Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used a variety of technologies in my construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.

Blogger
I used blogger to create a blog that shows how I have advanced my research and planning over time to being able to finally use what I have learnt and produce my music video. Blogger is useful because it allows you to show progression from the start of the course up until the final product. Blogger is also useful because it allows me to use different fonts, colour and sizes for text, although I didn't use these in my posts. Being able to use pictures and videos in blogger allows me to show evidence of my research and planning and having the blogger app allowed me to update my blog when i though of something. I found blogger very easy to use, however, the only disadvantage is you can’t copy and paste pictures. 

Adobe Photoshop
I used Photoshop to edit images for our digipak and magazine poster. Using Photoshop helped with the development of our digipak with the front cover, inside covers and back cover. I experimented with many different tools within Photoshop and many different images to come up with the final finished piece, this would stand out and relate to my video in terms of the similar conventions in style that I have used. Photoshop allows people with the knowledge of the conventions of their chosen product to make an industry standard piece of professional work.
Within Photoshop I used many different tools, for example inserting a shadow effect onto all of the photos and also adding a blue overlay to make the environment look colder in my digipak. I also increased the brightness and contrast of the images (as it was hard to see when i printed it at home), this didnt effect the shadow or the blue overlay it just made it more visible.
On the advert I used the opaque tool to create a collage of the band members, this was done because in the video I used a dissolving effect to overlay the transition between shots.
In the image below it shows how I added the shadow and blue overlay and also how i changed the opacity levels. In the advert Freddy is the main person and then James is in his body and Rory is in the hat.

Premiere Pro

Premiere pro allowed me to edit my music video in detail. I didn't use a wide range of the effects and tools available on Premiere because I wanted it to be simple to promote the performers pain at loosing someone, and so less is more in my case.  That said i did use a small range of different tools and effects. My main one being the dissolve tool between shots. I really liked using this tool at the start of the video and linking it with the opacity tool made the effect that I was looking for. 

Filming

I used HD HVC cameras and my iPhone to film my music video, this was because we had been filming all day in a field and the battery on the camera ran out, so I thought I would make a creative decision and film the last few shots on my phone and if they looked bad wait until another day to film it, but they looked good so I used them. 

Along with the cameras I used a tripod which allowed me to create a more steady and still type of shot, the tripod came in handy when I did the opening establishing shot of the location. Also I used a technique that I learned whilst working for a TV company which was to zoom and then pull the camera up and it looks really good. I was only able to do this because of the tripod. 

To take the photos for my Digital and Advert i used my own Nikon coolpix L23 14 megapixel camera. I found this technology extremely useful and made the process of editing so easy as the picture quality was good.