Friday 25 March 2011

Evaluation Question 4

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



We were able to use a much more advanced array of technologies in constructing our Media coursework this year which enhance our footage taken and especially the editing process both for the video and advert and the digipak.


We used the apple editing programme Final Cut which really provided us with a far superior standard of editing software than on just Imovie, and this made the final product look professional and neater, as this programme is used in Hollywood for some very big blockbusters movies, notably 'Brokeback Mountain' directed by Ang Lee. The software allows for more indepth and intense editing of footage shot by shot as well as sophisticated transitions as well as overlaying footage and changing gradients and the colour of footage. It is a far more complex piece of software than Imovie and so took a while for us to gain a grasp of how to use it though once able to we really got to work with it! We initially used Imovie as we were more comfortable with it original then latterly moved the project into Final Cut.
Finally we used IDVD to burn our music video onto a disk, we were happy to use this programme as we used it when burning our A2 coursework onto DVD, we were able to create a nice DVD menu with the Australian flag appearing in the windscreen and made it look like it was the windscreen of a car driving past a country lane, travelling - hitchhiking concept!

The biggest advancement of technology used for our coursework in my view was using the HD cameras- the footage taken with these was an unbelievable difference from the basic video camera's we used in our AS coursework. The shots had a wider image due to the wider frame of the lense and so we could take fantastic long shots. Also there was no need for video casette tapes as all the footage was digitally stored on an SD in the camera, this saved money and time when both filming/setting up and uploading the footage to the MAC's as it also uploaded the footage in 'real time'. The batteries on the HD cameras also seemed to last a while longer than those of the basic cameras and charging these was just as easy to do, not that we really needed to as it did not really run down as quickly!
Initially we did not use a tripod, though we learnt from this mistake as the footage taken when using the tripod looked suuperb and we were very happy that we were able to re-take all the 'shaky footage' as we would have lost a great deal of marks for this as it looked amateur and made us look incompetant behind the lense.
The internet was a fantastic source of information in the researching stage of our coursework and also in getting some publicity and our music video viewed by a much wider audience through sites and networks such as Youtube and Facebook, and also gaining feedback on video throughout all the stages of making it, including the initial idea, changes to that, location scouting, rough cuts of the video and audience feedback.
We were able to embed these onto our blog's very easily for all to see, concisely and neatly.
Websites were helpful in not only researching our band but a wide array of music video's and genre, including - http://www.remembertheeighties.com/
 As this us great insight to all 1980's music and bands as well as providing links to other good sites that were more of a narrow focus. It also included Archive footage and any recent news, such as rebranding which was useful to us in our coursework project and upcoming gig's and concerts.

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