Evaluation- Media Technologies

Media completely revolves around us in our day-to-day life. It is constantly evolving. Without these new media technologies, none of the pre-production, post-production, planning or research for our media products would be possible. 

Construction

Growing up in this generation means that we have been exposed to huge amounts of different media technologies. This was incredibly useful in the construction aspect of our media products.

We had 2 flip cameras to use during the filming of our video. One was a Vado HD, and one was a Kodak PlaySport which was my own. We started using the Vado HD camera, which was a pretty decent camera. It was small, it managed to fit onto the tripod we had and it took recordings in 1080p high quality audio and video. However, we decided to begin the editing whilst still in the filming process. Once we tried to upload the videos onto the computer, they imported in a AVI format, which iMovie does not support. So we then had to switch the the Kodak PlaySport which imported the videos in a much more manageable MP4 format.

The computer we used to upload the videos onto was a MacBook Pro, which was my own. 

We did have use of a school computer, which was also a MacBook. However, mine was a newer model with the latest software installed so this proved to be a much more useful product to use.

Originally, we imported the videos onto editing software called iMovie. We had a years experience editing on iMovie thanks to our media studies lessons. iMovie was extremely fun to use, as we were constantly learning new things and adding the effects and once after adding the music to the clips and it all starting coming together, it was very enjoyable. Although during the initial stages, as the Vado HD camera imported files into the AVI format, we had to download certain converters on the MacBook in order to get the files onto iMovie. This was a lengthy process and required a lot of research and downloading of apps to find one that eventually worked quickly and effectively.

 However, I downloaded the trial version of Final Cut Pro X after seeing it on the Mac App Store. The actual full version of this is around £200. Unfortunately, I only became aware of the trial version after I had nearly finished editing the video. I proceeded to upload the iMovie production onto Final Cut Pro X anyway, and this proved useful, as it was an extremely professional software with a much larger choice of editing techniques. We chose a professional looking title sequence along with other minor adjustments to our video.

After completely the editing process using a variety of iMovie and Final Cut Pro X, we exported the video. There were many different options to export the video onto. We chose to use multiple versions just so that we could have backups and even re-export them if ever needed.

Although it is a slightly dated media technology, we exported a version of our video to iDVD, which we then burned onto a disk so that we had a physical hard copy of the media product. We then proceeded to upload the video onto the main media technology in which we would use to get our video across to our audience. This was YouTube, which would provide us with the easiest media technology to get our video across. We also exported it to QuickTime Pro and to iTunes, so we had back up copies.

We also used iTunes to not only get the song we used, but to edit it slightly so that the song started at the right place. On top of this we used GarageBand to edit the song to take out a full verse, which made the song a much more manageable length.

Whilst in the filming process, we used our mobile phones to play the song so that it was easy to keep to the beat whilst pretending to rap to the video. Furthermore, we used our mobile phones to keep on track with each other so that the arrangements for the filming times were on track to help us keep organised.

Research + Planning

For the research aspect, the most useful media technology to use was the Internet. We used Google largely to research information about our genre of video, and to research about theorists and other aspects that were useful into the pre-production of the video. However, we also used YouTube to research possible song ideas and other video productions.

We also used Google and Youtube to plan. This helped us get valuable information needed to create our video.

We thought that we would stick to the technological side of things instead of using pen and paper and creating storyboards as none of us are good at drawing or handwriting, and so we thought this would be a pointless exercise. However we did use a printer to print off our questionnaire we had created. This meant that it was easy to distribute to our potential target audience so they could fill it in with ease.

However this posed us with a problem, as we then needed to get it on the computer. So we chose to take pictures of them instead of scanning and upload.

We used Facebook and Twitter to exchange ideas that we had thought up of in the planning aspect, and sent each other links for videos that we thought we very effective.

Also, we created lists and a filming call sheet on Word to help us keep organized.

For our ancillary tasks, we went into HMV to see what sorts of digipaks were already out there. We also tried to find magazines that may contain album advertisements; although we were unsuccessful we did find other magazine advertisements that did help us. Again we used the Internet to find previous website homepages to help us in the production of our own.

Evaluation

For the evaluation side, we used the website Blogger.com to collaborate all of our ideas together and to keep organized and on track with out work. This was a very effective media technology to use, as not only did it help us keep organized, but we could also add pictures, embed videos, share links to Prezi slides and much much more. We could also easily share our work with the other members of our group in order to help us see if we were all keeping on track with the work. Also again we used Facebook Twitter and YouTube to gather all our audience feedback that we had obtained after sharing our video.