evaluation question 4 for A level media

1. Evaluation question 4: How did
you use new media
technologies in the
construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
By Fin Hicks

2. Tumblr
 Tumblr is the main focus point for my media coursework as that was where I
had to post all of my work. This is where I would upload my work onto my
blog which would include all my research into theories and the music industry
too. I also put the planning onto here to which included all of my storyboards
and also all of my evaluation questions. Tumblr is a social media platform
where anyone is able to upload photos, videos or texts on what ever they
want and you are able to follow people with the same interests as you.
Tumblr makes it really easy to embed links like Prezi and slide share as well as
YouTube links to videos which would allow me to upload work that I had done
on other platforms. The text section of Tumblr was good as it allowed me to
explain my work in detail.

3. DSLR Camera
 The camera that we used was a Nikon D3200 using this allowed us to film in
HD quality allowing us to get the best quality shots that we wanted. The
camera was also light which made it easy to use especially when we used a
steady cam to get some smooth movement shots. When filming we came
across some difficulties like the batteries on the camera ran out of battery
quite quickly which meant on our first shoot we had to stop early as we forgot
to bring the second battery and thought the first one would last us the whole
shoot. To overcome this on the next shoot we made sure we brought more
than one battery so that we could shoot all the shots we needed to without
having to go back and finish it off. Also the quality of our shoots from year 12
to now was much better as we had learnt from the mistakes we made then
and improved them by using a steady cam rather than using a hand held shot.

4. Adobe Premier Pro
 Adobe premier pro was one of the most important parts of making our music
video as we used it to edit all of the shots that we had taken together adding
effects and making sure each transition was a smooth and clean as possible.
As a group we were really lucky to be able to use a piece of software which is
used in the industry by lots of editors however AVID is still used by many of
them. Premier pro allows you to speed up or slow down footage as well as
cut it to the part of the clip that you want use. Premier pro was also used in
the planning stage as we used it for our focus group and animatic. The one
problem with premier pro was that it kept deleting some of the files that we
had put on the timeline which we had to then re upload into the software and
then put them back onto the timeline.

5. Slide share
 slide share allows you to upload a word or PowerPoint document onto this
software which then you can link onto you blog. Also it makes it a lot easier to
put the PowerPoint and word document onto your Tumblr blog if they are
uploaded to slide share first as it is only one file you are putting onto it not
one or two. I have used slide share for all stages of my music video. The
planning stage I uploaded some word documents to slide share like my
shooting schedule. For my evaluation I uploaded question 4 onto slide share.
Since I have been using slide share I have had no problems to deal with as it is
easy to use a reliable at all times.

6. Adobe Photoshop
 Photoshop like premier pro is owned by Adobe and is a software used for
editing images and photos only. Lie premier pro it is a software used in the
industry so we are really lucky to be able to use this software. Photoshop
allows you to shape, cut/crop, add text and change the original image of a
photo. We used Photoshop throughout the whole production stage as the text
at the beginning of the music video was made in Photoshop and saved as a
png so that it had a clear background which we could then put over the top of
the video. The first time I used Photoshop was last year which I struggled with
and had to get help from a fellow classmate however this year once I
remembered how to do everything it didn't’t take me long to make my digipak
and advert as it is simple to use once you know which tool does what.

7. Mobile Phones
 With the recent development of mobile phones especially IPhone it is hard for
us not to use our mobile phones. I used my phone when we were filming so
that we could get the lip syncing right so we played the song on my phone
which made it easier to know which lyrics we needed for that part of the
song. Overall using the phone was really good and didn't’t cause any
difficulties for us at all.

8. YouTube
 YouTube was one of the most important parts of all three components of
making the music video. It allowed us to upload the final video to it and then
place it into our blogs for the production stage. We also used it for our
animatic and focus group in the planning stage. This was the easiest way of
uploading and work which was in a video format onto our blogs. However it
did pose one problem which was that when exporting a video it would take a
good hour which was difficult during school time and was hard to work
around. Also YouTube allowed me when I was talking about the theories and
also analyze professional music videos, as we had to upload a link to them in
you blog when referring to them which with YouTube was quick and easy and
took no time at all.

9. Google
 I used Google a lot in all three stages of the making of my music video. In the
planning and research stage I used it to research all the theorists and then in
planning stage I used Google to get all the photos for my equipment list and
props etc.. Google acted as a gateway for websites like Tumblr, Slide share
and YouTube, as a search engine there is none better than Google as many
people use is as the default.