Media Technologies in ‘You Found Me’

By Nathan Russell

Blogging

I used Blogger throughout the creation of our music video in order to present research, planning and progress effectively.

Work can easily be manipulated and changed on this platform, and it also provides social networking opportunities.

In addition to this, Blogger can be used alongside other mediums to provide an engaging presentation of information.

An example of the different mediums that can be used, I used Photoshop to make a montage of the different locations and Wordle to provide an attractive alternative to a list; which shows the versatility of the platforms.

This shows the different formatting options, as well as the ease of navigation and use of the Blogger platform and although I had experience with it already, it’s something you could use with little experience to full effect. The ability to upload multimedia allows posts to be even more engaging and attractive to the readers.

Video Editing By using Final

Cut Express, we had a variety of features available to us; and utilising these ultimately made our final edit the best it could be.

Colour correction, filters, transitions and the speed of our footage, were some of the ways in which we engaged the audience using editing techniques.

In addition, the simple layout of Final Cut allows for efficient editing, and with the many complex shots this was vital in the organisation of our music video.

The shot below has been colour corrected, and it clearly brings out the colour in not only the grass, but what Jack is wearing: this can ultimately make a shot more attractive and engaging.

This is one example of using techniques within Final Cut, just by simply reversing a shot we found that it could be made even more appealing.

This shows the organisational tools within Final Cut Express, and by organising the footage, the editing was made much easier.

Images and Typography We used Photoshop

to design our Digipak, and with the many variables and its sheer potential, we could design what and how we wanted.

For our fonts, we used DaFont.com, which can be easily navigated to find the perfect font; I feel this added depth to our design work.

To take the photographs for our Digipak, we used a Nikon D60 in order to ensure their quality, and ultimately that of the design work, was second to none.

By using this website, we easily found the font we wanted by browsing the categories. The preview pane allowed us to see the font in action as it were and above you can see that font, in my opinion, suiting our advert.

This is an unedited example of a photograph we took, using such a high quality camera we were able to make sure our final products looked as professional as possible.

Benefits of Using Media Technologies

Due to the nature of the technology, work can be updated and shared easily and from a variety of platforms, which for example allowed us to write about our production more efficiently.

The layout of a blog can be edited easily, in order to present work aesthetically and efficiently; which I did that helped with organisation. The sheer potential of programs such as Photoshop and Final Cut means that possibilities are virtually endless, and planning can be ambitious because of this.

Below is Blogger’s template editor, and this allows you to, with just a click of a button, display your posts in your preferred yet an attractive way. This has been recently updated to include sleeker templates.

This is just a selection of Photoshop’s powerful features, editing everything from the specific colours to lighting effects.

The Blogger iPhone application allowed us to blog on the go, and therefore helped with our planning and research.

Difficulties of Using Media Technologies

I ensured that I kept a backup of all of my work as technology can sometimes be unpredictable and precautions must be taken, with potential data loss in mind.

The potential of certain programs can sometimes be a hindrance as to get certain effects can be difficult and complicated. Sometimes there is a tendency to be over-reliant on technology, so to have a contingency plan, as well as detailed planning was the key to using technology successfully.

To lose the crucial work at any point would’ve been unthinkable, so we took precautions to protect our project from this.

Any errors or problems that we encountered were generally simple to resolve, but things going wrong could’ve been a sizeable obstacle.

To Conclude I feel that

ultimately, technology allowed us to work more efficiently and to ensure that the quality of the final products were the best they could be.

We didn’t encounter many problems in regard to the technology we used, but this was something we were always prepared for in every stage in creating our music video.

Thanks to the advanced technology that we had access to throughout, we could ensure that planning was detailed and this ultimately impacted upon the success of production and the quality of the final products.