Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

By: Khem Slawson

Research & Planning

These are the software's and hardware's we have used throughout research and planning:

• Internet – Google is one of the search engines that everyone uses to search the web. This was one of the software we have used most of the times as it was helpful for us to do some research and planning for our coursework. It is easy to use the search engine bar and it gives a lot of list on where you could find the information you want.

• YouTube – It is an online website where you can post, share and view videos for free. We have used this when we we’re analysing music videos and to publish our music video online so we could reach our target audience. This was easy to use because you can search the music videos you want to watch but sometimes it is a little bit slow.

Research & Planning

• Bauer Media - This is about different types of audiences from different brands of magazines, radio, TV mobile and on-line. This is the first industry that we have been researching for our target audience. This helped our group who we are aiming for and what type of audience they are.

• Facebook – This is one of the most popular social networking sites. Everyone is using this as this enables them to communicate with their family, relatives and friends. They can share photos, videos and comment on them. They can also use chat or video call to any of their Facebook friends. We have used Facebook to advertise our music video to our target audience. Also, I have used my Facebook account to ask the artist’s permission.

Research & Planning

• Scribd – It is about uploading and sharing your files online. I have used this for my risk assessments and embedded it on my blog.

• UK Tribes – This is mainly about young people's lives, their media, their aspirations and their brand favourites. I have looked into this website to get an idea on where and how to aim for our target audience because our primary audience is mainly for young teenagers.

• Prezi – You can create an online presentation and share it to other websites. I have mostly used this during my research and planning as it looks neat on my blogger page.

Research & Planning

• Wordle – You can type all the words you want and make it as one image then you can share it online as well. You can also choose the what type f font, colour or layout. I have used this on the female character’s role as I like how straightforward it is for the viewers to see what we are trying to portray our main artist as. It is easy to use but it doesn’t work properly in school computers.

• Font Image Generator – it is an online website where you can type and download different types of font. We have used this website to download the font we have got for the album title and the artist’s name for our digipak. As well as using this for our digipak, we used it at the beginning of our music video as we want the audience to know what is the song called and who the artist is.

Research & Planning

• Blogger – This is an online blog where you can posts any information, photos or videos to share other people. We have used this to record all the things we did throughout the coursework. It was very easy to use but sometimes I’m having problems with the layout of my posts because it doesn’t stay where I want it to be.

• Slideshare – This is where you can upload your files such as word and PowerPoint. I have used this for shooting schedules, shot lists, etc. This was so easy to upload files from computer and share it to other websites by embedding the code. Sometimes, the website itself is having some problems with uploading the files and it takes a lot of time to upload.

Research & Planning

• Phone Camera - I have used my phone for taking photos while the whole class is giving our music video a feedback. I like the image quality of it as it is sharp and clear enough for us to see what’s on the picture.

• Pentax Camera - We used this for taking stills from different locations while we we’re filming so we can keep a record of the locations we used for our music video. We also used this camera for taking a video of the main artist and her ex messing around the park. It was easy to capture photos and videos. The image quality on both photos and videos were great.

Constructing - Hardware

• Video Camera – We have used this technology for filming our music video. It was easy to use as we have used it in AS coursework to video our film opening. This video camera was very light and good for carrying around.

• Hanns.G – This is the computer we have used to go online and use different software. It loads up the files quite fast but when we we’re editing, it makes our music video laggy.

• USB cable – We have used this equipment to transfer the files from the video camera to the computer.

Constructing – Editing Software• Movie Studio Platinum - This software has got different

features that we wanted to use for our music video. For example, we wanted to use fades and dissolves on some clips and it is available on the software. This is the first time that we will be using this software because we had Premiere Pro last year. However, it is quite similar from each other so it wouldn't be hard to manipulate this type of software.

We have used this effect to make it look different and it doesn’t look boring. However, we decided not to use it because it doesn’t go with the scene.

We used it to show to the audience that it is part of the past and it also matches the lyrics of the song which is "And the night is young,

but time is old".

This is to reflect back to the female's emotion and it shows the time passes by.

We used this so it matches the slow paced of the song and it implies that all the bad things happened in her past will disappear slowly.

Constructing – Lighting • Chamsy’s PC – This is the computer we have used

to control the movements of the lighting for our party scene. It was the first time we have used it and we find it really hard because we didn’t which one is which.

• Showtec Explorer’s

• Spot/ Wash 575 – This is the name of the lighting we have used for the party scene in our music video. This was a little bit hard to use because it was the first time we have used this kind of technology. The good thing with this is you can mix the colours you want and it works like the one we see in discos.

Ancillary Tasks

• Adobe Illustrator – This is the software we have used to create our digipak and magazine poster. At first, I find it a little bit hard to use because it is the first time we have used it. There are some tools that is the same as the Photoshop so I know how to use them. The layers for our digipak was a little bit confusing because we don’t know which one is which as they are not labelled properly.

Ancillary Tasks

• Photoshop – This is a software that lets you edit the photos. Throughout the ancillary tasks, we have used this software to edit the photos we have so it looks even better. It was easy to use because I have used this in Photography and in AS Media course.

We have used Polygonal Lasso tool as we want to make sure the edges are straight so it looks neat and tidy.

We have used Magic wand tool to auto select the parts we want to cut out.

We have used the contrast in most of our photos because we want the colours to look even bolder so it grabs the audience’s attention.

We have used a new layer when we edited the logos because we want to delete some parts of the image we don’t want.

Ancillary Tasks - Hardware

• Camera – We have used a camera to take the images for our digipak and magazine poster. This was very easy to use because I am doing Photography.

• USB Cable – We have used this to transfer the photos from the camera to the computer.

Evaluation - Hardware

• Computer – I have used this technology for typing up the evaluations. This is very easy to manipulate because I have used this every single day.

• Blogger – I have used blogger to upload the evaluation questions. This was very easy to use because I have used this all the time.

• Sound Booth – This is a room for recording audio. This was the second time I have used this and I think it is very easy to use.

Evaluation - Software• Phones – I have used my phone to record my answer

for question 2. I thought I would use this because it has a good quality of audio file.

• Prezi – I have used Prezi to answer the evaluation question 1. This was very easy to use and easy to manipulate because I have used this before.

• Movie Studio Platinum – This is the software I have used for my evaluation question 2 for creating a short video clip. This is very easy to use because we have used this software when we were creating ourt music video.

• Wordle – I have used this to show all the hardware and software we have used throughout the coursework.