This powerpoint was produced to answer the question 'How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?'. Alex Wiley

2. Throughout the course of my media production we used a range of online
technologies to efficiently collaborate with each other to improve the end result
of our media product. Using such services made it more easier for me and the
rest of my team to share information, for example audio, video, text etc.
The technologies we used varies throughout the different stages of the project.
For example search engines were used frequently in the planning and
research stages of the course whereas more in depth programs such as
Premiere was used in the post production stages.

4. CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES USED IN RESEARCH
& PLANNING

5. In the early planning stages of our project it
was vital that we built up an image of what
the indie rock genre was constructed of.
Early evidence of this can be seen by the
use of our mood boards which document
some key images which we thought
appropriately represented the genre.

6. As you can see by using Google we were
able to build up a really comprehensive
mood board to display what we thought
should be reflected in our music video.
Using the search engines also gave us a
good stance by looking at what other
peoples views were when it came to indie
rock. Simply searching indie rock into
Google images can help you to explore
some new avenues that you had previously
not thought of.
Along with using Google for images, we
also did some textual research by using
Google to find pages on Wikipedia and
other neighboring sites. This helped to
further reinforce our knowledge of the
genre.

7. Once we knew which genre we were going
to target, we had to move onto deciding
what artist we wanted to use for our final
piece. This is where YouTube came in.
YouTube is a fantastic platform for browsing
content from all over the world, it certainly
helped us decide our chosen artist.

8. Not only did YouTube allow us to browse a
large variety of content, it always allowed
us to explore artists discography's. For
example if we found an artist whom we
loved the style of, we could delve deeper
into their musical portfolio to find the
perfect song to fit all of our tastes.
We cam across Imagine Dragons, we all
felt that the style of music was perfect for
the visions that we had for our music
video. They are also a very well known
artist in their genre.
Music channel played a big part when
looking for artists, using YouTube’s music
channels it made it easier to find potential
artists.

9. We also used iTunes and Spotify to deeper
analyze our chosen song. This proved very
useful as it gave us better insight to the
meaning behind each lyric used.

10. Once we had picked Radioactive by
Imagine Dragons we each used either
iTunes or Spotify to analyze the lyrics
from the song. Spotify was especially
good for this as they provide on screen
lyrics witch each song meaning we could
use the sound of the song against the
lyrics to make accurate interpretations of
what the song was trying to portray.
I actually signed up to Spotify premium
so that we could use this service as we
found that it far outdid iTunes in terms of
functionality.

11. As we started to gather material and
research I needed somewhere to visually
display my findings. I used Web 2.0 to use
the service ‘Weebly’ to show my media in
the online medium.

12. Weebly is a web design service which allows you
to easily create your own website online for free. I
would usually create my own website manually
however as we had a lot of work to complete this
free and easy to use service was ideal.
I wanted to reflect my interests through my
website hence the technical front cover image. I
separated my website into different sections
which consisted of ‘Coursework’, ‘Video
Planning’, ‘Music Video’ & ‘Evaluation’.
Separating it up into these sections made it easy
to find and locate content for me and my
teachers.

13. We needed a platform that we could bring
all of our research together, a platform to
put ideas into real visualizations. We used
programs such as Word, Powerpoint etc.

14. One key area where we used PowerPoint was to
find images from across the internet, using
Google, to display them all on one canvas in the
form of a mood board. By creating a mood board
it helped us to visualize exactly what we thought
the indie genre consisted of. In turn this allowed
for deeper analysis of the genre.
We used Word to do our lyrical annotations for
our lyrics, this helped us break down the key
parts of the song. Along with the combination of
the moodboard we could start to link lyrics to
onscreen action.

15. We used a range of different equipment in
the research and planning stages of our
project.

16. Non of these technologies would have been
accessible without technology such as Laptops &
phones. Especially laptops/computers as these
featured in each stage of our production.
We ended up using our mobile phones quite a
lot, one key use was searching the song during
our research and planning to listen to the song or
listen to a particular lyric. This provided a fast and
effective method to progress out research and
planning stage.

18. CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES USED IN RESEARCH
& PLANNING

19. In the construction stage of our project, we used
a Song Z7 to capture the bulk footage filmed out
on location. This camera was also used for the
studio shots as it coped best with the low lighting
conditions. The 7Z is a brilliant camera as it has
an incredible depth of field when filming giving a
professional touch to all footage captured.
We also used a Cannon 600D for shots which
required more hand held action, for example
running over muddy or slippy terrain. The cannon
was brilliant for these types of shots as it was
light weight and not as big and bulky as the Z7
however didn’t have the same depth of field as
the 7Z. This did however increase the variety of
shots we could capture. The Cannon was also
used to take the still pictures for our digital
package.

