Q4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the duration of this project we have used a wide range of new media technologies in order to produce the end result. The most significant tools that enabled us to complete each task in my opinion was Web 2.0, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop CS5 and the Sony HVR A1E Camcorder. Each stage required different skills and different technologies which contributed heavily to the amount of technologies we ended up using.
Research and Planning

Web 2.0 was extremely useful in the research and planning stages because it enabled us to organise roles, communicate with one another and gather inspiration from existing examples in the industry. Social Networking sites, Twitter and Facebook in particular were helpful to us, as we used them to organise group meetings, assign tasks and gather actors for the shoots. Most of our communication outside of the media block was done on the facebook group that we had set up at the start of the project and has been used regularly throughout. YouTube played a big role also in the research stages because it enabled us to draw inspirations from videos that had already been created in the industry and in the dance genre.

Utilising Social Networking sites such as Facebook

As the project went through several changes we used various cameras over the course including the Sony HDV 30 and we had the opportunity to use the Sony HVR Z1E on our first shoot in the park (see pictures below). In terms of gaining more experience, I found that I learnt alot more from using the Sony HVR Z1E because we played around with manual focus, it was also the first time I stepped out of my comfort zone by not using the tripods.

Me using the Sony HVR Z1E

Construction

Music Video

To film the video we were lucky enough to have access to the Sony HVR A1E Camcorders which allowed us to record in HD, making the footage look much higher in quality. The cameras were very light which made it easier for us to use them steadily without a tripod. For the shots where the panda is dancing in the middle of the road, this was extremely helpful because Sam was sat in the back of the car in order to make the track smooth, but the success of the shot depended upon his ability to keep the camera still.

Sony HVRA1E Camcorder

In order to edit the video and finalise it we used the software package Adobe Premiere Pro which we have used in previous years for coursework projects. One of the features that we discovered this time that allowed us to be much more productive with our edit time was the option to scene detect when capturing footage. This allowed us to leave the camera to capture itself, as the computer would automatically capture footage in chunks according to when recording was started and stopped. This meant we could then focus on something else and when we came back to it we wouldn't have to go through all of the footage to find the parts we wanted.

Scene Detect



Brightness and Contrast Effects

Colour grading was also another important job with the video because the footage was spread over time and nearly all of the footage was taken outside, meaning that the lighting was different in different shots. Therefore we used the brightness and contrast tool along with the three way colour corrector in order to give the video a consistent visual look. Below is a video where we explain the process of how we colour graded the footage.



Album Cover
On the promo shoot we used a Cannon 550D which at first we found tricky to use due to the variety of settings we could use and it took some getting used to. However after about ten minutes of trialling the camera we knew what we were doing and how we wanted to proceed with the shoot. The quality of the images were extremely high and this made them look quite professional.

Cannon 550D used on the Promo Shoot

For the creation of the album cover, Adobe Photoshop CS5 was used for both editing all the images from the promo shoot and putting together the final album cover. The majority of this task was completed by Jess as she has the most experience and talent in Photoshop, and this was helpful as it ensured that we ended up with professional looking images. However, from helping her with this task I learnt quite alot about photoshop in a short amount of time. This was mainly concerning various keyboard shortcuts that saved alot of time editing the images, for example CTRL + T enabled me to transform/edit the images without having to constantly make them appear manually. Another feature I learnt about was grouping layers together making it much easier to organise the different sections of the album cover.

Website

To create the website we used a website called WIX.COM which was extremely useful because it made it so much simpler and easier for us to use compared to if we had to learn html and use dreamweaver, which would have taken a much longer time also. I found it to be an extremely useful tool because you could do so much with the website that made sure that it didn't look unprofessional or as if it was a student project which i was impressed by. Sometimes it didn't allow us to create certain features that we wanted to include, and at first we found creating the featured news section challenging, but on the whole I think that it allowed us to be creative within reason and helped us produce a professional and visually appealing website. Below is a video I have made to demonstrate the basics of Wix and how easy it was to use.


I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 (this is what I had available at home to use) in order to create the Hoodies that you can see on the store on the website. These were relatively easy to make as once I had made one version, I recreated others by altering the colour of the jumper.

Evaluation
Of course the main tool used for the evaluation stage of the project is Web 2.0 in the form of blogger as that is how we are able to publish our responses to the questions. However in addition to this I have used a software package called Camtasia, in order to create the tutorial videos, the virtual guide of the website and the spoken presentation.

Camtasia Screenshot with annotations of the basic features

Once again we used the Sony HVRA1E Camera in order to film the focus group session and the interview afterwards, so that we could capture their reactions and responses to the video, website and album cover.
Overall, I think that the most significant tool we have used throughout the project is Web 2.0 because essentially it is allowing us to pull each of the different texts together into a central place, both on the blog and the website.