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

Kieran Hepworth

Technologies

• Media technologies played a vital role during the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of my advanced portfolio.

• From communicating with the other members of my group to planning filming locations to editing the music video and then making it public, technology was absolutely key in the success of my coursework.

• During the aforementioned stages of the coursework, I used a variety of equipment, websites and software.

Equipment• Canon 600D Camera – using the Canon I was able to capture images of a high

quality during the construction of the video, learning how to change the focus of the image and the exposure levels.

• Microphone – the microphone made possible a good quality audio file was recorded for the qualitative audience research.

• SD Memory Card – SD memory cards made it possible for pictures, video and audio to be transferred from the Canon and microphone to a computer.

• USB Memory Stick – the USB memory stick played a key role in allowing me to transfer information from computer to computer and from college to home and back, whilst also providing a place for me to store files that I was not using but may have needed at a later point.

iPhone 5S• The Apple iPhone 5S was released in September 2013 and is arguably the leading

Smartphone currently on the market.• Using my iPhone 5S I was able to keep in contact with my group, access social

networks and take stills whilst out shooting.• The phone allowed me to collate a lot of information regarding organisation of the

group and arguably most importantly, access social media, which played such a key role in the coursework overall.

Software• The ancillary texts were produced in Adobe Photoshop. The programme allows

editing in layers and a high level of tools for photo editing. I used features such as opacity altering, magic wand and the very smooth ‘drag and drop’ style of superimposing.

• On Microsoft Office, I used Word to produce a shot list, PowerPoint to collect and display initial ideas and also to produce part of my evaluation. Publisher allowed me to quickly convert files in to pictures.

• FinalCutPro was used to edit the video. The software allowed for a non-linear editing process, which made working in a group easier as we all had different ideas and therefore could make decisions together. Using filters and altering the saturation helped create striking colours and also black and white shots. FinalCutPro also made the superimposition of text at the beginning of the video possible.

Websites• Blogger – this was where I uploaded and presented my coursework, a process

made easier by the fact the site is owned by Google and I could log in to my Google Mail account at the same time as my Blogger.

• Google Maps – using Google Maps, I could look at potential filming locations, made especially easy by the Street View tool. Maps also allowed the group to check travel to the locations we considered as we all lived in different areas in or around York and Selby.

• Google Mail – using Google Mail I was able to share files and information with my group quickly and easily, as aforementioned with the fact that Google own Blogger as well.

• SurveyMonkey - the survey for the quantitative audience research was carried out on SurveyMonkey, using a free trial version which allowed a maximum of 10 questions in the survey and a limited choice of ways of displaying results.

• SlideShare – SlideShare allowed me to upload PowerPoint slideshows to my blog as an alternative, perhaps easier to navigate way of uploading information as opposed to standard posts.

Social Networks

• Probably the biggest development of the internet era is the emergence of social networks.

• Social networks allow people around the world to communicate, share and access information about themselves and others, affording the public a voice for their opinion.

Facebook• Facebook is the largest social network in the world, with approximately 1 billion

registered users.• Using Facebook on the computer and on the app for Apple and Android, I was able

to keep in contact with my group, on the internet and also via the Facebook Messenger app.

• I also was able to promote my SurveyMonkey survey to my potential audience and gain a high level of qualitative data.

• When the final video was ready, I shared the video on Facebook in order to get people to watch the video, visit the video’s YouTube and leave feedback. As I had surveyed my Facebook friends, I knew that by putting my video on Facebook I would reach my intended audience.

Twitter • Twitter is another of the world’s largest and most accessible social networks. Using

the app for iPhone, I had access to Twitter throughout the planning, production and evaluation stages.

• Using Twitter, I was able to easily access artists and their official websites. I did this with Sub Focus during my research and was also able to request permission to his song for my video.

Instagram • Instagram was until recently, an app-only site where users from around the world

share photos, and is one of the biggest of it’s kind in the world. • Although, there is now a website, I used Twitter to upload photos of the screen

captures I took of the images I uploaded to Instagram so I could demonstrate how the app looks. These pictures were stills taken from the filming days and I uploaded them before the release of the final video edit, thus promoting my video and digipak, much like artists and record companies utilise social media in the modern day to promote their music and other projects.

• The use of Twitter to get the Instagram images is also an example of synergy.

YouTube • YouTube is the world’s go to site for sharing and viewing videos and is perhaps the

modern day home of the music video. I uploaded my video to YouTube and then shared the link on my social network accounts, such as Facebook, allowing me to receive feedback on both sites.

• As you can see our video quickly became popular enough to be found via a general search on YouTube and there is an example of cross-media convergence between iTunes and YouTube as you can click on the link to be directed to buy Sub Focus’ single ‘Endorphins’.