Question 4: how did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
From the beginning to the end of making this product, I used several different types of media technologies from researching through to evaluating the music video. For planning and research, it was mostly using the computers to go on the internet etc, whereas for the actual making of the product it was more practical based where we used actual equipment such as cameras and advanced software programs i.e. Final Cut Express.
Planning and research

iMacs: We had to use iMacs for our work as they contained more advanced software etc than regular Windows computers. They also included Final Cut Express which is what we used to edit our video, as well as Photoshop and InDesign. . They are very different to Windows operating systems though, and so problems arose as I tended to have some difficulty in navigating them, but eventually I managed to discover how to use them after several trial and errors. I found they were much more efficient that Windows machines for the purpose of processing information, i.e. during the editing of the video, although I feel that was the only good point about using them. I felt I could have done many more things with a Windows PC, the iMacs greatly limited what my finished products could have turned out like, as I understand Windows PC's more and therefore put my knowledge of them to better use. I was fine with the iMacs after a while but I still would have preferred to use a Windows PC, as I could have been more creative etc.

Google: As we had to research many things such as examples of artists for our genre, I used Google as a search engine as it is what I always use. It is simple and straightforward and takes quicker to load than other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing, due to their not being many images and links on the page etc. It always includes new searches whenever they are available, and I was able to find out the information I needed easily. I had no problems with Google, and I wouldn't have used any other browser.

YouTube: YouTube is a video streaming site accessible to all which includes videos from professionals’ i.e. real artists, as well as of normal people’s videos, i.e. their version of a song etc. As we were doing the music video genre, this was a really helpful site to use as we could look at examples of real artist’s videos within the genre. It also had past projects of students, which is another element that greatly helped us out in the making of our final product, due to being able to see how it differed and knowing what we could and couldn’t do in regards to making it the best we could, even though it was only for a college project. A bad point about YouTube is that it does limit certain videos to a specific country or region, therefore we could have no access to it, and it also is very strict about copyright laws. But there were no problems when I used it, and I found it fairly easy to use, also it gave us inspiration for our own video.

Blogger: Blogger is where we put all our work from the beginning to the end of the project. It is a free website which comes in handy as we wouldn’t have to pay for it, and is really efficient in that you can incorporate images and embed PowerPoints and videos, thus making it a good medium to use for our coursework. The only bad points I can see about Blogger is that it is not very efficient with uploading videos directly onto it, and is unable to upload PowerPoint. Also, the fonts/colors are limited, but nonetheless it is a good website, simple and easy to use.

CreateAGraph.com: When gathering the initial results of our audience questionnaire, I made charts for them using this website. It is really easy and simple to use, just simply inputting the information and seeing the output as a graph which we could then save. We could also change what type of graphs we wanted, the colours, fonts, etc. I found this website much easier and simpler to use than using other methods such as creating them using Microsoft Word, which I find more complicated to do, and so therefore I found nothing wrong with using this method of creating graphs and would use it over others.

Microsoft Word: I used Microsoft Word to draft many of my blog posts rather than simply writing in blogger itself. It has many great features that aren’t really accessible on blogger, such as a variety of fonts, picture editing, colours, etc. Also, blogger requires an internet connection and for the user to have to log in at all times, whereas for Microsoft Word the user could just save the file on a location of their choice, i.e. a flash drive, and access it whenever and wherever, regardless of whether they have internet connection or not, or want to go through the hassle of logging into blogger when it is more restrictive than Word also. Word is a great word processing software, and was easy enough to use.
Construction of product
HD camera: We used a HD camera reserved solely for the studio to shoot all our video. As it is high definition, and we used green screen, this made significantly easier for us in the end to edit the green screen out, because of the clear, high resolution pictures. Though it has many different features, it wasn’t that hard ultimately to get the hang of, and saved us a lot of time and effort as with any other camera, the green screening task would have been that much more difficult, which was key. It was easy enough to get the hang of, and was good to use.

