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

We used a lot of new technology in the creation of this product that we had not previously used for Media Studies productions. These include Sony Handycam video cameras, dollys, tripods and other equipment that assists with a filming process.  Prior to beginning the project we completed a preliminary task of creating an open day video for our school. This gave us experience in using all of this equipment in a less formal format meaning that we were able to develop skills and learn about the equipment and technology. We also learned how to convert footage from the cameras onto the video editing computers using PMB to convert the videos into WMA video files.

Here I am using a Sony Handycam on a tripod  to film shots of the lead singer for our video. 

The most beneficial part of the preliminary work was learning how to use Adobe video editing software such as Premiere Pro and After Effects. As editing is arguably the most important aspect of creating a music video it was very useful that all members of our group had previously been involved in this project. This meant that we all had sufficient knowledge of the software to be able to edit our video. We were all able to be heavily involved in the editing of the video and all had creative input.

Along with the new technology that we used during this project we also used a lot of technology that we had previously used. This included Adobe Photoshop and InDesign which we used during our foundation portfolio last year. We used these programs in the creation of our individual Ancillary tasks which developed our skills further. We were able to be very creative as we were confident in using this technology from our previous experience. We also used a Canon Powershot stills camera to take photos for our ancillary tasks which I had previously used for my foundation portfolio work.

The internet was very useful in the research and planning stage of our music video project. We researched existing products on Youtube and viewed the comments to see people's responses to them. We were able to pick out the conventions of existing music videos through watching them on the internet and this gave us a great starting point to creating our own video. We also viewed existing products similar to our ancillary tasks which meant that we were able to apply conventions to those aswell.

Finally, Blogger was also a new technology to me at the beginning of this project as i had never blogged before. However, I was able to use my knowledge of other social networking sites and bring in knowledge from A-Level ICT and quickly got the hang of it. I have used programs outside of Blogger to make my blog more interesting and interactive and have used HTML coding to embed extra multimedia features into blog posts.