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

For our music video we have used a large variety of media technologies to help us to create a professional media product, the Music Video and the Digipak/Advert. In all different area's and creation of the project, focusing mainly on pre-production, production and post-production, a wide range of media technologies were able to help us maintain a high standard of work, creating what looks like a some what professional video. There has been many advantages and disadvantages with the media technologies we focused on. We focused on using a combination of software throughout so we could then focus thoroughly on building up information (Writing post blog updates, and production updates) this helped us to be fully prepared for our end evaluation. We found that media technologies played an extreme role in our creation period, enabling us to try out new software we never even knew about, experimenting with new ideas and learing a lot throughout the process.

Our main technology focus was Blogger. This is an online multimedia interface which worked as a great way to record our work that had been completed, and keep up to date with our idea's, planning and production work. We were given a series of pre-production work to create at the start, which really helped to process our idea's and creation through a variety of media technoglogies again. E.g. Powerpoint and Prezzi's. Blogger also worked well as all of our group members were able to share our idea's when not in lesson, and record our previous work updates. Where the World Wide Web is the largest piece of media technology today, it has influenced our idea's greatly as we were able to look at past music video's that have been created, and anaylze and inbed them into our blog's for research and comparison. We were also able to get idea's that related to our current theme of R&B/Pop. Blogger has really enabled us to stay organised and keep on track of all of our work.

We have been able to share of final video and our focus groups, which show the audience's mixed views on our work. There wasn't really any disadvanteges or using Blogger and the internet, just the worry of if it ever went down or lost connection, which we had to be prepared for by constantly saving our work as we went on. It was apart from that very reliable and easily accesed, enabling you to work from home, school or wherever you desired place.

Apart from the pre-production tasks and the recording and planning of the video, we used a significant amount of software to produe the filming of the video. We used very high tech Digital Sony HD Camcorders. These were really good as they produced a really good picture, which looked clear and professional. The hard drive was very strong and sustainable lasting a long time, which was really trustworthy as we knew we could rely on it. The battery pack's was easy accesable and easy to remove and charge. The camera's worked really well with the MAC's which was very helpful as we worked on them in the lesson, and the work was able to be transfered straight from the camera onto the Digital Editing System called Final Cut Express.

This was also another big part of our production, infact the most important part. We were able to use this to again create a professional video, with lots of cuts, pacing together the video creatively, being able to cut and add different shots. It was really easy just to Log and Transfer the shots straight from the camera. Adding in voice clips and footage into the timeline, which was also helpful as we were able to see how much more footage we had to film once we added new footage in. It was also really handy considering we were doing a music video, it enabled us to sync the lead singer (Roger)'s voice with our footage and make it exact timing. We had to be careful with Final Cut Express as on ocassion's it jumps, which isn't good for the timing and syncing of our sequel.
Another technology that enabled us to connect when were not in school was Facebook. We were able to upload our video on here and get some more audience feedback from all different age groups, not just the focused target audience. We uploadedcriticism we received. It was also a helpful piece of technology as we were able to talk to each other about scheduling and rescheduling filming dates and work with each other sending blog work when we were not at school.

The Internet was the main technology in our research. Google and Wikipedia enabled us to research practically everything we needed, from song lyrics to images that would help us and give inspiration to our video. We looked at companies and buisness of music videos's and what they look for in music video's, which we found was a story line that really engages the audience. YouTube helped us find video's that were relevent to our chosen genre and theme. We watched and analysed music videos that were an essential in our research and the pre-production of our video. This was really helpful as we could overlook over video's people have made, editing them and analyzing them in a way we would when our video is being marked, so we managed to understand what would be looked for. We also got a strong uderstanding of the conventions of music videos are and what makes them successful in the music industry. This really prepared us for our project, knowing fully what we had to do and what we was doing.