Studio and lights: The studio was essential as it was where we decided to shoot our whole video, as opposed to deciding to shoot it on location, as it contained the green screen which we needed to edit our video and include the various effects ultimately used. We used several lighting equipment to maintain a constant tone throughout the video to make it consistent and look more professional. The lighting equipment also came in particularly handy for when we used effects such as making Ross’s face be in shadow, which fit in with our video for the purpose of making him look like a criminal. The lighting equipment did tend to overheat, and we did have very specific times within college to use the studio as well as a time limit which we struggled with, but it turned out okay and was all worth it in the end.

Digital camera: We used a digital camera to take pictures of some of our progress, as well as needing it for pictures for the ancillary tasks. They were very quick and easy to use, and took good quality pictures.

Final Cut Express: We used this particular program to edit our video. Everyone did the basics such as arranging the video and audio within the footage, importing files, cutting, copying, and pasting footage within the actual video, and various features such as cropping/trimming off parts of the video which were irrelevant and therefore didn’t need to be included. Teigan had specific ideas in mind to include more advanced special effects etc, and so she incorporated those into the video. Final Cut was easy for me to use as it is a lot like Sony Vegas, which I have used a lot of times in the past, and so it was easy enough to get the hang of. I learnt how to use chroma key and found it simple enough to use, as well as adjusting the hue/saturation/brightness levels etc to make the cutting out of the green screen more efficient when all the green wouldn’t fade away completely, and so it levelled it out. It has many features, which allowed for our group to be more creative, even though we had to get the hang of a lot.

InDesign: This is what I used to create the print projects, and included a variety of very useful features, i.e. changing the fonts, importing pictures and backgrounds, and having picture ratios to work with, thereby making the task a lot easier for me. The actual program itself was easy to use, and I could do many things for my prints, such as patterning and using opacity for the boxes etc. Due to the fact I had to pattern the background from scratch as I couldn’t find a shortcut of this, it was very time consuming, and so this was something I didn't appreciate about the program.

PhotoShop: I used PhotoShop to edit my photos, as it had a wider variety of features than most regular photo editing programs had, and could do more advanced things, i.e. cropping out the backgrounds etc, which were very useful, as we created custom backgrounds on PhotoShop using its wide range of brushes and other features and then were able to use the cropped images to incorporate into our created backgrounds. PhotoShop was easy to handle, and I would rather use it over other photo editing programs as it includes the basics such as changing the hue/saturation/brightness etc, but also the more advanced features such as the brushes and editing out the background were more useful in creating successful print pieces. The downside to PhotoShop was that it wasn’t able to successfully complete some tasks I required such as the patterning.

DaFont.com: This is a website compromising of free fonts to download. This was a big part of our ancillary task, as it was where we could find the perfect fonts for our project, ultimately discovering comic book and video game style fonts which seemed almost as if it was created for the purpose of our project, as normal standardised fonts wouldn’t have been effective and as appealing if we had used them instead in our project. The website is simple enough to navigate, and has many categories that could provide useful when narrowing our search. Downloading and installing the fonts from the website was extremely easy to do, and so overall there wasn’t any hassle in using this site.
Evaluation
Microsoft PowerPoint: I used Microsoft PowerPoint as I was able to use different coloured fonts and themed backgrounds to make my presentation of information more visually appealing, also it wouldn’t look like a big block of text as it included bullet points and I could also incorporate pictures of our artist and graphs etc onto it. It was straightforward to use and was a better way of presenting my information than using blogger or Microsoft Word, which would have been more restricting and I couldn’t have used as much artistic license.
Slideshare: We used this site to upload our PowerPoint presentations, as it was the only way we could embed them into our blog. It is simple enough to use and doesn’t take very long, and so it is a good medium as we couldn’t upload the presentations directly onto the blog.
In this stage, I also used:
Microsoft Word: For the drafting of my script for the director’s commentary.
Final Cut Express: The video editing program I used to make the director’s commentary.
Google: To access the pictures I needed to include within the PowerPoints and this post.
Blogger: To link back to relevant wall posts for use in my evaluation, and to upload the final evaluation onto.