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1. Alvina
4.How do youuse media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
Looking back,this year the technology was a lot more complex and challenging. The
range of technologies used also increased compared to last year, as I had to find waysto
analyse my ideas and tasks on various platforms, showing off my technologicalskills.
Eventhough the level of analysis this year was a lot more detailed and academic, I found
the stage of the research and planning the simplest as this year the courseworkwas
based on Wix.com whichis a website that allows people to design their own version of
their websites. At first, I was not familiar with web designing as I have never done this
before but I believe that because our generation is so used to editing and designing
online programs such as social media pages, we naturally get used to making new pages
online and designing them to our like. Already knowing how to add things like text,
personalized backgrounds, images and icons to online pages are all skills that I already
acquired, therefore doing my web designing on Wix was not as challenging as I thought
and I was in my comfortzone. However, I did struggle with the layoutof the page as it
had to be edited manually. This led to a few complications when previewing my Wix
page as some of the text and images were out of the frame. Fortunately, it did not take
me toolong to learn that there is a setting called “align” that makes sure everything is in
its place when the audience viewsthe website live from the internet, but other than that
I got on really well and made the most out of this easy form of technology.
YouTubeand Survey Monkey were also important in the research stage of my
courseworkbecause they helped me learn about the genre better and its forms and
conventions and what the audience expects. Looking at real media texts on YouTube
allowed me to analyse real music videos that inspired me formy ownmusic video and
ancillary tasks. Especially, looking at Grime music videos helped me pay close attention
to the mise en scene. Survey Monkey on the other hand was a really useful and a clever
way to ask our target audience (teenagers ages 16-18) questions that would help us
with our research. We made an online questionnaire that were sent through WhatsApp
to a few people to fill out and included questions about some conventions of Grime and
what the audience expects and wants to see in our music video.
In terms of coordinating and communicating, technology was important because my
group and I and the casting had to communicate online a lot. We were mainly texting on
the phone or on WhatsApp or calling each other whichwas quite challenging at times
because reach to Dieonte (our actor) he wouldnot respond or he would respond too
late, whichled to our filming schedule to be delayed even more. This was a disadvantage
because I think communicating in real life would have been more effectivethan using
technology because faceto face, there wouldbe no lackof communication or any
obstacles stopping us from talking.
During the construction of my media products, technology was much needed due toall
the editing and filming, whichare basics in Media A level. First of all one of the biggest
technology improvements this years was the cameras and tripods. Fortunately, we got
to use DSLRs, which are really high quality cameras withadjustable zoomand manual
focus.This allowed us to have a crispier image quality that looks way more professional
and appealing to the audience, especially during our photography and filming sessions.
However,this meant that I had to be more carefulwhile holding the camera to film
because every little movement is visible to the eye of the audience due to the high
quality. Shaky clips were also a problem because even the tiniest movement would ruin
the whole clip, whichled me to film certain scenes quite a few times. The adjustable
zoom lense and manual focus were a total advantage while filming because it enabled

2. Alvina
me to do different techniques such as “pool focus” or to zoominto something I wanted
the audience to focuson. In fact,I included twopool focus scenes; one during the
actress starring at the actordrug dealing before meeting him and another while the
actor is in frontof the mirror getting ready for his interview. This technique allows the
audience to focuson two things slowly as the focusgoes from one object to another. This
was all new to me because I did not use a DLSR during my Foundation Portfolio,which
meant I only had the basic skills in this formof technology whichconsisted of being able
to film with a steady hand and only do different shots and angles. Tripods allowed me to
film and photograph things in a more professional way.They have helped with how
steady the shots wereand doing a lot of establishing shots such as the slow up and down
panning of the estate blocks or the time lapse of Shadwell Basin. Looking backat the
music video I feel that I should have added a few low angle shots of the artists lip
syncing because it was found a lot on my research. HoweverI still have a range of shots
that are good enough such as the extreme close up of some props such as the application
form, phones and watch.
Microediting played a big part during the constructionstage because I had to pay
attention to every little detail in the music videoand ancillary tasks. I did not realise
how challenging Photoshopis until this year, as there were a lot more steps that had to
be followedin order for my magazine advert to lookclean and professional. I in fact had
to research YouTubePhotoshop tutorials in order to learn how to edit pictures. This was
really useful because I learnt many techniques such as duplicating pictures and flipping
them to make it look like it has a mirrored effector airbrushing the person’s faceto
cancel any blemishes and imperfections. Final Cut Pro was another vital form of
technology I used to edit my music video. Microediting was again really important
because as supposed to last year, in our Advanced Portfoliowehave to match the video
to the music and music videos can be tricky,especially the song wechose as it is quite
fast paced. Lip syncing clips are an example of how micro editing is vital because the lips
of the actor have to match the exact lyrics at the right time. This was challenging forme
as I struggled to sometimes perfectly match Alby Kay’s lips to the words in the song and
had to cutback quite a few times to get it right. Speed changing is another example of
how precise I had to be while editing. This is because it had to be done manually in
percentages and getting the right percentage was difficultas the speed had to match the
peace of the music.
Motion is the form of technology that I used to create the titles in the music video.This
was the easiest task I achieved in my Advanced portfolio because nothing changed since
last year. My group and I decided to keep it simple and chose a clean, thin and plain font
that was big enough to fit the middle of the screen. The “fadein fade out” movement was
also simple and I did not find any difficulties.
The evaluation stage was tough because the use of different technologies was a must as I
had to answer four questions in four different ways. I used PowerPoint,Final Cut, Prezi
and Powtoon.These were all used in my evaluation last year but the reason I found this
stage tough is because of the amount of analysis and details included in each answer. I
feel that Powtoonwas the hardest to use because it is animated, therefore texts, pictures
and icons all move and I had to keep trackwith them and put each in order and adjust
their length so that the audience can read and see all the information withoutthe clip
changing into the next.