How did you use media tech in construction, planning and evaluation stages?

Chereece Skeete

When conducting my research I used a range

of technologies…

ResearchWhen I first started conducting my research I already had a genre in mind, therefore I used self-broadcasting websites such as ‘YouTube’ to research songs and artist that fell into my chosen genre category of Indie. The ‘Google’ search engine was also a helpful tool as it enabled me to search for indie artist, digipak style models and templates that I put to good used during the planning process. For this research I mainly used an iMac, as the internet response is fast and it is capable of having more than a couple programs running at once.

I also used Social media sights such as Facebook to gain an insight into who the target audience where for my chosen genre. I conducted a lot of the social media research from my mobile phone, as it was portable and easier to navigate than using a desktop computer. I also used my mobile internet to conduct smaller amounts of research when I was away from the iMac. I often researched song lyrics, YouTube clips and Blogger to post my progress.

I also MTV music channels that showed the videos to the music they were playing. This was I could get a visual idea of what locations where popular for what genres. I found this to be good as this was something I could do while not at school, and I could really take the time out to analyse the videos, camera angles and conventions of the genres.

Blogger- Research&Planning

I used the Google based website blogger as a way of presenting my work in an organised collection of blog posts. I did this because not only did it allow me to track the process of my work but I could write about my pieces of work and analyse them.

Blogger is a great piece of technology because it allows you to embed images and videos, which enabled me to be able to share my work and also pieces of research that I wanted to keep. It also allows you to hyperlink websites, therefore enabling me to use other software's and link them to my blog for others to see.

Blogger is also a mobile app, which meant anytime I got an idea I could note it down and either post it or save it to my drafts for later.

ConstructionDuring the construction I used the iMac as my base of operations, all footage was uploaded here and save both the the desktop and backed up in a shared folder. I used the iMac to run software such as iMovie and Photoshop.

To record my footage I used a Canon digital camera, I found this camera a lot easier to use as it was hand held and could attach to a tripod if necessary. Once my footage was recorded I would import it to iMovie and begin post production.

iMovie was a new piece of software for me and therefore it took me a little while to get used to it, however after putting the hours in I learnt how to successfully navigate the software.

Because I had already created a storyboard during the planning it was simple to follow the scenes in chronological order and piece them together using iMovie.

iMovieI used the iMovie software to piece together and edit my video. I developed my skills during the process of creating our pre-lim task and therefore when creating my main task I was able to navigate my way around the software. This made the creative process run a lot more smoothly, especially because this software has templates that you can use to represent the scenes that haven’t been filmed yet.

I also believe this software is very good quality however, it is very simplistic which means you cannot create a more complex video.

PhotoShopBecause I used photoshop last year to create my magazine in my foundation portfolio I already had a basic knowledge of the software but still my skills where very minimal. This year however I used YouTube tutorials to figure out how to use different tools and effects correctly. For example for my digipak and advertisement I used silhouettes which I created myself using my own original images and black colour overlays.

Social MediaI used social media as a platform to post images of my products and gain feedback from my target audience.

EvaluationFrom my audience feedback I have concluded that my products match and appeal to the correct genre and target audience. There Were many comments on the consistency of the house colours throughout both products, however there are still improvements that could be made and my audience have pointed that out which means this is something I would improve upon in the future.