Evaluation – Question 4How did you use media technologies in the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages?

Research and PlanningAdobe Photoshop

During the research and planning stages of the project, my partner and I used only digital software to construct documents such as the skeleton layouts and mock-ups etc. Programmes such as Photoshop were utilised in an artistic fashion to produce organised documents that could be followed as a plan when we entered the construction stages of the project. A house style was followed by colour using the Eyedropper Tool whilst the ‘fx’ button was used to add drop shadows to the text. This was so that everything matched and also helped us to develop our ideas.

Research and Planning Adobe Photoshop

We also manipulated the opacity of certain texts and images to create an original, overlapping, ‘trippy’ effect or to add subtleness to images in the mock-ups. This was to tie in with the spacey sounds of the music and appeal to the audience that would listen to a song like the one we used in our video. We used the paintbrush tool to ‘hand-paint’ designs onto the digipak, which, in my opinion, required more skill and precision than may actually appear. Custom shapes were also included in the site plans to indicate the time of day and the direction that the camera will face.

Research and PlanningExcel, Pages and

KeynoteFor the more, sort of,

‘contextual’ work, programmes such as Excel, Keynote and Pages were used to create documents such as the budget, treatment etc. This was key in making sure that everything looked neat and tidy, ready for us to use and understand if we should need to revise any information during the construction stages of the project.

We also made sure that the logo we created on Photoshop for our record company, ‘Nexus,’ was included on all contextual work to add a sense of professionalism to the project. It also would make our work easily identifiable should we print it out and accidentally misplace it.

ConstructionHardware

The construction of our main task obviously included using digital hardware such as a a Sony HD video camera. As most of our video was scheduled to be a time lapse with no other sound other than the music, we only really had to set the camera up on its tripod and leave it for 5-20 minutes each time. This was fairly easy and did not require much knowledge of how to use the camera at all, really. However, we did use the zoom at some points during filming and I also managed to work out how to delete tapes by date - we found that there was still a load of footage on the camera from a previous group that had used it!

We also used my Canon photo camera for our photo-shoot to obtain the image(s) that we needed for our ancillary tasks. I simply set the camera to ‘landscape’ and took the picture without using the zoom or any other affects.

ConstructionFinal Cut Pro

The first thing that my partner and I learnt how to do using FCP was to download our data and choose which clips we wanted to use. (This also lead to creating our Edit Decision List on Microsoft Word using a table). This helped us to organise ourselves and have a clear understanding of which clips would be suitable for the video. We then, obviously, used FCP to create our music video, most details of which are actually in the development diary. We used all of the facilities that FCP provided us with in a fairly standard way because there wasn’t really enough time to be taught the ins and outs of the programme. We adjusted the speed using the ‘speed’ option and changed the visual levels of each clip using the colour corrector tool. We cut up the clips using the blade tool and made sure that everything was neat and tidy by consistently having the ‘Snapping Tool’ turned on.

ConstructionAdobe Photoshop

During the construction stages of the assignment, we used a mixture of hardware and software to create the main and ancillary tasks. Of course, for the ancillary tasks, mainly Photoshop was used to 1. actually compose the documents and 2. edit our main image that we used on our ancillary tasks and at the start of the music video. Again, my partner and I utilised the diverse facilities that Photoshop provided us with and used a set of ‘star’ brushes to recreate a galactic appearance on a normal image that we had taken during the daytime. We also used the selective color tool, the magic wand tool and a range of other standard procedures such as adjusting the ‘curves’. All of this information is, however, included in the development diary.

Evaluation

In my evaluation, I have utilised modern technological advancements by including a range of presentational facilities such as blog posts, Slideshare and Microsoft PowerPoint. Slideshare is an online sort of ‘PowerPoint’ that allows for a lot more visual aid than many other means of presentation. I used it for this reason and also to add variety to my evaluation and to show that I am able to quickly learn about new media technologies and use them to my advantage at ease to achieve a comprehensive and almost interactive way of presenting data. I did, however, find it difficult to edit the ‘path’s on Slideshare initially but managed to overcome this setback with a little perseverance and patience! I also had trouble with embedding my Slideshare presentation on my wordpress.com blog. However, I also managed to overcome this by using my initiative and ‘googling’ what I needed to do. I managed to find a ‘gigya’ embedding code on a blog that was very helpful in helping me to embed the presentation onto my blog as it was aided by written instructions.

Evaluation

Blog posts were probably the easiest means of presenting my evaluation because I just had to write what I thought in the text box on my blog and then post. Blog posts are a neat and tidy, easy-to-understand way of presenting data because they are simply text and images, which is why I did two blog posts for the four evaluation questions. It also shows that I am quite capable in navigating myself around wordpress.com and posting blogs as is also evident from literally all of my work that is posted on there.

Evaluation

I also used PowerPoint for my evaluation. In fact, it is actually this very question for which I used the Microsoft programme… Although PowerPoint is not particularly visual (unless slide transitions are added and whatnot) I find that it is a sensible way of presenting information because it is easy to use and easy to navigate from an audience’s perspective. Sometimes I find that PowerPoint does not do exactly what I want it to do – whether this is down to my own personal skill or bugs in the programme. However, I again try to overcome this with patience and perseverance and also by saving my work regularly. I used PowerPoint because it again shows that I am able to utilise modern media technologies and use them to present my work in a neat and tidy fashion.