Evaluation question 4

At the beginning of the year I had only ever used Adobe Photoshop, a portable version of CS3 so it was quite an old version but perfectly fine for what I needed at AS. As A2 coursework requires you to create a moving image I realised I needed software such as Premiere pro to be able to edit my video on. As a result of needing new technologies my family generously decided to buy creative cloud for me. Creative cloud allows me to use the newest version of a range of different adobe products such as premier pro, Photoshop, In-design, Light room and After-effects, all that were used in creating my video and ancillary texts. 

As I had only used an old version of Photoshop I had to get to grips with the new layout of the latest version of Photoshop. I quickly learnt the new layout and was able to start manipulating my images. Photoshop allowed me to edit my images for both my ancillary texts and I was able to produce a quality piece of work. 


Tools such as curves, levels and exposure really helped me manipulate my image to fit with the theme of my digipak. Some of my images were too bright so I used theses tools to change the image and make it darker without losing the image completely. 

Another useful tool was the transform tool, this allowed me to change the size of my image without losing its quality and turn my images, for example I wanted my text to be vertical on the album spine so I used this tool to rotate my text. 

The layers in Photoshop really helped me keep track of all my images when putting my digipak together, making sure everything was in the right place. The layers also allowed me to turn off visibility to certain layers allowing my to work on just one thing at a time and allowing me to place images on top of each other. This was especially useful when creating my front cover because I have one image on top of another with the opacity of the image turned down allowing you to see the image behind giving a surreal, 'its a memory' effect to my front cover. 

Premiere pro is a non-linear editing programme allowing me to move my clips about, cut, paste and manipulate my footage without losing the original clip. This programme really helped me in the construction of my video as I could change the footage as much as I wanted but still had the original clip if I wanted to use it again, as I have in some aspects of my video such as the chorus.

 On permiere pro I was also able to edit out the sound on my footage. Some of my clips, especially some of the lip-sinking footage, my actor actually sung the lyrics to the song and by having other sound in my video it would look unprofessional. Therefore to make my video look professional, I was able to remove that sound and add the soundtrack to my music video separately. 


I did find premiere pro difficult at first as I had never used it before but I decided to take some test shots and practise editing so that I would find it easier to edit my actual video. I did pick up editing quickly and used YouTube tutorials to help me if I did not know how to do something, for example cropping the image and changing the size of clips or images, especially when creating the cinema lines. 

The video shows some of the different websites I used in the planning, research and evaluation process. (unfortunately there is a water mark on the video because I did not purchase the 'pro'version as it was expensive and I have only used this a few times) 

technologies by laurensmotors on GoAnimat

As college only has a few camera's and lots of film and media students, I decided to buy my own, I also bought a tripod and an SD card to go with it. The camera is essential to creating my music video as you need to be able to shoot the footage. I did find the camera easy to use as it was similar to the ones we used in college to film our AS/A2 transition video. The only problem I had with the camera was that the battery was not wonderful and struggled to get an hours worth of use out of it at a time, however, as one of my locations was a Costa coffee shop, they had plugs and allowed me to charge my camera when filming in there.

 The card reader was very useful as it allowed me to put the footage from the SD card strait on to my computer and as it was my own, I could do it where ever and when ever without having to borrow one from college.
 
The SD card was another essential technology because I was able to insert it in my camera and could shoot as much footage as I wanted, then could HSit and put the footage on the computer via my card reader.

 The tripod was helpful because it kept my camera still when filming, however I did have a lot of problems with the tripod. I found that the tripod was actually not very level and was very flimsy so I had to re-shoot a lot of footage unfortunately. 

I used Microsoft office  a lot in all the stages of my coursework. I used Power-point, Publisher and Word. As I use these technologies a lot in my other subjects I decided to buy the student edition, giving me access to everything that I need.

Finally, my laptop. 

My laptop has helped me in all stages of my coursework as it has allowed me to use the websites to create my planning and research as well as actually conduct the research, then upload it all to my blog. I have been able to use my laptop to create my product as I was able to download Adobe creative cloud, programmes that I created my product on. I could then save my products as a Jpeg or MP4 file to my laptop and then upload them to either YouTube or my blog. In the evaluation stage my laptop allowed me to post my products on social media, collect feedback and write up my evaluation to then post on my blog. My laptop played a huge role in my coursework as it allowed me to do work at home on evenings, weekends and college holidays, giving me more time to create a good product and quality work without relying on college computers and booking time around other people for the use of computers.