13. A tripod was another piece of equipment that I didn’t
have access to meaning that I had to borrow it from
college or from a friend. Again, Lauren had a tripod
making it easy to shoot with her as she would bring hers
for me to use. When I shot with Danny I had to borrow
one from college again so I made sure that I booked one
out in advanced as I didn’t want to miss the opportunity
and not be able to film. Tripods were very helpful during
the filming process as they made sure that my video
remained static and looked professional (however, on a
couple of occasions I wasn’t able to use the tripod due to
how my show was framed). Overall, using a tripod was a
big help in the filming of my music video as it added a
sense of professionalism to it.

14. I used my IPhone 5S at multiple points throughout my
coursework. The main use of my IPhone was to
communicate with my actors during the filming planning
of my video. This was a very helpful way to quickly
communicate at any time I needed to. I also used my
phone during the filming of my video as a way to play the
song when my artist was singing so that that would sing
the song in time to the music meaning that when I was
editing it the lip sync would fit and would look realistic. I
also used my IPhone to take pictures of locations and my
cast shots as it was easier for me to do this rather than
borrow a camera from college to take these couple of
pictures. My IPhone was very helpful throughout the
construction of my portfolio because of its portability and
its multiple uses.

15. Overall, these technologies went a long way to the
completion of my coursework, especially
Photoshop and Premier Pro which allowed me to
create my products. These technologies have
helped me through the process of completing this
work and I would use them again to complete
another piece of work.