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

Bradley Barnes

Programmes used throughout Research and Planning, construction and evaluation stages throughout my course:

Research • Overall, I used 14 different pieces of software when displaying my different tasks in order

to represent the information presented in an interesting and unique way. • Firstly, as a whole I predominately used Blogger as this was the core programme which

we entered all of our blog entries on. Blogger was very useful as it allowed me to present my information clearly through the use of imported video/images in order to make certain pieces of work stand out, therefore reinforcing the genre towards my target audience.

• I used blogger like a diary, constantly updating it with ideas and my own personal progress. Due to the fact that I could imbed videos such as our final and initial focus group it made my write ups for these tasks for successful as I was able to comment on precise and accurate information given to us as a group by quoting the necessary comments which are target audience had given us which relate to our final products.

• Blogger also allowed me to evaluate my progress throughout through the use of production diaries which were very influential in my final products due to the fact that this allowed us to be critical of our own work along the way. Therefore, blogger and the tasks we were required to do provided me with the initial skills/ideas in order for me to achieve/produce three final successful products, in the forms of a music video, digipak and advert.

Research• We advertised our artists on Facebook through the use of me creating a

Facebook page. Facebook is known as of the fourth quarter of 2015 to have 1.59 billion monthly active users. Therefore, this use of Media technology allowed us to potential market our niche band at millions of people. (However, we knew that we would only attract a few hundred people)

• Facebook was a very successful way for us to represent our artists in order for them to gain social media attention. Therefore, potentially aiding their target audience with more information about them as a duo than they originally wanted to. Therefore, the use of a Facebook page represented our artists vibrant character.

• We also used Facebook to promote our artists allowing their fans to keep up to date with all of their latest albums, merchandise and competitions. Through, the use of us updating their page on a regular basis, thus providing their target audience with more and more information each day as a result.

Research • Firstly, I used YouTube to research into typical stereotypical indie music video in order

to find typical genre conventions that current artists are seen to be conforming/juxtaposing against.

• Secondly, I also researched into how to use our equipment as productively as possible in terms of both digital software and hardware, such as Adobe Premiere and a handheld camera for example.

• I also researched into Mise-En-Scene tutorials throughout our course again in order to see/find the typical features which may current artists follow.

• All of these three stages gave me inspiration – most noticeably in regards to the highlighting and how we can represent a variation as a result. Therefore, we took inspiration from John Newman’s losing sleep music video which contrasts between low and high key lighting.

• Overall, YouTube was one of the best ways for me to achieve inspiration from watching different tutorials in how to use software effectively and how to achieve an indie music video to a high standard (even if we decided to go against stereotypical features).

Research • Mobile phones were a good way for us to construct our research and

planning due to the fact that they allowed us to post images and videos onto the Blogger phone app, therefore enabling us to do our coursework whilst not sitting directly in front of a computer or even at school. Therefore, mobile phones had several advantages for us as they enabled us to film our peer feedback away from school and also allowed us to view our coursework at home, therefore enabling us to make improvements/add to particular tasks when we felt like it.

• Due to mobile phones giving of the reassurance that we could still do work outside of our homes/classroom this allowed me to do my coursework in my spare time, for example on the train or in the car where I would have a spare five minutes.

Research • Google allowed me to research any additional information surrounding indie

music video that I was unsure about or any theories that we could use throughout our music video. For example, David Dyer’s theory about ‘Star image’ we have incorporated throughout our music video by connoting our artists in a very vibrant and uplifting way, therefore reflecting their alternative personalities.

• Google also allowed me to use plenty of Web 2.0 tools throughout my construction therefore making the blog more interactive as a result. Google has also allowed me to come across very useful websites, in the form of befunky.com, giphy and dafont.com. These three websites were very useful throughout my research and construction process aiding me with influential ideas which we as a group used on both our digipak and advert in relation to the font, layering and background colours used. Without these programmes and the use of Fireworks I don’t think our final products would have been as successful as they were due to the fact that befunky.com gave us the inspiration spark we were looking for and provided us with lots of additional support due to all the different features which it had on offer.

Research • Whilst filming the last of our scenes to our music video, we focused in on lip-

syncing as previously that aspects within our music video had been a bit few and far between. We then filmed our two actors shadows whilst they were lip-syncing the words to the our music video song choice, in order to achieve extreme close ups and close ups of their shadows as a result.

• Prior, to this we researched into different moving images (gifs) which we could use within our music video. Previously, when using gifs in the drama hall we decided to go with a moon gif in order to represent the 'Midnight' element of the song. We were able to achieve a good background due to giphy.com which offered several different moving images relating to day and night and different weather seasons. Therefore, this site was extremely important in our research and construction stage as without finding this particular site we probably wouldn’t have been able to incorporate our moving gifts idea which we had thought of at the beginning of our music video process.

Research • Emaze was also a very important Web 2.0 tool that I used throughout my

research progress due to the fact that it enabled me to present my information clearly. Emaze also allowed me include images and allowed me to export videos which allowed me to be more accurate when talking about features such as mise-en-scene and typical conventions in indie music videos.

• Emaze was a very useful site as it enabled me represent my information in a new and slightly different way as to how I was presenting my pieces of work beforehand. This thus enabled me to know Andrew Goodwin’s theory of genre characteristics as a I haven’t used Emaze as much as I have used other Web 2.o tools in order to understand Goodwin’s theory fully as a result. Through the use of this I added in typical conventions of indie music video in the form of bright colours, however I also juxtaposed this due to me adding in ‘Midnight’ elements in order to represent low key lighting throughout my music video production.

