1. Evaluation – Question 4
How did you use media technologies in the research and
planning, construction and evaluation stages?

2. Research and Planning
Adobe Photoshop
During the research and planning
stages of the project, my partner and I used
only digital software to construct
documents such as the skeleton layouts
and mock-ups etc. Programmes such as
Photoshop were utilised in an artistic
fashion to produce organised documents
that could be followed as a plan when we
entered the construction stages of the
project. A house style was followed by
colour using the Eyedropper Tool whilst
the ‘fx’ button was used to add drop
shadows to the text. This was so that
everything matched and also helped us to
develop our ideas.

3. Research and Planning
Adobe Photoshop
We also manipulated the
opacity of certain texts and images to
create an
original, overlapping, ‘trippy’ effect or
to add subtleness to images in the
mock-ups. This was to tie in with the
spacey sounds of the music and appeal
to the audience that would listen to a
song like the one we used in our video.
We used the paintbrush tool to ‘hand-
paint’ designs onto the
digipak, which, in my
opinion, required more skill and
precision than may actually appear.
Custom shapes were also included in
the site plans to indicate the time of
day and the direction that the camera
will face.

4. Research and Planning
Excel, Pages and Keynote
For the more, sort of, ‘contextual’
work, programmes such as Excel, Keynote
and Pages were used to create documents
such as the budget, treatment etc. This was
key in making sure that everything looked
neat and tidy, ready for us to use and
understand if we should need to revise any
information during the construction stages
of the project.
We also made sure that the logo
we created on Photoshop for our record
company, ‘Nexus,’ was included on all
contextual work to add a sense of
professionalism to the project. It also would
make our work easily identifiable should
we print it out and accidentally misplace it.

5. Construction
Hardware
The construction of our main task obviously included using
digital hardware such as a a Sony HD video camera. As most of
our video was scheduled to be a time lapse with no other sound
other than the music, we only really had to set the camera up on
its tripod and leave it for 5-20 minutes each time. This was fairly
easy and did not require much knowledge of how to use the
camera at all, really. However, we did use the zoom at some
points during filming and I also managed to work out how to
delete tapes by date - we found that there was still a load of
footage on the camera from a previous group that had used it!
We also used my Canon photo camera for our photo-
shoot to obtain the image(s) that we needed for our ancillary
tasks. I simply set the camera to ‘landscape’ and took the picture
without using the zoom or any other affects.

6. Construction
Final Cut Pro
The first thing that my partner and I learnt how to do
using FCP was to download our data and choose which clips we
wanted to use. (This also lead to creating our Edit Decision List
on Microsoft Word using a table). This helped us to organise
ourselves and have a clear understanding of which clips would
be suitable for the video. We then, obviously, used FCP to create
our music video, most details of which are actually in the
development diary. We used all of the facilities that FCP
provided us with in a fairly standard way because there wasn’t
really enough time to be taught the ins and outs of the
programme. We adjusted the speed using the ‘speed’ option and
changed the visual levels of each clip using the colour corrector
tool. We cut up the clips using the blade tool and made sure that
everything was neat and tidy by consistently having the
‘Snapping Tool’ turned on.

7. Construction
Adobe Photoshop
During the construction stages of the
assignment, we used a mixture of hardware
and software to create the main and ancillary
tasks. Of course, for the ancillary tasks, mainly
Photoshop was used to 1. actually compose the
documents and 2. edit our main image that we
used on our ancillary tasks and at the start of
the music video. Again, my partner and I
utilised the diverse facilities that Photoshop
provided us with and used a set of ‘star’
brushes to recreate a galactic appearance on a
normal image that we had taken during the
daytime. We also used the selective color
tool, the magic wand tool and a range of other
standard procedures such as adjusting the
‘curves’. All of this information
is, however, included in the development
diary.

8. Evaluation
 In my evaluation, I have utilised modern
technological advancements by including a range of
presentational facilities such as blog posts, Slideshare
and Microsoft PowerPoint. Slideshare is an online
sort of ‘PowerPoint’ that allows for a lot more visual
aid than many other means of presentation. I used it
for this reason and also to add variety to my
evaluation and to show that I am able to quickly learn
about new media technologies and use them to my
advantage at ease to achieve a comprehensive and
almost interactive way of presenting data. I
did, however, find it difficult to edit the ‘path’s on
Slideshare initially but managed to overcome this
setback with a little perseverance and patience! I also
had trouble with embedding my Slideshare
presentation on my wordpress.com blog. However, I
also managed to overcome this by using my initiative
and ‘googling’ what I needed to do. I managed to find
a ‘gigya’ embedding code on a blog that was very
helpful in helping me to embed the presentation onto
my blog as it was aided by written instructions.

9. Evaluation
 Blog posts were probably the easiest means of
presenting my evaluation because I just had to write
what I thought in the text box on my blog and then
post. Blog posts are a neat and tidy, easy-to-
understand way of presenting data because they are
simply text and images, which is why I did two blog
posts for the four evaluation questions. It also
shows that I am quite capable in navigating myself
around wordpress.com and posting blogs as is also
evident from literally all of my work that is posted
on there.

10. Evaluation
 I also used PowerPoint for my evaluation. In fact, it is
actually this very question for which I used the Microsoft
programme… Although PowerPoint is not particularly
visual (unless slide transitions are added and whatnot) I
find that it is a sensible way of presenting information
because it is easy to use and easy to navigate from an
audience’s perspective. Sometimes I find that
PowerPoint does not do exactly what I want it to do –
whether this is down to my own personal skill or bugs in
the programme. However, I again try to overcome this
with patience and perseverance and also by saving my
work regularly. I used PowerPoint because it again
shows that I am able to utilise modern media
technologies and use them to present my work in a neat
and tidy fashion.