Wednesday 8 May 2013

Dear Moderator,

Welcome to my blog, i have labelled all my post and they are listed down the side of the blog in the blog archive.

Thursday 6 December 2012

EValuation 4 - Draft


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


The number of unique visitors to social networking sites (including Youtube) collectively is around 250 million per month. which means digital advertising is growing rapidly, with traditional marketing declining. 


This is why we chose to use the following technologies to plan our ancillary texts, produce them and publish them in order to have the best results possible and keep up to date with contemporary technologies.


YouTube - We began to use Youtube to post our pitch that was presented to the class. Our Animoto was also posted onto Youtube, followed by our draft video and then final music video. By using Youtube we could share our work and progress with the world, as well as our classmates/teachers being able to access the site to view our ancillary texts.


Blogger - When creating our ancillary texts it was important that we could share our ideas visually with people. Blogger allowed us to do this throughout the research, planning and evaluation stages. It also helped that all our work, ideas and progress could be found in one place that could be referred back to. Blogger was also very useful when receiving feedback. People could simple visit our blog and comment on our work.

Twitter/Facebook- These are the two social networking sites we used. We decided to use social networking sites to gain 'fans' for the band and mainly to receive feedback from people who used the sites. Twitter was useful because it allowed us (during the research and planning stages) to follow bands of a similar genre/style to 'Intoxicated' and gain some inspiration from them. During the construction of our media texts we could also gain feedback via Facebook, either by posting the work or discussing it with Facebook friends.


Iphone's - Using Iphone's mean't that myself and Steph could communicate easily. Without communication between working partners our organisation would have been very poor and our work may have suffered. Being able to communicate using Iphone's mean't we could use the benefits of and Iphone such as FaceTime. This allowed us to plan when we wanted to film, who we wanted to include in the video, what song we wanted to use and so on. We also took photos of the band on our Iphone's which can be found on our Blog or on my Flickr.


Final Cut Pro - By using final cut pro on the Mac's at school we could work specifically on our music video. This technology offered us professional software for editing.


Imovie - Another software we used for editing was Imovie. This was used when constructing our Animoto. The reason i used Imovie was because it mean't the animatic could be finished at home using a Macbook Pro. Creating more time in lessons for research and panning. We decided not to use Imovie for our Music video because better software was available to us.


Photoshop - My skills on Photoshop have definitely improved during the construction of my ancillary texts. I used photoshop when making the Advert and Digipak. This included the enhancement of band images. Using Photoshop mean't that i could construct a piece of work digitally to enhance my ideas. Therefore i found Photoshop very beneficial.


HD Panasonic Video/stil camera - We used this piece of technology to film both our draft and our final video, making good use of what was available to us. My skills regarding camera work and framing improved during this process. The framing of shots had to be perfect due to us using the projector screen and working in small proximity. The camera allowed us to film a large amount of footage for it then to be uploaded onto a computer and edited.


Tripod- The tripod helped us also when framing shots by keeping the camera steady. It also make enabled the filming to be more mobile.


Macbook pro - Having the advantages of using a Macbook Pro mean't that when planning i could make the animoto in my own time. This was useful because i could focus on my reattach and planning of my other ancillary texts in lesson time. The MacBook Pro also came in handy when researching different music genres, bands, and band style. Photos of the band could also be uploaded onto the Macbook Pro and images could be enhanced using iPhoto. I could also easily access my blog through using this piece of technology. I could also work on my digipak and advert at home by downloading a trial of Photoshop which was very useful for me.


PC - The PC's where only really used at school, to blog ideas and research in the early stages on the task.

Projector screen - When filming our music video the location provided us with a large projector and 'cinema screen'. We didn't initially plan on using this piece of technology but when setting up to film we tried out a few different background and connect the Macbook Pro unto the projector by using a HDMI wire. After trying out a few different backgrounds we selected the ones we liked best and thought they looked really effected with the band stood in front on the screen.



Storyboard- Before constructing our ancillary texts we had to put our ideas down on paper. This meant drawing shots we wanted to include in the video, putting them into order of preference and then taking photos of each drawing they could be put into our animoto.


CD's and digipaks - During the research and planning stages i researched many different digipaks in order to acknowledge the real conventions of real media products. I was also inspired by different colour scheme, fonts, layouts and what the digipak actually contained e.g whether it included lyrics, thank you lists, acknowledgements, credits or 'the making of' the album.

flikr - Flickr was a useful technology i used that enabled me to share photos of the band. Meaning people could access the photos, give us feedback and we could share the images onto social networking sites and blogger. Flickr allowed me to upload a large amount of photo's so i could then chose which ones i wanted to use for my digipak and advert.

The thought of constructing our ancillary texts without the above technologies would definitely have been a struggle and even unrealistic. Although by using the technologies we could make a product 'brand' that actually uses conventions and looks like a real media package.