Evaluation Q4 - How did you use http://www.countrylifegreatbritishpicnic.co.uk/recipes/show/112/mini-cornish-cheese-and-onion-pasties/media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a range of media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of making our music video.

RESEARCH



MAC'S 

All of our media texts were constructed using the Apple Mac's. The Mac's have lots of different programmes on it which enabled us to edit during the later stages of our construction.

Pro's

• Simplicity - we found it relativity easy to use despite it having quite complex programmes/Apps. 
• Quality - everything we did on the mac's looked flawless, the only time something didn't look as flawless, was our music video footage which had been filmed on a tape camera at certain times. 

Con's 

• Access - We were not able to access simple programs such as 'Word' or 'PowerPoint' on the Mac's if we wanted to use these programs so that we could accumulate and edit our information at home we had to find a standard PC which was time consuming.
• Time Consuming - Most programs had lengthy processes which made us need to rush certain parts of our media texts.

GOOGLE

I used google a lot throughout the research stages in order to obtain vital information about our band's genre, this aided us hugely and ensured we had enough background knowledge to carry out the construction  of our media texts.


Pro's 

• Simplicity - all you need to do it type in what you want to know and it gives you the best possible answers based on your search.

Con's

• Can provide a lot of answers, however, not all answers will be relevant or required.

CONSTRUCTION

SONY HANDYCAM's

For filming our music video we used Sony digital camcorders, we found the quality of these camcorders to be amazing as they enabled us to zoom in without blurring the footage. they were easier to use than last years cameras as they were digital and the others were tape which impaired the quality which subsequently this time improved due to the digital technology.

Pros's

• Ease of use, even for amateurs
• excellent quality

Con's 

• Not always available due to the high number of students using them at one period of time.
• Battery life was limited.  

All of our editing was done on apple mac's which has advanced technology and many programs for us to edit our footage and Print work on.

PHOTOSHOP

We used Photoshop to edit our pictures and add text to them to make them look professional. Neither myself or Adeline was an expert with Photoshop, but we were pleasantly surprised at how easy to use Photoshop actually was.

Pro's

• It had a lot of different techniques on it which enabled us to make our print work look more effective. 

Con's 

• Difficult to use - as we had never really used photoshop before we found it increasingly difficult to do the simplist of tasks. 
• lengthy processes due to Adeline and myself not knowing anything about photoshop.

INDESIGN

InDesign was used to set out the layout of all our ancillary texts, which again was surprisingly easy which made the print work quicker and easier to get finished as opposed to our music video.

Pro's

• Easier to use than photoshop
• Less time consuming. 

Con's 

• Still quite complex as we had no previous experience with the program. 

EVALUATION

After completing our music video we used Facebook to get people to give us feedback on our music video. This worked by setting up an event, and asking people to leave their feedback on the same page.

Pro's

• Popular and is used by millions of people worldwide. 
• Easy to access from most places that have Wi-fi access. 
• Advertising via 'Word of mouth'
• Free so most people will respond to the video. 
• In the top 5 most popular social networking sites.

Con's

• Time consuming 

During both the research stage and evaluation stage we used YouTube. YouTube aided us in finding similar music video examples, and somewhere to put our music video once we had finished it. 

Pro's

• Easy to post your video's to for free
• Worldwide 
• Most popular site for viewing free video's

Con's

• Can take a while to upload
• Streaming takes a while

BLOGGER

We have used blogger throughout all of the stages of our media coursework. Blogger is a site where you can post parts of information about topics you are interested in. 

Pro's

• Easy to access. 
• Good place to catalogue idea's

Con's

• Difficult to edit, when the text messes up a little bit. 
• Complex stages to upload images and video's etc..