How to Navigate my Blog

Dear Moderator,

 

Welcome to my A2 Media Blog.

On the right hand side of my blog there are gadgets with headings. Under each there are posts relating to that specific title.

All you have to do is look for the heading you want to view and then simply hover the mouse over the links in purple and click. It will then direct you to the page you have chosen

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Evaluation Question 4

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

In order to create my music video, I used YouTube to look at clips of other folk music videos for inspiration. YouTube was an effective source because it allowed me to access loads of videos in the specific genre of folk to aid in my research. During my research I found inspiration from Justin Bieber’s – I’ll Show You video and The Paper Kites – Featherstone video; these videos enabled me to take different shots and ideas from both and incorporate them into my music video. YouTube was also helpful in being able to save videos and allowing me to add hem to my blog so I could analyse them in further detail.  Being able to look at real media folk products on this platform was very helpful, as YouTube would also give me recommended videos in the folk genre, which made researching an easier process. I also used YouTube for my intro to my blog in order to make it more interactive and fun for the audience. By doing a short introduction it allows my blog viewers to gain a better insight into what I am like, and how I can successfully express myself in different ways.

From my final product, I took inspiration from this video by The Paper Kites because it had the same representations as my music video being nature, youth and friendship. I also took the visual inspiration of Justin Bieber’s video – which I have also analysed on my blog.  

To help in my further research; I used different presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Slideshare, Prezi and I have also used Powtoon in the past which I found useful. These helped in visual aids to help me in my research into the folk genre ands overall ideas for my music video. I found these software’s very easy to use and allowed me to successfully present my findings whilst also looking very professional.

To make my blog more interactive I also did a voice over for one of my research pieces by using Voice Memos, which is an app on the iPhone. The voice over helps make my presentations less formal and creates a more informal way for the blog user to gain information without having to read long paragraphs of text and instead just listen, audio book style.

My iPhone was a very important part of equipment I used throughout my media coursework. I used it; when recording voiceovers, recording videos, taking photos and also getting in contact with my group when planning what days to meet up and film. I used videos I had taken on my phone for my summer project that was very successful. Using a phone gave me access to social media and the Internet. By using my iPhone it enabled me to capture visuals quickly if something happened. An example of this would be my group walking down by the docks and we spotted a boat, it would have missed it however we quickly got a photo beside it and posted it on my groups Instagram account.  I took images of nature, as well as time lapses, which would then go on to be used in my products. By doing this I was able to get great visuals for my music video as well as further practicing my camera skills. Using my iPhone was very effective in transferring the videos and photos quickly from one person to another by connecting it to a computer; where I could further edit and experimenting with composition, camera angles and location.

Here is a time-lapse video and some pictures taken from my iPhone:

When filming the music video I used a Sony Xperia and GoPro camera. I chose to film using a Son Xperia due to it having a higher resolution camera and better lens focusing options to make my video a higher quality and look more professional.  The high quality of the Sony was crucial in showing my video’s overall representation of showing the beauty of nature, which is an important convention in other real folk music videos. I filmed using these different phones by attaching them to a selfie stick for high shots, crane shots and wide shots. I also used a mini tripod in order for my time-lapses to be effective and help stabilize filming to produce a smooth running music video.  When we wanted to move quickly through the crowd or the main character was running we switched to using the GoPro. The GoPro was the most successful in providing this footage because it is an action cam so it is designed to be handled in busy situations whilst still filming in HD quality. This is effective in giving a POV shot which enables the audience to feel like they are also in the video or experiencing the same feelings as the actors. Whilst filming I also filmed useing a penny board, I came up with this idea that as penny board could be used for another productive purpose, not just travel from location to location. When needing to do smooth tracking shots I used the penny board. With help from others in my group, one of us would stand on the board holding the cameras and someone else would gently push the board in the direction intended to go, performing a perfect and successful tracking shot.

The same sixth form Apple Mac was used throughout the whole process, from the beginning of research and planning right until the end. I have been using Macs throughout my media course so I don’t think I learnt anything extremely new throughout my A2 project, although I did teach myself how to edit out the green screen videos we had recorded and put a different image behind through YouTube tutorials. I came across many problems in completing my work, the main one being editing issues and that I could not render my video for publication. This meant that my other group members Owen and Mathew had done more work on the group blog. Many of the computers did not have enough storage and so certain software’s ran slowly or crashed excessively, causing time difficulties. Even with these problems I managed to successfully complete my music video.

I was already comfortable in using Adobe Photoshop so I did not come across and difficulties. For this project however, I learnt how to create the logo for my other folk media products by inserting the same image into the outline of the deer head. I went on to use this  effect in both my poster advertisement and the digipak and I think it looks really interesting and gives my ancillary products a bit more depth.