20. We didn’t just want to use an average tripod as
commonly you can see the juttery motion when
panning or tilting. Instead we opted to use the
Manfrotto Tripod which uses pressurized air to
slowly pan and tilt giving a beautiful smooth
motion to shots.
In addition to our tripod, we enlisted the help of
the steady-cam to help out in shows such as the
running shot featured in our video. The steady
cam aided in making the action shots more
seamless and less armature.

21. When it came to filming the studio shots we
wanted to do something really special. We
wanted to create a smoky gloomy type of
environment that made it seem as if Aaron was in
another world entirely. To do this we used a
Smoke Machine which turned a special chemical
into thick smoke to fill the room.
To colour this smoke to reflect key lyrics we used
RGB LED uplighters. We could configure the
RGB in any way we wanted which gave us an
amazing amount of customization in colour along
with specific tones of the colour.

22. Once I had filmed and sorted out all of our
footage, I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to start
editing together our footage. I made key use of
the Folders inside Premiere to group content
together making it much easier to construct a
coherent timeline. Premiere was very useful in
allowing me to precisely match up clips what I
had filmed with the timings of the song. This is
where our lyrical timings came into great use.
I also used Adobe Photoshop to construct out
digital package, using Photoshop gave me great
control over what I could create allowing me to
carry out complex processes such as layer
masking.

23. Premiere CS6 is one of the few non-liner editing
programs out there. It is part of the Adobe CS6
creative suit which is great as it contains all possible
Adobe programs that we could need to create our
final piece.
Premiere supports multiple video formats including
.MT2 which quite a few high end camera record in.
Premiere is also integrated with Adobe Photoshop
meaning Photoshop files can be placed directly into
Premiere. Furthermore you can edit the files in
Photoshop and the changes will be reflected in
Premiere making editing seamless.

25. This is the media bin. Here all of the content
in the project is stored. As you can see I
have sorted out my bin into different folders
to make it easier to see which content is
located where.
When creating the video I also used the bin
to individually name each track which again
made it much easier to drag and drop the
content into it’s correct place.

26. This is the video timeline, here you can see all the active content being displayed
on the screen. In CS6 the timeline is incredible useful as it allows you to expand
layers such as the green audio layer which made it much easier to sync tracks up
with the cuts of the video. The timeline also allows you to visually apple opacity
control along with volume control of the tracks.

27. This is the effects panel, it is where all of
the special effects you apply to items on the
timeline can be configured. I used the
effects panel to create effects such as the
echo effect viewed at the start of the video.
One of the big advantages of this panel is it
allows you to accurately edit each individual
part of an effect making them completely
tailored to your needs.
I used the special effect panel to:
• Apply colour correction
• The addition of visual effects
• Configure tracking motion
• Customize decibel levels

30. I used the studio again to film my answer to
Question 1 of my media evaluation. Again I used
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 as I found it to be the
best program for what I wanted to achieve. In the
past I have used Adobe After Effects CS6 however
this is much more complex to use and would be
unnecessary to use for what I wanted to produce.
I decided to use Chroma Key for my evaluation
which involved filming in front on a green screen
then using the Chroma Key plugin built into
Premiere to remove the green background which
works extremely efficiently. Inside the studio I used
a variety of lighting techniques to get the best
balanced lighting whilst filming which contributed
to the excellent execution of the green screen
work.

31. I utilized web 2.0 by using Facebook and Twitter as
means to share my survey with friends to gain audience
feedback. I also posted the main video on Facebook
which allowed my friends to view the video and leave
comments if they needed to. Sharing it through
Facebook & Twitter also allowed my friends to share it to
their friends which expanded the reach of my media
product. I was able to keep people aware of my videos
presence by posting regular updates about the video
and where you can find it. I found that using both
platforms helped because not everything uses both
services therefore I was covering both bases by using
both networks.

32. I posted my final product to YouTube as
it was a globally know platform where
people could view, like and leave
feedback on the video. This screenshot
was taken in the first week of upload
and it already had 125 views by it being
shared through Web 2.0 which proved to
be effective.

33. I wanted to display my evaluation questions in a format which would entice
people to carry on reading. There would be no point in just writing 4 questions of
plain text as this would leave them in complete boredom.
I decided to use services such as Prezi & Slidesharealong with video based
media to display my answer for the questions. I also used Survey Monkey to
collect data to aid my evaluation.