Question 3:molly derbyshire media evaluation 2
Question 4:
How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?
We used media technologies throughout the whole process of research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. Using media technologies is essential today and we would find without them we wouldn’t get very far. To create a music video we needed to research into audience, genre and unique selling points to begin with, using genre and narrative theories we had to look through books and looking the Internet to learn about them. Looking into music videos we looked on YouTube to Analise further the genre of which we were looking at and the content of the video. Looking into branding and successful brand identity the Internet and books again came in handy. Into the planning process we had to learn the in’s and out’s of final cut, how to green screen and how the lighting that was available to us worked. Furthering into the construction we needed to use technologies such as final cut to the best of our ability and learn how to do the things we needed to do on In Design and Photo shop.
The research process saw us using blogger, we used blogger to document all our findings and ideas onto separate posts, as a group blogger worked really well as we were all able to do our ow individual research and then collaborate and contribute to the ideas and research posted on the blog. We all found blogger easy to use and enjoy contributing to others ideas however the only problem we found was that it could be a bit temperamental at times and take a while to upload videos or photographs but all in all it is a really good way to work as a group.
To analyse and research certain genres we looked on YouTube and watched various music video to give us ideas and to research what was needed to fulfill the genre. We found YouTube easy to use and didn’t have any problems with it.Researching theories and conventions we used the narrative and genre book and looked a chapter 4- The Theory of Genre1. We found this chapter particularly useful as we were able to research generic conventions, narrative and theme, genre and society to help us find out about how the genre is used and the certain things you would associate with the genre and what you would expect to see. As we were all creating individual blog posts on different topic only a couple of us used this information, however it was very informative and helpful towards our research stage.
Looking at the charts for album sales was going to help us identify what genre was most popular, we used the Internet to find this information out and used the new.music.yahoo.com to to find the statistics, we found this website easy to use and clear to understand. 
Onto the planning process we used email to ask for permission to use Diana Vickers’ song, we used the recording camera to crate animatics of our story board. We also used a stills camera to take location shoots. As we were all experienced with using these technologies we found this part straight forward. Once we had done the animatics of the storyboard we then had to edit them roughly on final cut, as none of our group had used final cut before we decide to each do a tutorial on the programme to then be able to know the basics and work from there, with the tutorial I think all of our group found final cut slightly easier to understand however, the problem that occurred was the length of time it was taking us but we knew we were going to have to know everything for when we came to edit our video so we too our time and eventually got the hang of it.
Also, within the planing we needed to know what to do with the lighting in the studio and how to use them correctly and how to green screen properly. We had a demonstration on the lights and what every light was for and how to use them I the correct way, we found that lighting was going to be a big part of our video and therefore we needed to know ow to use them properly. After our demonstration we had a practice with the lights and found them fairly simple however we just needed to remember what each light was for. To do the green screen training we needed to loo at a tutorial as none of us had ever done it before, but, after the training we found that the green screening was a hit and worked well therefore we were going to use it in our music video.In the construction on our video we used the lighting, green screening, video cameras and final cut to edit. As we knew how to use this basically throughout the filming process our groups usage of the equipment grew and we became more familiar with the technologies. When we got to the editing of our music video stage we then had to go into more depth with final cut, we learnt how to cut each clip down, how to fade into a different clip, how to merge and over lap two images, how to green screen onto different backgrounds and how to use photo shop to produce our countdown. Although the editing was a long process and we all took it in turns I think that we each learnt something new within final cut and we were each able to apply these techniques to our video to create various effective techniques. The only problems we had within Final Cut were how to create ad new technique as we were to confident with experiment and getting everything wrong we were able to ask the technician how to do various things and learn from those demonstrations.
When creating our ancillary tasks we used Photo shop to create each of our advertisements and album panels, we used similar techniques as to what we had used in our video such as the layering two images on to of each other, we also used the fade tool to make the pink on our album cover less vibrant and so that the artist could be seen. As all of our group were familiar with the tools on photo shop we didn’t really encounter any problems and overall I think the ancillaries benefited from our knowledge of photo shop.
Finally for our evaluation we were to use PowerPoint and scribd or slide share to them upload I onto the blog, PowerPoint was straight forward as we had all used it before however to upload it onto the blog we had to use the tutorial on how to used either scribd or slide share however, tutorial was easy to follow and we were able to upload our PowerPoint's onto the blog in no time.
Overall as a group I think our knowledge of different programmes was a plus when we all came together to do one thing, the tutorials were an excellent help and the training we did before hand proved to pay off. As an individual I feel I have become more technically minded and I can do a lot more things than before I started the whole construction process, I have found final cut excellent to work with and I have really enjoyed the process of create each of our final projects with the Media technologies help.
