JCutts - Q4

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

We shot out footage on a Sanyo Xacti High Definition Dual Camera. These new HD cameras that had been purchased by the school, made filming and editing more enjoyable as well as giving us a great , smooth music video. However they were slightly different to cameras we had all previosuly used , so we went on a recci to Brighton not only to get shot idea's but also to all familise ourselves with the new HD camera.

We also had to look into what frames per second (FPS) we wanted to set. We decided at some point in our video we would use slow motion which meant we would need to change the settings at some point. We originally used a 60FPS setting, this proved problematic and caused premiere to constantly crash. This resulted in us having an extended deadline due to constant technical problems. Despite this causing frustration amongst the group, we managed to get round it ... eventually.

When editing our slow motion clips we realised that because there would have to a cut in the size of image , it would leave a black curtain each side of the image. To cover this up we inserted a layer over the top of the lead singer.

Blogger;

We posted all of our posts onto blogger, and used this to post idea's and general conversations including lesson write ups . This allowed us to comment on each others idea's and speak from the convenience of our own homes. It also allowed teachers to look at our progress as well as other members to help out with suggestions and provide advice to how to get round problems we all had come across.

Here you can see evidence of another class member commenting on one of our posts. This was considered when gathering our audience research .

• Another great feature blogger allowed us to do was to post videos from youtube that we wanted to help show a point found in another music video. This is also allowed us to show evidence of how we gathered research and our development of ideas .
  

Here is evidence of where George has posted a video and told us the points we should consider. Further down showed a comment in which we have reflected our idea's on the post. Blogger also allowed us to respond to a video with another video .

Survey Monkey;

• The majority of our audience research was done on 'Survey Monkey' , this allowed us to make an online survey . This not only was more accessible as we did not need to print off copy's and give out it could be done through social networks such as facebook, simply by posting the link. Furthermore the data could be put into graphs so it was clear to us what the audience has told us on each question.

• This shows our survey on the data collection tab, this enabled us to see the breakdown of each answer clearly.

Adobe Premier Elements;

• We used this programme to edit our footage in , with the experience of using the previous programme last year we had a basic knowledge of how to use it. The newer programme had a slightly different layout and a few more effects but other than that were only a matter of time to get to used to .
• We discussed what effect we were going to include in our music video in order to show off what we were capable of , without it looking out of place in our music video. One of out more successful effect was the '' photo shot'' This include us taking a photo and dropping it , as it hit the ground we pinned a piece of footage on premier and allowed it to play, so it gave the effect that the photo was actually in fact moving.
  

Another effect we used was for the final shot which was shot in slow motion, in order for us to cover up for the fact the initial image is infact smaller. This is due to the setting change on the camera in order to shoot in slow motion . We had to layer our lead singer over the top , not only did this help to make it more smooth, it ended with the lead singers face, which gives good , obvious band image, branding the artist and band with the music.