One aspect of the advanced portfolio course is using new media technologies in the research and production. It's worth evaluating how I used them and what their strengths and weaknesses are so that I can make even better use of technology in future projects.
Dell laptop computer - Windows 8:
Throughout the advanced portfolio, I have been lucky enough to work on a fairly fast laptop PC. It served as my primary computer for work throughout the entire coursework project. With a standard keyboard and touch pad, I was able to get about all of my research and planning, production and evaluation written work without any issues, and the speedy processor and memory allowed this to happen without any hiccups or issues of lag, even when handling and cropping huge image files.
However - this wasn't all good. As a Windows 8 PC, I was unable to install final cut onto my computer and use it to reliably edit my footage together. Instead, there is existing free and paid software available to download and use - but final cut is the software I have learnt to use at school and exists as one of the best combinations of functionality and accessibility. For this reason I was completely unable to edit my music video from home, which was a disadvantage of having a Windows 8 PC. One other disadvantage is not having a mouse, but I didn't particularly need that for anything - it could have made some document editing easier.
iMac - Mac OS:
The other computers I used throughout A2 media were Apple iMac computers, running Mac OS. One of the greatest things about Mac computers is their optimisation to run applications efficiently - so speed was never a particular issue in using these computers, even older generation versions in school. Mac computers have the advantage of being able to run Final Cut applications, which I used for editing in school, so I was able to edit effectively when using Mac computers as opposed to Windows computers.
At home meanwhile I also used my step-father's iMac as he is a graphic designer and has Adobe's design suite installed onto his computer, giving me the advantage of easy access to professional design software for my digipak and magazine advert. Macs served as my primary production computers.
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign:
As I just mentioned, I was fortunate enough to be able to use my step-father's license of the Adobe Suite for all of my design work for my digipak and magazine advert.
I used photoshop heavily in the early stages of my digipak design. At first, I was using an image of my actress in the music video as I had taken an interested photo while out filming. I used photoshop to edit the image as it allowed for very realistic looking clean up effects such as the spot healing brush, and I was able to edit the colours for some parts of the image and not others. Using such professional software was great and gave me the advantage of being able to use effects like this:
However, in the end I decided to ditch the photograph cover and instead go with simplistic, abstract imagery on my front cover, which Indesign and Illustrater were great for. Within Indesign, I created templates for my digipak pages and was there on able to use intuitive design tools to create a digipak I was happy with. Illustrater enabled me to create shapes and import images easily for messing around with to create the best effects. One disadvantage of this is that I had to learn how to use entire professional applications, something which took days - before I was really comfortable. In future, this won't be an issue, so learning Adobe's suite was very beneficial.
Smartphone:
PC sales have been dropping recently - even laptops. One of the reasons for this is the increased functionalities of smartphones and tablets. Though it's obvious that I can't really edit videos or images or do gritty written work on a 5.2'' screen, I was able to snap quick pictures (the one of the Dell laptop!) and organise meetups with my actress, as well as keep an organised calendar and watch over the time.
It also served as an easy way to watch media-related videos, such as my own music video for analysis and improvement purposes. And although I said that a smartphone is too small to do meaty work - I did use the screen capture application on my phone to narrate over my powerpoint in evaluation question 2. Without a phone - organisation would have been a more cumbersome task.
Digital SLR camera:
Nearly all of my footage was filmed on a digital SLR camera. In last year throughout media, I used a digital camcorder as my filming equipment, which was functional - but not exactly beautiful. That changed when I was able to use an SLR camera instead. Footage was crisper, with colours and details smoother and easy on the eyes. I was also able to use out of focus effects more effectively with the SLR camera, manually adjusting the lens. Out of focus shots ended up playing quite a vital role in making my video more mysterious.
An example camera UI
One difficulty I faced was adjusting the settings through the camera software. It was not an easy UI to learn for a non-professional or even for a professional (I handed the camera to my step-father who is also has a photographer job) when I wanted to adjust the white balance, and even he struggled. Eventually we got there, though.
Overall though, the SLR camera played one of the most important roles in my production - and I'm appreciative of its ability to take great looking shots for my video.
