The document discusses how various media technologies were used at different stages of planning, researching, and evaluating a media project. Web 2.0 technologies like YouTube, Blogger, Prezi, and Google Chrome were used extensively for research and planning by allowing access to existing media examples and presentations. iMovie was used for editing draft music videos. Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and Photoshop were also used to create presentations, tables, and images to support different stages of work.

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

2. Before planning my media products I first had to research into
existing products in order to understand the codes and conventions
that are specific to form and genres. This included watching music
videos of my preferred genre – indie rock- and noting the key
elements that made Indie Rock music videos recognisable to their
genre. This included deconstructing the music video in terms of the
mise en scene, cinematography and editing. To be able to do this I
used the online video site of YouTube to access the videos and to be
able to post them onto my blog to make an analysis of all the areas I
intended to look at including location. From analysing several
existing media I was then able to understand the conventions of form
also, such as music video's and editing to the beat of the music and
the element of narrative such as performance, narrative and abstract.
To access both YouTube and blogger and other online devices I had to
use Web 2.0 in the form of Google Chrome. It was Web 2.0 that
allowed me to conduct a huge part of my research. Additionally, I used
an online presentation called Prezi to not all my research, alongside
Microsoft office power point that I was already familiar with.

3. Web 2.0, formally known as the internet, provided me with
the exploration I needed to research into the convention and
forms of my campaign. These were a music video, a magazine
advertisement and a digipak. It is the access to web 2.0 that
allowed me to access Blogger, to present my work, YouTube to
gain inspiration and to produce analysis’ and to produce
online presentations and animations on Prezi and Go
Animate. With out the use of the internet I do not think I
would have been able to research into the forms and
conventions to the extent in which I did. The used Google
chrome for my research and planning as it allowed me access
to videos that required flash player. As I am very much aware
of how to work Google and what to search in order to gain the
information I want I used google frequently throughout my
research and planning.
Google Chrome – Web 2.0

4. Blogger allows other media forms to be posted on blogs
therefore because I wanted to use as many different media
forms as possible to make my blog more interesting I used
Blogger to keep all my work in one place. I uploaded my
conventions of form in the form of a Prezi and created the
identified conventions of indie rock on Go Animate. These
additions to my blog meant I could access my work from
anywhere as long as I had access to web 2.0 and therefore
could keep referring back to them to keep with conventions.
Additionally some of my findings I posted straight on to a
post on blogger to present my work in a variety of media
forms. On blogger I also created a blog poll to find out who
visited my blog and what kind of music they were interested
in. this helped me to define my target audience as well as
understand what they would like to see in my music video.

5. YouTube allowed me to access a variety of different
music videos and from this I conducted my analysis of
the mise en scene, narrative and setting,
cinematography and editing. YouTube was the main
media technology that allowed me to gain inspiration
into what I wanted to create with my media products
and what features work well within a music video. This
gave me the confidence to feel I was able to produce a
music video and ancillary texts that fit in with my
chosen genre and featured both the codes and
conventions. A task set involved looking at the history of
music videos and without the use of YouTube I would
not have been able to access the material I needed to
understand how the developments of music videos have
occurred over time. I also used YouTube to upload my
draft music videos to gain feedback from my target
audience and peers.

6. Prezi is an online presentation site that allows you access to your
created presentations as long as you have access to web 2.0. This
was a very helpful site to use as I could work on my coursework in
my own time from home and could also work from my phone
which was very helpful. I created several Prezi’s in the research
and planning of my media campaign to present my findings and
ideas in a more creative way rather than simply on a blog post.
Prezi has set layouts that help you to achieve the presentation you
want to achieve and these layouts can also be altered which was
hand for me when I wanted to add an additional slide when
researching into media theorists. I presented my ideas for costume
and make up on a Prezi to allow a more interactive feel to my
coursework and it allowed me to understand just what look I
wanted to create with the characters in my first idea of narrative.
My first story board was also out onto a Prezi which allowed me to
keep all of my storyboard in one place and made it easy to follow
for both myself and my media teachers who were overseeing my
work. As Prezi also allowed videos from YouTube to be uploaded to
your presentation I was able to show my animatic I had created
alongside my storyboard which was very helpful.

7. Go Animate is also an on online website that allows you
to create animations. These animations can also be in
the form of presentations with moving art and images. I
chose to produce a Go Animate style presentation for
the findings of my research into the conventions of the
indie rock genre. Go animate allowed me to present my
findings in an interactive way and enabled me to use
moving art and images which made it more interesting
to read, alongside illustrations that were able to explain
my findings as well as just written.

8. Microsoft Power Point is a presentation software that
allows you to create presentations which can include
images, videos and apply transitions. Blogger does not
allow PowerPoint presentations to be uploaded so
therefore I created slides which then I turned into jpeg
images. This was the format that allowed my to upload
my work on to my blog. As blogger does not allow you to
change the positioning of images and add shapes etc. , I
created my textual analysis on PowerPoint and then
uploaded them onto Blogger as a Jpeg this allowed me to
conduct a clear analysis that I could refer back to when I
needed to. I also created an audience profile on
PowerPoint that enabled me to understand what my
target audience’s other interests are and how I can
appeal to them for example through the social media
and the type of food, products and clothes.

9. Microsoft Office is a word document that allows
additional features such as creating tables. I used
Microsoft word to create a health and safety table in the
planning stage of my campaign. Creating a health and
safety table allowed me to assess the possibilities that
could occur in relation to health and safety whilst
filming. By creating this table I could assess the risk and
put in place preventative measure to ensure both myself
and cast members were safe during filming.

10. The camera I used for the images for my ancillary texts
and images of my original cast members is a Nikon
Coolpix L120 which is a bridge camera. This was my
own camera which meant I has access to it all of the
time which was handy when I was filming at locations
out side of the college and in New York. I used my
camera to take images of hull marina for the ancillary
texts and in New York also for my ancillary texts. As I
was very familiar with the use of the camera I was able
to adjust the settings such as macro and portrait to suit
the image I intended to capture.

11. iMovie is a movie editing software on apple IMac computers. This is the editing
software I started using when I had my initial idea of a narrative video with the
song ‘Breezeblocks’ by Alt J. I chose to use this software as I was familiar with it
from my previous school. I felt this software was very straightforward to use as
it involved essentially dragging and dropping the my selected footage on to the
time line. On iMovie it is very simple to split and trim clips to the length you
wish, and changing the speed and duration is very simple it is because of this I
chose to use iMovie.

12. Other tools such as ‘Ken Burns’ allowed me to
change the size of my clip by altering to the
start point and finishing point of the clip with
a zoom. This tool is under the cropping &
rotation option and was useful when I wanted
to slowly zoom into his face for effect. You can
also alter the speed of the zoom by moving the
arrow which indicates speed.

13. To add my music clip to my time line I had to first add my
track to iTunes and then select it via the sounds option and
drag and drop it. This proved very easy and allowed me to use
my skills of iTunes in combination with the iMovie
programme.
Adding transitions and effects to the clips is very straight forward as it is simply a
drag and drop process allowing editing to be quick and simple. There are several
different effects that are able to be added to the clips to get the desired effect you
want. These include vignette, day to night, romantic and sci-fi along with others. The
day to night effect was very useful for me in creating a dark scene connoting a glum
atmosphere, this was essential as after analysing music videos of the indie rock
genre I noticed that dark lighting and shadows were used as a convention of indie
rock.