Evaluation Question 4 (Final) // Nathan Beard

Evaluation Question 4

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

Research and Planning.

Technology was heavily used during this stage, and in many ways was one of the most used tools. I used a MacBook Pro with Retina Display and a Windows PC (Lenovo X1 Carbon and generic desktop) to carry out most of the secondary research on areas such as clothing, video techniques, existing media products amongst many others. The way I got to the answers I was looking for varied and usually included Google (used to search for results about the topic that I was researching, including the images platform), Tumblr (for finding images and posts relating to various topics), Wikipedia (For looking up aspects of my research usually filming techniques or narrative theorists and such like), UK Tribes (This was essential in determining our target market), YouTube (another essential piece of software for looking into existing media products). I then used Keynote/Pages and PowerPoint/Word (to present the research). Blogger was also used to publish my research on the internet so that it could be assessed and to make it easier to look through. The web browsers I used were Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox

Ancillary Tasks production
Photoshop CC (and CS6 at school) was used primarily to create my digipak and magazine advert as this software makes it easy to move items and create visuals. I used disk wizards to download a template so that I find need to add all the measurements in. I also used an online barcode generator to make a custom barcode so that my digipak was more professional. All of this software was run on a MacBook Pro Retina, Windows PC (Lenovo X1 Carbon and generic desktop) and iMac and when a web browser was required Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge was used. Other software such as Keynote, PowerPoint, Word, Pages, Preview and few others were used in passing. As with the R&P section Blogger was used throughout this section.

Construction
Pre-production
For the pre production element of the video we used a range of iPhones (5,5s,6s Plus) to develop the storyboard and test the shots, we also used the phones to create images of the storyboards we created in oder to post them on Blogger so that they could easily be found and referred back to. In addition to this the iPhone 6s Plus was used to create an 'animatic' for both the storyboards in order to give a closer representation of what the video would look like. To edit these videos, we used Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro CC as well as iMove, the software was run on a range of computers, MacBook Pro Retina, Windows PC (Lenovo X1 Carbon) and iMac. These 'animatic' videos were then uploaded to youtube and embedded into a blogger post.

Production
During the production phase, we used a variety of technologies the most important of which was the iPhone 6s Plus we used for filming, our entire video was shot on this device using a mix of the standard Apple camera application, and FiLMiC Pro (a professional camera application allowing manual controls for aspects such as focus and exposure), this application allowed us to create the fade in shots and lock the exposure so that it wouldn't auto just in the video. The application makes the video form the iPhone 6s Plus DSLR quality. I then used a Microsoft Surface, an Apple iPad or a MacBook Pro Retina to review the footage and ensure the quality of what we were taking. We also used a battery operated LED light in order to better the lighting (a tool that was crucial, given that we were filming during the dark). A further technology we used was Apple Music (or Spotify) to stream the song so that the actors could sing to they music (this also made it easier to edit as I was able to match the music to the sound on the editing software in post production). We used an iPhone 4 and 5 for this part, in some cases paired to a speaker. Blogger was also used

Post Production
This phase required a high amount of technology, due to the nature of what it entails, firstly we used Final Cut Pro X in combination with Adobe Premiere Pro CC (for some effects) to edit the video, using iMovie to import the raw footage (or directly into Adobe Premiere Pro CC on PC) from the iPhone 6s Plus it was taken on. The editing software was run on a MacBook Pro Retina, Windows PC (Lenovo X1 Carbon), iMac and Mac Pro. These machines were chosen due to the fact that they could provide enough performance to edit efficiently. We used the combination of the software with the hardware we chose in order to make our video visually exciting, and make it as close to established media products as we could. Other technologies we used during post production was Apple iTunes, this was essential as we needed to purchase the song in order to use it in our video. I also made use of Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay H8 headphones to tune the audio of the video.

Support Technologies And Evaluation
We also used other technologies that supported the categories above such as Twitter, this was used to Tweet as the band in order to create a more authentic feel, Vimeo, a video platform that we aloud posted our video to, bing (in order to search for some items), Adobe Lightroom CC (in order to edit photos for the blog and twitter) and Squarespace for the logo.
For my evaluation I used a range of different presentation services and products, such as Adobe Photoshop, Infogram, Word/Scribd and PowerPoint/Slideshare.

Evaluation Question 4- Draft

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

For the planning stages of the video, I used some different methods in order to get the best ideas possible for the music video. For example to get ideas for the timings of the video I used YouTube on the internet in order to find the video we are doing, Undercover Martyn by two door cinema club, in order to get the right timing of the shots and the right kind of shots we need to do in order to make a certain successful and accurate video. We also did a storyboard in so we could order the shots and make a different kind of video to the original one. The story board was important for us because we needed to set out a basic plan of shot ideas and camera angles. To get the story across in a more animated style we have done an animatic which shows the story but into a digital format which will show a better interpretation of the video without having to actually see the way that the video is going to be shot and the way that it is ordered. Also I used the twitter and Facebook app in order to gain different inspiration from different sources.

I used blogger in order to keep up to date with progress that I had made in the research and planning stage of the video. Blogger allowed me to post different ideas, and to keep up with the information that I am getting from different media products. I found that blogger was an excellent way in order for me to keep organised in the process of going through the research and planning of my music video and digipak. I found that blogger was also a great way of me getting feedback, not just from the teacher but from my peers and classmates that wanted to comment on any work or any research that I have done.

For the construction stage of the music video, while we were filming we used the camera from an iPhone 6s Plus which shoots at 4k resolution also we used an app called FiLMiC Pro which gave us manual control for exposure and focus and other aspects of effects. This made the process of filming and editing more simplistic for us because it was easier to get the footage from the Phone onto the laptop, which is where we were doing the editing.  Also for the filming stage of the music video, we used a LED light which helped us because we did our filming in the dark; the light helped us to light up the area that we were using. The light also helped to show better facial expressions and change the atmosphere of the video and how the performers were reacting to the music. For the editing stage of constructing the music video, we used Final Cut Pro X which helped us to edit the video and get the best finish for the video.

For the planning stages of my digipak I used Google and Google images in order to get pictures and ideas of the different digipaks that are out there. The ideas I got are from the internet with research from Google and from different ideas I got from displays in the media classroom.

For the construction of my digipak and my advert I used a windows PC which featured the Photoshop software. This software allowed me to create a good and authentic digipak and magazine advert. There are professional tools and effects that can be used on the pictures. For my digipak I used the cut tools in order to cut out a photo of the three band members which then was my front cover and the main image on the magazine advert. I also used the rectangle tools In order to create white backgrounds which I then made completely white so that the digipak all looked professional. I also used the text tools which allowed my too write on the digipak.

Overall I believe that technology was vital for creating the music video and the digipak and magazine advert. Without these key pieces of technology then I wouldn’t have been able to create the kind of work that I did.