Research Stage
I used internet explorer a number of times for research at
the beginning of this project. The main
thing I used it for was to go on Youtube so that I could watch and analyse
videos of the same genre so that I could see what codes and conventions were
used in the videos and what style of video we wanted to create (narrative,
performance, concept or a mixture).
I also used internet explorer to look at band websites so I could
create one that my target audience would be interested in and would want to
frequently check for updates or sign up for a news letter. I used the internet because it has such a
wide variety of sources that enabled me to carry out extensive research in
order for my promotional package to be received as well as it could be by our
target audience.
YouTube was a useful resource to us because of its filing
system which means that verified channels and videos with the most views come
up first. This made it easy to find the
sorts of videos we were looking for.
Planning Stage
To plan for our project we used Microsoft Word to write
lists of things we needed to achieve.
Doing this on Word meant that we could easily transfer the files between
each other so that we could add in extra things or just modify the existing document.
We also used Survey Monkey to find out what sort of video we
should make. This was a useful piece of
software because the answers to the questions were displayed in easy to
understand graphs that we could use to help decide what route we were to go
down.
Construction Stage
To film the video we used my Canon 700D DSLR. We decided to use this because during our
preliminary task we used Sony HDV 1080i camera which took tape instead of an SD
card which created problems such as other people taping over our existing work
and it being time consuming to transfer the footage to the computer. We thought that a DSLR would be more
practical due to it being a lot smaller than the Sony camera and we would be
able to conceal it more when filming out in public so that people acted more
natural around us.
To edit the footage we used Final Cut Pro on the Apple Macs
which was difficult in the beginning because we had only used it briefly in the
preliminary task. However, as the task
went on we improved immensely and the variety of features meant that we could
make the video look more professional and help it to run smoother. One of the features I particularly liked was that
you were able to zoom closely into the clips and cut them so they came in at
the right time to the beat of the music.
I edited the photos I used for my ancillary tasks in Adobe
Lightroom because I have had experience with it outside of A levels so knew how
to use it quickly and efficiently. I
like this software because it doesn’t have as many features as PhotoShop so it’s easier to use. I also only needed it to change basic things
like the exposure, contrast and clarity so didn’t need as many tools to help me
do this.
I used Serif Page Plus in order to help me create my
digipak. I had used this programme
previously in AS so was familiar with using it and found that it was very
simple to import templates in so that I could get the dimensions of the photos
I was using correct.
Evaluation Stage
I used Prezi during my evaluation because I had used it
before and knew that it was easy to navigate whilst giving effective
results. An advantage to using Prezi is
that it’s interactive which keeps people’s attentions for longer and helps make
it more interesting. The designs are interchangeable
which means you can change the animations, colour scheme and background to fit
around the topic of your presentation. I
think it’s much better than software such as Slideshare and PowerPoint because
they have been over used and the information can look too heavy on the
page. Prezi also allows you to insert
images and links which is useful for backing up the text and balancing it
out.
For another evaluation question I used Padlet because again
I thought this would be an interesting layout to put media and texts. Something that I really liked about this
website was that when you added a link to a website, it showed up on the page
without having to get to the external site.
I thought this would make it useful for whoever is reading the question
because it means that they won’t have the hassle of following a link, it will
just be there alongside the text. One
thing I didn’t like about Popplet was that it looked a bit disorganised and
messy due to the layout of it as there isn’t specific places to put text boxes
and media, you just decide to put them wherever you wanted.
I used Blogger for this evaluation question because Blogger
has been the centre point of my two year A level media course and I thought it
would be a good way to round it off.
There are many things that helped make Blogger for me an invaluable tool,
such as how simple it is to leave and receive comments from other people which
helped me to improve my work and helped me give feedback to others. Blogger has a very useful tagging system that
means I can tag each blog post so that when people look through my blog, they
can quickly find what they’re looking for.
For example, all my evaluation posts are under the tag ‘Evaluation’ at
the side of the page.
