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

This is a short video that I made to answer the question:

Evaluation 4 Script 

During the early stages of my coursework, I used media technology such as Ical to help me plan each stage of the task so that I would be able to work effectively and keep up to date with my work. Ical also enabled me to stay focused with each task and allowed me to compare  how much work I had completed against the targets that I had set. 

 For the research stage of my A2 Music Video, I primarily used media technologies such as Google and Youtube to help me to research the different kinds of acoustic music videos that would help me to gain some good ideas for my actual video. I used Google to search for acoustic videos and then used Youtube to watch them. Once I had found a shot that I liked, I took a screen grab of it and uploaded it onto Blogger. This media technology was really useful throughout the entire stages of the coursework as it enabled me to constantly upload my progress throughout each stage of the task. 

Other media  technology that I used in the research stage of my task was Survey Monkey. I used this to create a survey that aimed at giving me an idea of the kind of music video that people prefer to watch as well as if they prefer a video that relies heavily on narrative rather than shots of the artist or band. Once I had created the survey, I uploaded it onto Twitter and Facebook and this allowed me to gain some useful feedback that I could use when creating my video. 

In the planning stage, I first went out and scouted possible locations that I could use for my music video. Whilst doing this, I took some pictures of the locations and uploaded them onto Blogger. I also created a short music video using the images whilst the song that I had chosen to cover, the Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen, played in the background. Once I had created the video, I was able to upload it onto my YouTube channel and then embed it onto Blogger. After I had chosen the locations, I then went about creating a storyboard for my music video. Once I had done this, I created an animatic and uploaded it onto YouTube. I then went about holding auditions for possible actors and filmed the process, which I also uploaded onto my YouTube channel. 

I also had the opportunity to use the 7D cameras which enabled me to practise using the aperture and depth of field shots which allowed me to become familiar with the equipment that I would be using to film my video. I was also able to have a go using the crane and dolley which I did not actually use for my final film but was available if I needed to use it. I played around with InDesign and created a weird landscape using different images.  

For the construction stage of the task, I used InDesign, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and IPhoto to create both my music video and my ancillary tasks. I used iPhoto to import the images and footage that I had taken onto the Mac and then copy them into Final Cut Pro and InDesign. I used Final Cut Pro to edit my footage and create the music video. For the ancillary tasks, which included making a poster and DigiPak for the artist and his/her album, I used Adobe InDeisgn and Photoshop to create the Digipak and poster. The majority of the Digipak and poster was designed on Indesign however, some images required a different colour or filter so I did this in Photoshop. 

In the evaluation stage, I used used my Youtube channel to upload the final music video and then embedded it into Blogger. I also used social networking sites, such as Facebook and twitter to share my video in order to receive user feedback. This was really useful as I was able to take the comments on board and change my video accordingly.