Research • I also used Visme in order to represent our characters ‘friendly, out going,

unique and smart’ personality. Therefore, due to the fact that Visme incorporates such interesting displays such as the form of a timeline (pictured below) this enabled me to express/connote our artists characteristics along the way through the use of the lust which they experience at the beginning, this then changed to a sense of freedom which displayed their happiness of being in one and others company, conveying a sense of togetherness throughout our music video.

Research • Powtoon was an interesting Web 2.0 tool as this allowed me to time each

section/page for a maximum of 20 seconds for each slide. Powtoon helped aid my research due to the fact that it allowed me to display my information formally for a maximum period of time. Therefore, allowing Altered Islands target audience to not get too bored throughout viewing this piece of work.

• The time effect from this Web 2.o tool made me think/realise that our target audience’s attention may also be diverted away from our music video at points. Therefore, as a result in our construction we made sure that several high quality shots had layers incorporated over the top of them therefore reflecting our ‘alternative’ feature as a result.

Research • Popplet was also a different website to use. Due to the fact that the layout

was similar to a word document yet it required me to add in ‘people’ (a text box). This website allowed me to extend me research in a fun way due to the fact that you could move and position the ‘people’ around therefore allowing you to achieve the desired look you were after (a professional look).

• Popplet was a new and creative website that I only started using this year due to the fact that I was unaware of it before this stage last year. Therefore, this site allowed my research to be more productive as I wanted to incorporate as many Web 2.0 tools as possible throughout my work.

Research • Although, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint are stereotypically seen as a

simple document to use they both came in handy several times throughout my coursework when I required smart art or a graph, for example in our risk assessment. Although, I used a simple table – I felt that Word was the best way to represent my data in due to the fact that it offers a structural element which conveys a professional feel.

• Also due to the fact that I knew both of these programmes before I started this process I was happy and content with the services in which it offers.

• For example, I felt that PowerPoint was appropriate for me to do my Evaluation Question 4 upon due to the fact that I wanted each piece of production/online software to have its own page so that I could therefore write about it.

Research • Throughout our media coursework we were asked to present our work in a

range of mixed media formats, in which we found Prezi. An animated presentation, which I found worked well as a substitute to a normal PowerPoint slide share. To navigate Prezi you simply clicked on the bottom arrow in which the presentation moves onto the next paragraph.

• Prezi also allows you to incorporate images and videos which I personally found helpful in order to convey our indie genre.

Research • Animoto was the website that we used in order to present Altered Islands

merchandise to their target audience. Animoto was interesting as the imbedded pictures which we added turned into a short movie clip with are merchandise on posters and billboards as a result. Therefore, Animoto will represent our new band duo’s products to a mass audience therefore potentially expanding upon the niche target audience in which we’d originally hoped for.

Research • Lastly, Voki is a very unique website where you can create characters who

are designed to speak any text which you insert to the site. I used Voki when talking about intertextuality and how we would include intertextuality within our own products. I felt that Voki worked well within my research as the way in which this was presented was creative and made our information accurate as you were only allowed to have a certain amount of text characters at one point.

Construction • An SD card is an ultra small flash memory card. It’s purpose is to deliver

high-capacity memory in a small size. We used an SC card in the camera when filming and after we transferred our footage to the computer via the SD card in order to edit our footage on Adobe Premiere Pro.

• The card was easy to use in the terms of transferring our footage to the computer. To get the footage from the card to the computer we had to use an SD card reader. However, this was not supported on the schools computer therefore we had to put our footage on an Apple Mac first.

• Throughout this process I have used a memory stick mainly to transfer images/videos and documents to different computers but to also back up and keep my work stored so that I could do parts of my coursework at home in order to achieve better time management as a result. I would recommend the use of a memory stick in any production for many reasons, ranging from computer system failure to the deletion of your work for whatever reason.

Construction • To edit our video, we used Adobe Premier Pro CS6. Premiere pro supports

many video editing cards and plug-ins therefore we knew this this software would support our document footage. Premiere pro also integrates with Adobe Photoshop, as a result Photoshop files can be opened directly from Premiere Pro to be edited in Photoshop. Adobe Premiere and Photoshop both have a range of tools which we used for our editing such as tint, overlay and horizontal flip. Therefore, all of these features can add to typical conventions of indie music videos, however as a group we still wanted to juxtapose to these in some ways. We done this successfully through the use of varied lighting throughout.

Construction • We used both Fireworks and befunky.com in order to create/edit our advert.

This construction consisting of two different sites was successful due to the fact that this allowed us to combine more features as a result. Therefore, providing more detailed construction to take place due to the fact that we knew how both sites worked and could therefore effectively pick which one was more suitable to our indie theme and continuity. Which in turn is why we picked befunky.com although we did experiment and trial our original designs on Fireworks.

Construction • Through, our construction process we used a camera, tripod and green

screen in order to obtain the precise shots that we required as a group. Occasionally, throughout this process we decided to film with two cameras (at once) in order to obtain different angles as a result. We also filmed this by using a tripod in order to obtain a steady/clear shot as a result. The use of a tripod was extremely beneficial as without this we are less likely to achieve the accurate shots which we had hoped for. Therefore, the use of hardware technology in our construction aided our progress by allowing us to film independently and to a high standard as a result. Thus, allowing our filming process not to take too long due to our extensive research and planning of our storyboards, risk assessment and crew list beforehand.

Evaluation • In conclusion, blogger was used to record our filming, editing, research and

planning activities that was done throughout our course. Blogger was easy to access on the computer and mobile phones. We kept the blog up to date, it was used to summarise processes, embedding images and videos. We tried to analyse information on Blogger and write in detail so we could document each stage of our development as fully as possible. Signing onto our blogs, making and editing posts and publishing them was not hard to do as it was an easy procedure to do.