HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES? BY SHANNON NASH

RESEARCH AND PLANNING:

• When starting my planning for this year I chose a song that I thought I would be able to manipulate into a video to create awareness for something, however I chose quite an upbeat song that made it harder as people wouldn’t associate that with it, however through the use of digital technologies I browsed on sites such a Spotify and Itunes to find the best song for me and that where I found the song “Ex’s and Oh’s” by Elle King. Once I had decided which song I was going to use I needed to start making a brand for myself and set up various social media websites such as Pinterest, twitter, Instagram etc… With using Pinterest I was able to create a mood board of initial ideas that I could do as this allows me to post photos and look at other people photos for guidance and inspiration.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING• As I was working in a group we needed to be able to keep in contact

with one another so used the app Whatsapp to keep each updated with the latest work we have done and to be able to remind one another of the equipment everyone needs to bring with them. This was really helpful as we could discuss ideas with each other if we aren’t with one another and to keep everything organised. I found that this allowed for us to stay on top of all of the latest ideas and share them with each other a huge reason why we decided to go in a group of three.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING• When creating all of our ideas we needed someone to store

them and keep everyone in the group up to date this is where we then began using Microsoft OneNote which allowed us to store all of our ideas in a neat and organised file that could be emailed to one another on a regular basis. This also allowed for me not to lose any notes that I write as it couldn’t be misplaced or lost, like it would have been if I just used a piece of paper and pen.

CONSTRUCTION:

• In the construction part of my music video I used a variety of camera equipment to record the best possible footage I could as well as a range of top quality filming studios with properly fitted lights. I used the Canon XA25 which records all footage in High Definition (HD). As I was filming outside I needed a camera that was going to be able to have a clear rich picture which I knew the Canon camera would do. When it came to filming within the studio it was perfect because it self-adjusted to the lights constantly changing and brought out the most crystal clear filming. The camera had a perfect zoom on it which allowed me to capture anything I saw up close and was faultless for those close-ups as it picked up all the light it needed even if it was too dark to film up close. The focus on the camera again further highlighted the amount of pull focusses I could get and taught me that I didn’t need to repeat it loads of time because they came out great every time. We also used other recording equipment accessories such as dolley’s and tripods to achieve either the best movement shot or still shot.

CONSTRUCTION

• The lighting I used was a state of art lighting box in one of my studios I was able to bring the different set lights as close and as far as I wanted by moving them around via a track that is built onto the ceiling. This was a great way to control the lighting as we decided and allowed for colour gels to be placed in front of each light to create coloured lighting, this doesn’t always work but we were able to experiment with all or none.

CONSTRUCTION• The editing software we used was Final Cut Pro this is an advance

editing software and allows for precise editing to be done. I have built up the knowledge from my AS project which has made it accessible to me to use these skills to the best of my ability. I was able to gain a better feel of how to use final cut and this was done to the much more precise editing I was having to do this time round. I really focussed on the colours and how I could put these on in Final Cut to make it look much more like a music video which was highlighted, also this is something new that I hadn’t done in last years’ editing.

MAGAZINE AND DIGIPAK

• To create the best digipak and magazine advert I used Adobe Photoshop, having used this software before in another subject I felt slightly more confident in doing so. I was able to layer photos on top of each other to create the perfect looking background. As I was having to create a template for my digipak I needed to use very precise photo editor and I knew that this would be the best. I played around with it at first to see which images suited it the most and this is where I was able to pick which images I liked the best as I played around with different filters and lighting effects.

EVALUATION

• For my evaluation I used a variety of different website to create what I needed in order to make my evaluation a lot more interest. I used a variety of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter these allowed for me to keep my audience engaged with short snippets every week and to really highlight the fact that I’m trying to create a brand. Also I wanted to attract an audience from a large scale so I used these because I knew they were on a world wide scale where I could potentially grab an international name for our group. I used survey as well because it allowed for me to gain information that I needed to keep my audience interested and for them to have their say at all times.