Evaluation 4

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

To make sure that we do not break the copyright rules and regulations, we had to find at least 3 songs from www.unsigned.com Unsigned band is a band that has not been signed to a record label. Bands that release their own material on self-published CDs can also be considered unsigned bands.

However, we have got our music choices from www.bestofbritishunsigned.com

Once on the website, we had to choose a genre of our choices. However, to ensure that we pick the best genre that suit us and our skills, we had to conduct some research:

Brief genres that I have explored;

Hip Hop

R'n'B

Pop, Acoustic, Blues/Faulk

Rock

Why is internet an effective way of exposure for an unsigned band.

Whilst on the photoshop, i have decided that i do not want to have the paper background on the CD cover and thus, i have used the "eraser tool" and erased all the background, untill i was left with no paper. The writing is now 'not as neat', but decided to keep it like this because it carries a mysterious look, which goes well with the theme of sirens

I have added i bit of colour to the siren and left the 'reflected siren' black and white. This is because i believe that black and white look most effective and scary, whereas i have chosen warm, welcoming colours for the siren above. I have chosen this contrast to emphasize on the duplicity of sirens.

Editing- I have developed and learnt how to synch properly on iMovie and to be precise as possible. I have also learnt to relate the editing to the music- not just the camera. 

So that the syncing was as easy as possible when it came to editing, we have made sure that whilst shooting the performance, our chosen song is playing at the background. We had to learn the lyrics and sing to the song. That way we have ensured that we have pronounced the right words at the right time, making it easier whilst editing.

Challenges that we had to overcome

-The production copied on the CD with the sound of the footage still bleeding through

-This was due to some of the clips only being muted on iMovie, rather than deleted all together.

 -We had overcome that by going through all the clips on the production on iMovie and deleted all the sound of the footage that was left on there. Then we tried to burn on disc again, and this time we were successful.

Now I know pretty much everything that I need to know in order to have a decent blog. Blogger helps to put all my information down on the internet rather than on a paper.

I have also learnt how to upload videos on Youtube.  I had to find a way of how to transform a video into a movie, in order to be able to upload it onto YouTube, which was interesting becasue it has taken me a long time to figure out how to do it.

Prezis are a great way of making presentation in a very fun way. They have lot of themes, from which some are 3D, making it very realistic to watch. It was hard to use at first, but eventually I got the hang of it. I have used prezi for analysis, for evaluation questions and for ISL work. They are brilliant! They are very easy to upload on my blog for everyone to see in seconds.

I found creately on the internet when I was looking for something a little bit different. Creately is also free, and has some very nice templates for spider diagrams and mind maps. They are very difficult to save (it takes me about 20 minutes to find out how to do it each time). I learned that I had to save it first into a computer before I could do anything else. It is a pain, but it’s worth it.

Camera work and handling a camera, making different shots that create different effects must have been the biggest challenge. I have learnt the different shot types, such as composition and framing, rule of thirds, the golden mean, mid shot, close up, long shot, extreme close up and point of view shot.

Also I have learned a lot about camera movement. For example the high angle shot, low angle shot, pan, tracking shot, zooming in/ out.

The hardest was the point of view shots, especially in the car because there was not a lot of room for tripod as well. Hence, we had to make all of our point of view shots by holding the camera in our hands. This was tricky because we had to be careful not to shake too much. I had to climb up a ladder to get a good high angle shot. The easier ones were the ones on the tripod- which is the long shots, close ups, mid shots and pans.

YouTube and Facebook are known world-wide and thus every time someone puts something on-line, it would become more popular than if people just play it on local TV channel or radio.