Q4 evaluation magazine

A2

MEDIA STUDIES

.EVALUATION.

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

Over the course of my A2 media work, I used a variety of different technologies throughout the different stages of production. Initially I had to make a blog where I could display all of my coursework tasks as blog posts through the individual stages of research, planning, production, and drafting and production diaries. The website we used was www. wordpress.com , this is an online free blogging website which enables blogging to be easy for beginners which was perfect for someone like me. Wordpress includes a variety of features from being able to design your blog layout to creating and placing individual featured posts meaning that my blog was personal to me and was laid out in a way I found to be appropriate. Although wordpress started off as being quite complicated to use, after using it for a couple of weeks

diaries, this also enabled me to show my personality through my posts showing my passion for the project. Using Youtube as a way of presenting my coursework was something I was familiar with as I had used On my blog I posted my it for some blog posts in AS. content over a variety of However Youtube did have a different presentation platforms. One of my favourites time limit to the amount of was by using Youtube as I was footage I was able to upload able to film myself discussing so some of my videos had to my coursework and sharing be cut short meaning I was my ideas via my production unable to upload everything I had adjusted to the software and began to understand how it worked allowing me to have a successful and professional looking blog.

good camera for filming and photography as it created beautiful clear shots which made them look professional.

For my digipak covers I used a manual setting on the camera, using a detachable LED light when outside in the dark which allowed my shots to have a good amount of lighting meaning I did not have to drop the ISO too much. This meant that all my shots came out as a high quality and looked professional. that I had wanted too. I also used slide share which is an internet presentation software where you can upload your microsoft power points online so that they could be displayed in a professional format. I used slideshare for most of my research posts such as for the task “analysis of previous students work” as I found the layout was the most presentable , furthermore I found slideshare was easy to use and navigate around so was not too time consuming.

Finally I liked to display my work in a variety of ways on my blog as it made it more interesting and multimedia, so I also decided to incorporate a couple of prezis, this is a presentational software which was a successful way to show off my planning tasks.

This helped make my blog look more professional and interesting which is what I wanted my blog to be.

Moreover during the production of my music video I used physical equipment opposed to the media software. The main piece of equipment I used was the Canon 600D. I experimented

with the camera before filming so that I had an idea of the different settings on the camera, I also referred back to youtube to watch tutorials so that I had a wider understanding on what else I could do with the camera such as adjusting the aperture. By using this digital camera it provided me with far more advantages than using a traditional camera where by you would have to edit all your footage using the camera.

Whereas with the Canon 600D I was able to transfer my footage onto the computer where I could then edit it using professional software (adobe premiere) and could edit it properly using effects such as image stabilizer, slow motion and warps. When filming I shot at 720p which is the number of rows of horizontal pixels to make it a finer image. This is lower than the highest option of 1080p, but I chose not to film using this as it wouldn’t capture the footage at a high frame rate, I decided to film at a rate of 50 frames per second as this allowed my footage to be captured at a high quality.

The canon 600D was such a

For most of my shots I used a tripod which made sure that my shots were steady and not out of focus / shakey. When I decided to film the footage using my hands some of the footage came out wobbly so this is when I used editing software to correct my footage and stabilise it so that it did not look unsteady. Warp stabiliser was a tool that I used frequently when editing my footage as this worked most effectively at stabilising the

footage I had taken. I had to stabilise my footage as some of it was filmed hand held meaning that it wa unbalanced, so by editing it using this effect enabled my footage to remain steady and clear. Lighting was also key in the construction and editing of my music video. I used 800 watt red head lights in the setup of my

music video as when filming in the black box this made my footage look professional and well lit. When editing my footage I adjusted the light contrast of the black and white colouring, this allowed me to add shadow into my footage giving it a pleasing to the eye appeal. By having access to these professional studio lights meant that I could have the ISO setting on the camera low and the quality maximised which meant the footage was not pixilated.

The SD card I used was a 16GB SanDisk

Extreme. I used a 16GB as I found that this was large enough to hold all of my footage on a day of filming which was the most amount of time I would be spending filming.

A piece of equipment I used which allowed my footage to be more stable was a track.

This was a piece of equipment that I placed on the floor in the black box wand this allowed me to move the camera following my performer whilst she danced keeping the shots steady. I also used a Gopro which has a tiny sensor which makes the shots good in low light which was perfect for what I was filming in the black box. The Gopro was also perfect for my slow motion shots such as my performer pirouetting as it captures

at 200 frames per second meaning that my footage was extremely clear.

The editing process was the next thing I did after shooting and I was able to use the adobe suit but mainly Premiere. I used premiere to place all my footage together, transform my clips into slow motion and to also stabilize the clips that were unstable and unclear. Using premiere also allowed me to colour adjust the footage I had filmed so any footage that

wasn’t bright enough could be adjusted using the software so that it was of a high enough quality to be used in my final product. As mentioned earlier I used digital cameras so that I was able to do all my editing in post production, this was really useful and time cosuming as I was able to edit my video when all of the footage was put together giving me a visual idea of how it would look as a final prodcut. Alongside editing my video I also had to edit my photos for my ancillary tasks - my digipak and magazine advert. to mke sure that they were of a high enough standard and look professional / followed the same colour scheme as my music video. I used indesign and photoshop to edit these as I found this software was most appropriate

for editing the images / placing together my digipak.

Overall, I used a variety of different technologies throughout my coursework, and I am a keen user of digital technology as without it I don’t think I would have a blog and a final product of the same quality.due to it being used so actively during the process of creating all three of my chosen products.