The student used various media technologies at different stages of their project. They used the blogging platform Blogger to plan and track their progress, finding it easy to set up and integrate media. YouTube provided a resource for research and to distribute their music video. They filmed using a HD camera and iPhone, editing with Final Cut Pro and iMovie to sync the video and music. Photoshop was used to design promotional materials, having gained experience with the similar GIMP software.

1. QUESTION 4
How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?

2. BLOGGER
This year in A2 we had to change from using paper and printed creativity to using a
Blog this was something I easily adapted to as blogger was easy once you’d set up
the layout and done the first blog entry. I also downloaded the app on my iPhone
so I could access it at any time to work on it. Although the app wouldn’t allow me
to change font or embed other technologies it allowed me to get the basic
information down. Below is a screen shot of the research page of my blog, I’ve
decorated it to be personal to me. Blogger is a lot easier and is easier to tie in
with media rather than putting all my work in a folder than last year, it has also
helped me broaden my technological knowledge.

3. YOUTUBE
Youtube is another example,of a website that helped me with my technological
journey. Before doing the course Youtube was just something for me to watch
funny videos on before starting my media course, however now it is an essential
for me to do research and have free easy access to millions of videos that I can
share and embed. It also is one of the websites used for me to distribute our
music video and allow millions of people to easily access and see it.

4. iPhone and Camera
To actually film our music video we used a Hitachi HD Handheld camera and an
iPhone, both are high quality film. The HD handheld camera could be used with
a tripod, so this means that I could get a more steady and level shot with it,
however the iPhone was easily accessible as it was my phone and could take a
film at any time, where as with the Camera we had to collect it from the
classroom and because it was heavier and didn’t want to carry it in our bags all
the time we only brought in when we all organised to bring it. On the basis of
technology they were both easy to use

5. Editing Software
For editing, in AS we used final cut pro and Imovie, we reused these softwares this
year however had to use them in a lot more detail as a music video needs to
match up with the beat and make sure the lip singing and music were synced in,
so we had to use the chopping tools in more detail. Also we used a lot of special
effects in our music video so had a chance to play around and worked out how
all the colour changing and overlapping effects worked, which we didn’t really
have to do in our thriller trailer in AS. The editing process was a lot more in
depth this year and therefore took longer, also my creativity and ideas of
originality now have higher standards due to my experience with media. This
means that we had to really go further to outshine our AS and make ours the
best that It could be, where as last year it was the first time we had done
anything like that so our ideas of originality and creativity weren’t as high.

6. PHOTOSHOP
For our ancillary task, to produce our advert and digipak, I used a combination of
GIMP for windows and Photoshop for the Mac. Because I don’t own a Mac at
home I used GIMP to do the basics as it is a simplified version of photoshop that
is free to download off the internet. It allowed me to colour change and add a
supernova effect, along with airbrushing and other tools but didn’t give that
professional finish like Photoshop gives you. So I would do the basics on GIMP
and then come to school and finish it off with Photoshop. I have used GIMP in
the past so had a bit of prior knowledge on photo manipulating softwares,
however had never used Photoshop. This was something that I had to learn as
we didn’t use it at all at AS.

7. PHOTOSHOP
For our ancillary task, to produce our advert and digipak, I used a combination of
GIMP for windows and Photoshop for the Mac. Because I don’t own a Mac at
home I used GIMP to do the basics as it is a simplified version of photoshop that
is free to download off the internet. It allowed me to colour change and add a
supernova effect, along with airbrushing and other tools but didn’t give that
professional finish like Photoshop gives you. So I would do the basics on GIMP
and then come to school and finish it off with Photoshop. I have used GIMP in
the past so had a bit of prior knowledge on photo manipulating softwares,
however had never used Photoshop. This was something that I had to learn as
we didn’t use it at all at AS.