Evaluation Activity 4

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

I constructed this image to show the logos of the websites and programs that I have used over the course of this project. The size of each icon relates to how much we used it and how largely it influenced our project.

We used Prezi to create a couple of presentations during this project, including the presentation for our initial music video pitch. This website was useful for creating suave and interactive presentations, and offers something different compared to normal presentation programs.

Google was a useful website during the research stages of our project as it allowed us to search for other websites such as the Atlantic Records website and the Skepta website which I analysed.

Photoshop was of course a key program for us as we used it to add all the text and effects on the images for our digipak and the image for our magazine advert.

Blogger was obviously a key website for us, as this is where our progress was tracked and all our tasks can be found at different stages of completion. Without Blogger it would be impossible to track our progress and there would be no forum to post our work.

Twitter is a website which also came in handy as I used it to post the final cut of my video to my 376 followers and request feedback via Youtube comments. This was a useful method to reach a large audience as many of my followers are active web users and are likely to have Youtube accounts to comment, and many of my followers are also active users of Twitter especially in the evening, around 8pm-12am, the time bracket which I posted in.

Speaking of Youtube, this website was also vital as we used it to upload rough cuts of our video and other key videos such as our director's commentaries. Youtube is known to be the best online streaming website which is why we chose to use it, and the comments section allowed us to recieve easy and direct feedback.

Finally, the key program we used throughout this project was Final Cut Express. This program is great for editing videos and we used it to create our rough cuts, our final cuts, our director's commentaries, and our audience feedback videos (seen in evaluation task 3). All the effects visible in our final cut such as the earthquake effect and defocus effect, were added to clips via Final Cut Express.

As well as these websites and programs, we also used a variety of technological equipment during this project.

The mac above was the source of the editing programs we used; Photoshop for our pictures, and Final Cut Express for our videos, including our actual final piece. It was a privelege to have such efficient software and equipment provided by our college.

We used a light reflector for some of our shots in order to improve the lighting and direct it in a specific way. The main scene we used this in was the scene of Josh rapping in his bedroom, as we directed the shine from the ceiling light onto his face and body.

The tripod was vital as it allowed us to get steady, professional looking shots, especially in the music booth, which is where we used it most, with handheld shots being appropriate for much of the rest of our video.

The dolly was not used much in our video, however it proved useful for the shot of Josh taking out his iPod in his house as he walked towards the camera, as we rolled it back steadily on the tripod which of course was attached to the dolly. Using the dolly and tripod together meant that our shot could remain steady but also enabled camera movement.

Finally, the most important piece of equipment was the camera. We used a Canon HD video camera in order to record all of our shots, which we then uploaded to the Mac via a cable, before importing into Final Cut Express of course. This piece of equipment was irreplacable and expensive, and we were grateful to have it provided by our college. The camera was good because it was light and comfortable to hold, meaning it was easy to manouvere during handheld shots, and also the detachable piece of plastic seen on the bottom allowed the camera to be attached to a tripod when necessary. We also took pictures for our digipak on this camera, using the photo function. This gave the pictures a great HD look, and were great quality compared to what most digital cameras are capable of.