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

We used a wide range of new media technologies in research and planning, production and the evaluation.

An overview of all the technologies we used

Created with Padlet

I have chosen to focus my answer on which technology I thought had the most significance in Construction and Research and planning.

Research and Planning: Social Media 

The convergence of web 2.0 with portable technology such as mobile phones, made social media a great way to communicate with each other instantly in the research and planning stages. We created a group page on Facebook to share web links and ideas and set up a group chat for instant messaging.

We all either have smart phones or check Facebook once a day so it was a good place to remind  each other of shoots...

What made the Facebook group better then the chat tool, was how it was easy to post a large number of photos, that we could easily access and other people could comment on...

Sharing and commenting on photos

Screenshot from the our Facebook chat group, example of how we used it to share ideas...

Social media was not solely exclusive to research and planning- we used it throughout the process.

For example we used it in Construction, when creating a marketing campaign for our artist, the direct nature of social media that allows you to target specific groups and the fact that it is free made it an ideal for marketing.

iPads

The portability of ipads made them ideal to use to access the internet in group meetings as it meant we could sit round the tables, rather than the computer room and not be distracted by other people or editing etc. 

Construction: The Cameras & Studio

We used a range of cameras of different quality in the production of our video; the Canon 5D, Canon 500 D and the GoPro.

All shots in the studio were filmed on the Cannon 5D. 

Cannon 5D

This was the camera with the highest resolution that we had in the school and you can tell the difference in the quality of footage. Furthermore its digital capabilities allowed us the connect the camera to a monitor so that the whole group could easily watch back our footage on a big screen which was very useful. 

However it is very expensive so could only be used in the seaward studio which meant we had to use a different camera for scenes shot outside...

The powder paint fight was shot on two different days and we weren't able to gain access to the same camera both days. This meant that including the Go pro, there were three different quality cameras used to shoot this scene.

Go Pro

The durability of a GoPro that makes it different to other cameras was great for the powder paint fight as it meant we didn't have to worry about getting paint on the lens. This combined with it's ability to shoot in slo mo produced some visually interesting footage.

Camera 1- worse quality

Camera 2 - better quality

With the benefit of hindsight we would not recommend combining these 4 cameras for the music video form. Music videos are fast paced and the use of such different quality cameras made our video look disjointed at times.

Post Production- Adobe Premier Pro

We used Adobe Premier Pro for the editing of the music video and all other videos made in the process such as the behind the scenes footage for the website. This technology allowed us to achieve the look of the electric dance music genre, through the various effects we created...

Creating the overlaying look by adding key frames and changing the opacity was not a skill that I was well acquainted with until creating this video. Also although creating "flckery editing" was created using all the basic premier pro tools (razor tool) it was a creative way of making the most out of the tools in a way that I had not yet thought of.

Evaluation- Blogger

The evaluation is presented on blogger. Blogger's HTML format makes it easy to embed different web tools, such as powerpoint presentations, gifs, mind maps, slide shows, videos... This meant we could present our answers in the most effective way to answer a question that often regards a video or website, that we would not be able to present as effectively on paper.

It's disadvantages were that our work does not physically exist- and is out of our hands, for example if your laptop suddenly crashes and you have not save your work.

However I think that overall the pros out weigh the negatives due to the many new options that online provides.