Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?William Nabwana-Tabingwa – A2 Evaluation

Weebly

Weebly is a web-hosting service featuring a drag-and-drop website builder. It hosts 20milion plus sites with over 1 million visitors a month. Some of Weebly’s rivals are Wix, Webs, SnapPage and WordPress.

I used Weebly for the regular documentation of my A2 Media portfolio in which I split into five sections: Home, Research, Planning, Production and Evaluation. In my AS foundation portfolio and decided to carry on using as Weebly allows you to create a professional site which looks smooth and presentable.

Wix is a cloud-based web development platform that allows use to create HTML5 website and mobile sites, through the use of their online drag and drop tools. Wix allows its user to add functionalities such as social plug-ins, ecommerce and contact forms.

Twitter is a one of the leading social media sites which has closed the gap between the artist and fan by the fans being allowed to follow their favoured artist and find out the latest. My partner and I thought it would be good for our artist Danny Billz to have a twitter page so that fans can find out DB’s latest shows, videos and what he’s getting up to on a daily basis. This allows the audience to feel as if they know the artist more on a personal level which strengthens the interest in the artist.

Link for website: http://ameerahmed1.wix.com/dannybillz

Twitter

Wikipedia

In terms of my research Wikipedia played an important role as it was a key tool In which I used to obtain information that would be of use to me. For instance I used Wikipedia for my artist research task in which I was able to get hold of information on Grime MC Junior Adenuga, better known for he’s stage name Skepta. I was able to find out information such as how he’s career started, ablum/mixtape releases, awards, single and music associates.

Slideshare

Slideshare is a web 2.0 based slide hosting service. It allows users can to upload files with the choice to make them private or public in the formats of PowerPoint, PDF and Keynote. You are able to view slides on itself, hand held devices or embedded on a site.

I’ve used Slideshare in the evaluation stage as for my question 4 of my evaluation I have chosen to use PowerPoint to help present it on and will be upload it onto Slideshare then embedded onto my blog site on Weebly.

Gmail

I used Google mail to help with contacting Frankie Boyle, who is an underground Rap/Grime rapper who’s stage name is Potter Payper. I emailed Potter Payper to ask for he’s consent to recreate a video and use he’s single titled “TBH”. I was fortunate enough to gain a reply from the artist in which he gave he’s full support in allowing us to do so for our media project.

Photoshop

Photoshop was used in the planning stage of my coursework as my partner and I used Photoshop to create our digipak for the artist Danny Billz. To help produce a high quality digipak I watched YouTube tutorials to help with the understanding of certain tools and techniques i.e. Reduce image saturation to make the image look old. As well as that creating the track list and carefully place it on the back cover of the digipak so that its clear for the people to see when looked at. Also used Photoshop to create a logo for a YouTube channel called Underground TV in which it appears at the end of our music video and an interview for the channel with Danny Billz.

Final Cut Pro

Final cut pro was used to edit my partner and I’s music video in which we were able to be more creative and built upon skills that we learnt from our AS Media coursework. For instance we used the dissolve transition to represent a change in time. As well as that we were able to lower the saturation which made it obvious to the audience that events from the past are being shown.

Survey Monkey

I used survey monkey for research stage of my coursework as the questions and results asked helped shape the direction of my partner and I’s music video. Also the ways in which we would share it around i.e. YouTube.

Internet

The internet was a major tool in which I used for research, planning, evaluation, planning and construction as it allowed me to access videos, photo, information that I needed. Without the internet I would not have been able to put produce my media product to a good standard as it was vital in being able to access everything I could in order to help with my A2 media coursework.

Mixbook

I used mix book for my evaluation stage as I used it to present my Question 2 of my evaluation on as it allowed me to add text and images together in a book format.

Prezi

Prezi is a cloud based presentation software and story-telling tools for presenting ideas on a vital canvas.

I used Prezi for the evaluation stage as I constructed my Question 1 of my evaluation using Prezi. Felt that Prezi was most suitable as it allowed me to show a process.

Equipment

The equipment I used for the construction our my partner and I’s music video was lights, tripod and a camera. The use of the light was for the interrogation scene in which we want the main focus to be on the artist and a strong ray of light it typical in an interrogation scene. The use of a tripod was to make the shots used within our music video to be steady and look professional. The camera of course was used through in filming our music video and filming video logs that my partner and I had done on various blog posts.