Evaluation Question 4 Victoria Bray

Evaluation – Question 4 Victoria Bray

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

Within our production, we used a large number of different technologies for all aspects of creation.

When researching, we used a number of internet search engines and websites. These included; YouTube to look at other videos and gain inspiration from videos of similar genres; the website BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) to gain figures on viewings on certain music video channels in the UK; we also used search engines such as Google in order to research for the preparation of our video with images and information on the artist whose music we used; another website we used was Wordle, this we used in order to mind map our ideas, themes and issues we wanted to include in the video, in a more creative and visual way.

Among these websites Blogger was the one used mostly in order to make record of our video development, we posted any research we did for it alongside evidence of meetings and filming sessions, discussions and planning for the final video and digipack was also posted.

 To add to this, we also used a range of software in order to create our piece, including mostly the use of Final Cut and Photo Shop. 

The Final Cut software was used in order  to create and edit our video, we practiced the editing process with a short music video exercise and also created an animatic storyboard for us to follow and get a good idea of what we wanted the finished video to look like. The most common features of this programme we used were the razor tool and the easy use of markers in order to have precision when cutting shots on a specific beat or at a specific time. Final Cut helped our music video to look professional. We used Photo Shop to create our digipack CD covers and our magazine advert. After taking the pictures we fo und the use of the software difficult to grasp at first but after some practice of we managed to get good pictures out of it. We used a lot of the airbrush tool and the colour change tool in order to get the best effect on the pictures and to help there be cohesion throughout the pieces.

With regards to our use of hardware when making and creating our music video and accompanying pieces, we most frequently used an HD Video Recorder which gave any footage we wanted to shoot a crystal clear image of the highest quality. The camera was accompanied at all times by a tri-pod to 

ensure that all our footage was straight and level. To make the picture even better on screen we were lucky enough to get a hold of some professional filming lights to also create a certain mood or shadowing when necessary in a shot.

In terms of mistakes we made, we weren’t all very experienced when it came to using Final Cut and Photo Shop, I believe we should have practiced more with it and maybe done some video tutorials before we went into the editing process. Another glitch in the process we found was that we had to omit most of our outdoor shots due to uncertainty of the weather and the fact that we couldn’t use the lights outside so we would run the risk of our footage not looking the same all through in terms of its quality. Another mistake we made was not being able to organise more people to be in the video as characters to give a greater effect with regards to the narrative. However, with these issues we still managed to achieve our goal of completing the video and digipack on time and with us all being happy with the outcome and our audience feedback being mostly positive.




please see my Wix website presentation: 
http://www.wix.com/toribray/youknowjack