Evaluation - Question Four (DRAFT)

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

Pre-Production:

• Blogger - This was for when we were going through Research and Planning, it allowed us all to be posting our ideas and also to plan each week as we went through to keep ourselves organised and make sure that we had our final product in mind all throughout.
• Email (Gmail and Hotmail) - This was used to communicate throughout our group and also to contact both the Music Video Director for advice and also the owner of the studio that we wanted to rent out when starting to film our video.
• Internet/Google Chrome (Google Chrome easier to use with Google applications, such as Blogger) - This was to help us find the research that we needed to help develop our ideas, it also allowed us to find out information and inspiration when it came to starting the development of our digipaks and adverts.
• YouTube - We used YouTube at this stage of pre-production for when we needed to find inspiration both for the style of our music video and also for the dance that was going to be the biggest factor in it.
• Animoto - This was to pitch our idea to the class, hearing the feedback from this was very beneficial to us and we were able to get across our ideas better than if we had just explained them verbally.
• Scribd - I used the web app Scribd a number of times throughout the work, mainly to display my analysis of digipaks. This was a very useful programme to use and was very beneficial to the work because it allowed me to display all of the research in the style that I wanted to get across. It made the work look slicker, therefore projecting the style of the video that we wanted to create.
• Computer systems - HP Computer (Windows) and Apple Mac - These were just the computer systems that made the whole work much easier to do. This work is all computer based, therefore meaning that without this form of technology then there would be no development at all.
• Google Images - Google Images was used to find out what type of style we wanted to create. It  also allowed us to find images of the band we were inspired by, Arcade Fire, and generate a better direction of where we wanted to take our work.
• Twitter - We used Twitter very briefly, to help get across the realism of the band we created and make sure we were getting across a certain public image of our band.
• iPhone - We used iPhone technology, I primarily used it with the blogger app available on iTunes to help me update posts I'd done on the go. Also we used it to listen to the song we had decided on when filming. 

Production:

• Photoshop - This form of technology was primarily used throughout the process of creating the Digipak and Advert to give a more professional finish to the products, having already used this program throughout the Music Magazine coursework last year it meant that the basic understanding was there and I was able to produce my products a lot quicker because I already knew how to operate the system.
• Nikon DSLR Camera - We used this camera throughout the filming for our final music video, whereas for the draft we just used the small handheld camera, this was a better piece of equipment to use because it was of a higher quality and allowed myself (as the 'camera woman') to get a better shot because the focus and 'blur' effect from the camera gave the effect that we were looking for all along.
• Small Handheld video camera - This camera was also very crucial to our filming, this is what we used throughout the filming of the draft and was also very beneficial throughout the final filming because used this when filming integral shots when the DSLR was running out of battery.
• iTunes, iPhones and iPads - These three things were crucial to the filming because we could listen to the song we had chosen and also play dance videos when inspiration was needed when shooting the music video.
• Three Professional Filming Lights - These lights were provided to us by the studio that we hired out, they were incredibly beneficial to us because they gave the shadows that we wanted all throughout shooting and organising the video. Without these lights, and also the practice of 'three point lighting' then we would have a completely different video now.

Post-Production:

• YouTube - We used this technology to upload our two music videos, this was to make the video easily accessible for the public and peers to view. This was then very crucial to our work because we needed to be able to get the video public somehow, and this is the best platform to do that.
• Blogger - This was to publish our videos after we had edited them and put them onto YouTube, this was mainly so our peers and teachers could see our work after we had produced it. Again, this was essential to our work and was something that was within use throughout the whole of this coursework to show how far we have all come throughout this process and how the initial idea had changed from the beginning.
• Final Cut Pro - This is what we used to edit our video on, after working through this coursework both myself and my group members have gained a lot of skills that we didn't have before we started this project.
• Apple Mac - This is what was used throughout the editing process.