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

Throughout the whole process of creating my music video and ancillary task I have used many new media technologies that have helped record, research and produce the final piece. One of the most useful pieces of technologies has been the internet. This helped with finding an artist to use and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter came in use for contacting the artist to ask for permission to use a song. This was a great leaning tool as I had to think of an appropriate way of addressing the band. The internet also allowed me to use websites such as Youtube and Reverbnation. These sites helped me gather research into the codes and conventions of the genre of music that my chosen artists belonged to as well as helping me to find and chose a song to make the music video for. Finally the internet allowed me to use blogging to help me document the creative processes that I have gone through to reach the end product.

For the making of the video and ancillary tasks I began to use more hardware and software technologies. With this I started off by using smart phones and HD cameras to film test shots and later to film the actual footage for the video. The use of the HD cameras allowed me to work with mics and setting up the right shot and camera angel to create the right effect for the video as well as producing good quality footage.

For the post production stage I used the software Final Cut Pro on the Apple Macs. This software is used in the actual media industry and I found this useful as I gained a great amount of knowledge about the challenges of editing whilst creating a video that could be up to industry quality. With this software I learnt techniques such as creating lighting effects like strobing, altering the colour to create a more dramatic atmosphere and using simple cuts and transitions. I also found it useful and easier for cutting the footage and placing on the timeline in time with the pace and tempo of our chosen song compared to other software.

Finally I used Adobe Photoshop to make alterations to the images used for my ancillary tasks. I used this software to crop images as well as altering contrast and colour saturation. This was a very useful tool to have as it helped to create a final product that met the codes and conventions of similar media products.