Digital camera:
At one point in the production of my music video, I decided that I needed to spice up the drama a little. Unluckily, nobody I knew was willing to play the role of an actor or even had the time to be a cameraman. This meant I had to come up with a way to film more dramatic scenes between two characters without another helper.
I decided that I would be the other character - but I would also film the scenes. I purposefully used a handheld shaky camera technique to give the impression that I was filming the relationship between the characters for keepsake. For this, I didn't want a SLR camera because it wouldn't have given my filming an authentic, gritty feel - so I borrowed my father's digital camera.
Accessible and quick, the camera fulfilled its role well - but adjusting the focus was difficult, especially when I didn't want it to be corrected, when I wanted blurry shots.
Blogger:
Blogger was where I compiled all of my work. Research and planning with shot schedules and video analysis - production work with updates on filming and editing - and even these evaluation posts. All published to my blogger with just a few clicks (and usually thousands of keystrokes).
Blogger was the most important piece of technology because without it, I would have no way to submit work. There were alternatives that we could choose - a lot of students in my class chose to use Wix, which I also used in the beginning. But after struggling with some limitations on what I could add to my posts (e.g. you cannot embed a prezi powerpoint into a Wix post, and when I was using it, it was difficult to add more than one image to one post), I switched to blogger, a very easy to use yet still fairly customisable blog creator and manager.
That, however, may be blogger's biggest issue. It's customisable yes, but limited so. Wix gave you the ability to individually move elements to mostly anywhere you wanted on the page. In Blogger, you're mostly limited to some templates and changing the colours of different elements.
I'm still glad that I used this technology, however - as I appreciate the user friendly interface and ability to easily embed applications.
Microsoft Office:
Office 365 from Microsoft is another technology I used during the advanced portfolio. It allowed me to look at guide material, mark schemes, and even crop some images for use in the blog.
Not particularly interesting, but it definitely helped me out at various points during the year. Evaluation question 2 was answered using Office Powerpoint, for example. The suite was beneficial as a simple work processing tool.
YouTube:
We've all heard of YouTube. The absolutely huge free video sharing site, where thousands of clips of a multitude of genres are uploaded every day - and a fantastic research tool for music videos.
If a music video is made, it's almost definitely uploaded to YouTube. This made it remarkably easy to find and analyse music videos and even learn general tips for shots and what exactly they mean to benefit and broaden my knowledge, such as in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRJ0Ei4hLWI 'The Meaning Behind Camera Movement'.
YouTube also gave me the opportunity to easily upload my final music video for viewing by the public, meaning it can actually be marked and assessed! One drawback to YouTube, which is improving constantly, is that compression of video files means that your video doesn't always look how you intended it to, which is shown by some moments of slight pixelation and jarring camera movement in the opening seconds of my music video. But overall, YouTubes ease of use, openness and quick upload speeds were beneficial across my project. I used it primarily for research purposes, but also for uploading video.
The Internet
The Internet makes this list because without it, I wouldn't be typing this right now - at least not on blogger. The Internet, explored with browser Google Chrome, provides the advantage of being able to view information from all over the world. Media was completely different before the conception of the internet. Before - I would have to find my information on the television, magazines or books. Now, I can search for all of these and more through the Google search engine. For example, I used it to find out all about Andrew Goodwin's theories on music video conventions. I used the Internet all the way through the project, from research and planning to these evaluations.
HP USB memory stick:
My USB memory stick has been useful in transferring pieces of work from computer to computer for continuation or presentation. It was especially helpful in production when designing my digipak and magazine advert, as the files were quite large and my memory stick gave the benefit of being able to transfer the images without altering the quality.
But, with blogger acting as an online compilation of work, I never really needed my memory stick as much as I might for other subjects. It was also of quite a low storage capacity with 8GB, meaning that I couldn't use it to store video files like I may have wanted to.
Prezi:
Although I used the Prezi presentation web application more last year - it still acted as a creative way to answer evaluation question 1. The benefit of using prezi is the customisation and aesthetically pleasing animations it allows you to use, making it potentially more engaging than a traditional powerpoint presentation.
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