Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

New technologies have been fundamental to our project from Planning, through to Post-production, in everything from the technology used to shoot our music video from to the software used to edit it. Although we have been getting to grips with cameras and editing software for years in media now there were several new developments in the technology we used this time round which really helped to take our project to more advanced levels.


Canon HV30:

The camera itself that we used this year was a Canon HV30, which records in HV. This was vital for our video as so much of it was in the visuals. We use so many vibrant colours and settings and one of our biggest aims was to really make those colours come to life. The HD camera added a far greater richness, depth and quality to our shots. 


Studio Lighting:

Some of the floor lighting we had access to

Some of the different coloured lighting effects we were able to experiment with

The shadow effect we were able to create using the floor lights

 Our school has just finished building "The Seward Studio" which was extremely beneficial to us when carrying out photo shoots. It meant we had access to lots of high-end, expensive lighting to create the exact colouring effects we wanted on our shoots. We used the large overhead lights to experiment with different lighting for the background of our shots, and were able to use the smaller floor lights (after learning the tricks of three-point-lighting) to make her "jump out" or to create different tones of warmth on her skin. The floor lighting was also fundamental in creating the long shadow shot that we use in the inside panels of our album cover.




Adobe Premiere Pro:

 Although we have all been using Premiere for years now, because of certain effects we wanted to achieve on our project, we started to learn (with help from our technician, Chris) about some of it's functions that we hadn't used before.

We learnt, most importantly how to reverse and speed up shots.This was done simply by right-clicking the clip and changing the speed percentage. The "Reverse Speed" tool was a check box you could select.

We also learnt how to use the colour correct tools, brightness and contrast, and other colouring effects to make the most out of the colour in our shots. Because of the vibrant colours we used, paticularly in the coloured wall shots, this skill was particularly useful to us. We had options such as the use of the "Change colour Tool" and the "Three-way Colour Corrector" and so on which all helped us to acheive different effects.

We used a lot more special effects this year than in previous years to try and keep it interesting. When the beat becomes more fragmented and a background chorus starts singing, for example, we wanted the image to break up to, so we were taught how to use the cross-dissolve tool to create this effect. 
 

  

 

We also learnt how to use split-screens which appeared on the beat to keep it varied and exciting. 

Adobe CS3 Photoshop:


In previous years, I have been using Jasc Paint Shop Pro to edit photos! I didn't really realise until teaching myself how to use Photoshop this year just how much more beneficial it is to making the most out of photos. We were able to air-brush Liv to perfection, change the colouring of shots, place the shadow of the bird on the inside right-hand panel of our album cover, and adjust the brightness and contrast, all with relative ease.


The Internet:


The internet was invaluable to us in every stage of the project.

Facebook meant we could publicize our screening event with ease and keep everyone posted with dates and times, as well as post links of our website and the video online.

YouTube allowed us to make sure that our video reached a wide audience in a short space of time, and could be linked to other websites such as Facebook, and our blogs.

Also our group blog, obviously, has been an easy way of keeping everyone up-to-date and in the know about what is going on and anything they might have missed. We were able to share things such as "to-do lists" to keep everyone on top of what had to get done and track our progress. 

Wix.com was naturally also one of the most important websites we used as it was the software we used to create our own website. It's a flash-based programme so it was incredibly easy to pick up, and far less complicated than a programme like Dreamweaver. It was easy to navigate with a simple drag-and-drop function for placement, and was much like customizing a word document! The adding of photos, live links, videos, and changing font sizes and colours were all extremely easy.