Evaluation Question 4 - by Josh

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

 As a group we used a wide range of equipment and technology to complete our main task and ancillary tasks, ranging from physical equipment to computer software. Below are all the media technologies I and my group used in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of our coursework.

I have provided an audio voice-over for this question, which you can listen to by clicking on the video below:
 

CAMERAS + EQUIPMENT
 I will first start with what I consider to be the most important part of our construction: our camera, the SONY HDR-FX1:

 A semi-pro HD camera (one of the first available to the public back in 2005), this has been critical to making our video look professional throughout the production. It was especially crucial to us during scenes in which the camera had to move to keep up with the actors. Its 1080p capability provided us with crisp HD footage that showed off the moving shots very well. We were fortunate enough for Luke to be able to borrow one off his dad's work for our video. There were two downsides to this however: the camera was very expensive so we had to be extremely careful with it, but due to its size, it was also very awkward to carry around when travelling to and from our locations. We also used it to record our target audience videos.
 Without this camera we would have had access to one of our teacher's camera's, but these are designed mostly for picture taking rather than video. This would have undoubtedly produced good footage but I expect nowhere near the quality of the HDV.

 The other camera we used in the construction of our video was James's Panasonic HDC-SD10

 This was used entirely for recording our making-of video which was used to show our discussion on location as well as the locations used. Used for most of our filming days, it was not worth shooting some of the making-of footage on some days since it would be too difficult due to limited time. The compact and lightweight design meant it was very easy to carry around unlike the HDV and could simply be transported in a coat pocket. We are also planning to use either this or the HDV for one of our evaluation questions.

 The other two cameras we used in the construction stages of our video were the SONY A57 and the Nikon D200 (both owned by Luke - images below respectively). These had a very limited use (used only on Day 1 and at Deluxe 142 studios) as they were very awkward to carry around due to their bulky and heavy design, and we could use James's handicam for making-of video and as well as pictures. The pictures taken were however useful to us when recording what we had done for each day.

 Below are some of the photos we took with these cameras.

Another very important piece of equipment was Luke's dad's tripod - a Velbon Maxi 347GB -  which we used in almost every shot of our music video to provide a still standing shot. We were extremely happy with this as we could find no faults with it and helped us produce still shots that we stabilised well with no shaking. It was also very good for the panning shots as the movement was extremely smooth with no juddering or stiffness. Perhaps the only complaint if I was being very picky would be that it was quite cumbersome, and proved difficult to transport at times due to its size and weight, but this was a very small issue and rarely raised within the group. Without access to this we would have to purchase a tripod off the internet (much like what James did for our steadicam - see below).

A very tricky piece of equipment that caused us a fair amount of bother was our homemade Steadicam that was made from a tripod that James bought off Amazon. For the construction of this, click here to view the tutorial video, the video of James and Luke making it and the further construction in the DT lab. Despite the trouble it caused making it, our efforts proved to be very fruitful, as we used it on numerous occasions to shoot moving and running shots, such as in Southbank Skatepark and Soho Square to produce smooth shots where James or Luke needed to run to keep up with the actors. Without this, we would have found it very difficult to shoot running shots which were smooth, instead using just the camera which would no doubt suffer from the vibrations of the filmer's feet hitting the floor

SOFTWARE
 Another vitally important piece of technology for us as a group was Final Cut Express, the program we used entirely for editing our music video as well as other videos including target audience videos and the making-of video.

 We also used this program to include transitions such as fade-ins and fade-outs particularly at the end of our video for the 'blinking' effect. Without this we would have needed to use another piece of video-editing software such as Camtasia that one of classmates used, but this looked nowhere near as good Final Cut Express.

 One thing that was particularly annoying was the rendering which took a VERY long time to do. Thankfully, the footage from the HDV was already rendered before inputted into Final Cut. Despite this though, we still had to render some footage that we had edited, such as over-cranking or the music edits. 

 A very impressive piece of technology for me was Adobe After Effects.
 
The most notable use of this software was the CCTV footage Luke created to use in the security room where the masked men watched the DJ leave the recording studio.It was decided that Luke would create the CCTV footage as he has had the most experience with it, and as you can see, the resulting footage is very impressive and professional-looking.

 Without this we would have had to use another form of video manipulation but since Adobe After Effects was the only one available to us as well as being one of the best ones on the market we had no complaints in this department.



A familiar piece of software we used was Adobe Photoshop, which we used to create images such as the banner for the name of the song and artist (image right) as well as our all-important Ancillary Tasks (images below).

  This was a refreshing return to familiar technology as we had used Photoshop a lot in our past year of Media Studies. As you can see from our work, this is an extremely good piece of software that allows the user to create images from scratch as well as manipulate photographs. Without this, our work would have undoubtedly suffered greatly as there are few similar image editing software that is as good as Photoshop, and we would have had to use another program such as Microsoft Paint. The colour overlay of the text, the text effects and the cityscape background would be almost impossible to create in a program such as this and would look nowhere near as good as they have done from Photoshop.

The last piece of software used on computers was Camtasia Studio. This was used to record us creating the Ancillary Tasks for use in our blogs (videos below).

This was an extremely useful and constructive way of showing our working on our ancillary tasks; as the viewer, you can see exactly what we did to create the Digipak and the Magazine Advert. Without this, we would have to write a description of what we did accompanied by screen-grabs of the processes. This however would not provide an in-depth look into the construction phase and  with much less detail than seeing the whole construction as a video. It was also a useful tool to us when we wanted to change something in Photoshop, as the video could be used as a guide to what we needed to change and how.

OTHER

The browser we all used for research was Mozilla Firefox.

This was extremely important for us as we used it for researching into music videos, 'how-to' videos on Youtube, research into digipak covers and other uses the internet has to offer. Without this we would have had to use another browser such as Safari or Internet Explorer; whilst this would not cause many problems, we would not have the 'add-ons' required on Firefox to download music from Youtube for use in our blogs and for background music in our videos - E.g. Target Audience videos. For home blogging, we used Google Chrome for research.

The main source of producing our work online was through blogging on Blogger, where we posted all of our work (except James who used Wordpress as an alternative). We had used this in our AS Media Studies so this was a familiar technology to us that meant we could work easily on. I personally enjoyed using Blogger to post all my work on, as opposed to a physical folder, as I could easily access my work from anywhere, alter it if it needed changes and embed pictures, videos and other technologies such as Prezi (see below).

 Without this, we would need to use another blogging tool such as what James used (Wordpress). Luke also used Wordpress at the start of the year but switched back to Blogger after having got annoyed with it. After seeing my partners use Wordpress at the start of the year instead of Blogger, I was however unfazed by this as I was perfectly happy with Blogger and saw no reason to change. James and Luke had to get used to a wholly different piece of blogging technology and Luke eventually succumbed to this; the ease of use appeared much more difficult than Blogger and you could not embed technologies such as Prezi (which I have used several times instead of text and pictures to present my work.

 You may have noticed from past posts that I have used an online program called Prezi to present my work instead of text and pictures as a creative alternative. This includes the Filming Schedule, Feedback Sheets and my Evaluation Question 2. Despite being quite aggravating at times, Prezi was a very useful tool for creating work as a refreshing alternative to blogging. Without this I would have had to make do with Blogger or look for another was of presenting my work, but as my teacher liked this since it had been used in past student's work I saw no reason to make an alternative.