Question 4

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

2. Research
 My chosen genre I had to research into was the indie/folk genre as well as this I also
had to research my artist, digipaks and album advertisement. When in research I
found that many web 2.0 sites such as YouTube, magazine/ news articles and social
media were best for obtaining information for all areas of my chosen topics.
YouTube proved useful in my research as it provides so many videos, from this I was
able to specifically look for music videos in my specific genre for my to explore and
browse for videos for me to analyse and later upload to Wix. Google as a whole was
most commonly used in research though despite it’s lack of reliability as it may bring
sites up that are not entirely truthful but I knew what to look out for and miss sites
such as Wikipedia, etc.
 Most significant new technologies to use to their full capabilities when in the
research stages were social media and magazine articles as social media sites such as
Twitter and Facebook upheld more current and relevant information I needed for my
researching tasks such as researching my artist and genre which require up to date
information and also these sites were able to show me current digipak designs so I
could see what artists were producing alongside my production.
 For my production I had to gain audience research for my chosen genre and artist
and see what my audience had to say, their thoughts and input with this I am then
able to convey their thoughts to my planning stages, to achieve this I used google
forms . I used Google Forms online which allowed me to create my questionnaire
very quickly and simply and as it’s created online I was able to send it out to the
masses of target audience which gave me very representative data, this lead to me
producing graphs and charts, which became very helpful as Google Forms is able to
do this which means for me that my data was easy to analyse and create visual aids
alongside statistical data.

3. Range in technologies I have used
 Google Drive- software created by Google to allow cloud space for it’s user and it
here you are able to create Google Forms which from there made it possible for me
to send out a variety of questionnaires over the time of my project for constant
feedback also these can be send out to multiple people whom fall under my target
audience range and with Google Sheets this enables me to analyse all of my
responses very quickly and effectively. All in all Google Drive has been successful use
of software for me as I found it easy to use and seems much more effective than
other programs that claim to do the same i.e. Survey Monkey.
 YouTube- This video sharing site I found very helpful, as not only was I able to view
music videos for me to analyse to put up onto my Wix website but it also was used
as a source of information although not heavily reliable verified channels enable to
sift and sort through to the trusted and reliable channels, from these I found
information for some of my research tasks i.e. History of the Music Video and also
information on my Music Video Director. These videos to gave me the information in
short videos and if that was to be transcripted onto a website the information I was
looking for would of taken me longer to find.
 Microsoft Office- Throughout my posts I had previously all wrote them up on
Microsoft word than transferred them to Wix I found this helpful as Microsoft Word
is a program I am familiar with and I find on Word there’s full editing options to
change the way the your work portrays which I find most appealing to word as when
writing on the Wix websites such editing capabilities are difficult to use or non
existent.

4. Planning and Construction
 When it came to planning and constructing my final tasks, my video and ancillary tasks, I veered
away from using website programs and used much more technical software such as Adobe
Photoshop CS6 to create and edit my ancillary task pieces and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 for
professional editing to my music video. But to film my music video I used the Canon digital
bridge camera to capture my footage and take the stills I later used for my ancillary tasks.
 Adobe Photoshop CS6 was software I had only ever briefly used before and had very little prior
knowledge on how it operated. So before I started my ancillary task we got taught the basics on
how to create special features and effects to a image. Once that was learnt I had quite easily
picked up the skills to create a specialist image which was what’s needed for my ancillary task.
By the time of the completed ancillary tasks I feel my skills developed dramatically showing
drastic improvements from my mocked Photoshop drafts onto my final pieces the level in
quality are very recognisable.
 Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 is the software I used to edit my footage together. With this software I
had some prior knowledge to it as it’s the same software I used for my AS horror opening. Since
I had last used it there had been an increase in the amount of features and after effects
available to use, but there wasn’t too much of an issue as when making a music video it isn’t
going to need the same amount of editing and features added as much as a feature film would
so once you found out what kind of features and effects you need for your music video it wasn’t
much of a hassle. In addition to this services like YouTube were able to provide me with
tutorials on how to do anything and everything my example is with changing the speed of my
footage which I had done with the kite motif, I search for how to change the speed of my
footage and within seconds there was useful videos on how to do that. A task I had to
overcome which I previously hadn’t during AS was lip syncing, this was a very time consuming
and perfectionists task as it required stretching out and then carefully cropping my footage in
order to look as professional as possible. I feel my development from AS to A2 has significantly
improved and I believe my music video really shows that I have demonstrated my knowledge
the editing feature such as the fast colour corrector colour wheel and fade transitions to their
full potential.

5. Photoshop CS6
First Draft
Final
Piece

6. Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 Editing
Examples
Fast colour corrector colour wheel
Example of a fade transition

7. Evaluation
 As I came to my evaluation I used a range of presentational technologies such as
Prezi, Visme, SlideShare and also Microsoft Word, Outlook and PowerPoint.
 Visme, Prezi are web programs designed for their users to create professional
looking presentations of what I have learned and these web programs have allowed
me to present in a much more creative and entertaining way than the bog standard
PowerPoint, thus the audience are more likely to be engrossed in my work if they are
interactive with my work as it make my work enjoyable for them to view so they are
less entitled to not read it.
 SlideShare is a web program I can upload my PowerPoint’s too and from their I can
edit them again to become more engaging and interactive with my viewer enticing
them to my work as they then won’t loose concentration.
 Microsoft programs came in very handy; Word enables me to write up Evaluation
question 1 before transferring it over onto my Wix blog, doing this enabled me to
find structure within my text and also I could get a constant check of my spelling,
punctuation and grammar yet again so my audience wouldn’t become disinterested
as it was poorly typed. Outlook was used effectively as I was able to send out my
final audience feedback which was vital for question 3. Lastly PowerPoint this was
necessary to create a presentation for then it to be uploaded to SlideShare to be
made more interactive for viewing.

8. Wix
 This was the technology I had used throughout my coursework from start to
finish, the hub of where I was to store my portfolio work, on Wix it is possible to
see all of my developments and improvements over the duration of my
coursework. From the start of the course I had not previously worked on Wix so
was quite in the dark about how it worked and how I could make the most out
of it presentational wise so it could look as aesthetically pleasing as possible for
an interested audience. But after a term of the course and getting to terms with
posting and playing around with settings on my page I become much more
familiar with how to use Wix and veered away from scrambled Wix posts but a
move towards list building with buttons which re-direct you to sub-pages giving
a professional feel to your Wix posts as it feels as though you are on a
professional website as a comparison to last year’s portfolio which was on
Blogger, Wix seemingly is much more advanced is much more aesthetically
pleasing than Blogger as on Wix the possibilities of exhibiting your work are
endless. I have become very successful with the displaying of my work I find it
very easy working my way around the site nothing is too hard to find.