BLOG TASK 4 : A directors commentary on how I used New media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.

New Media technologies is where the technology is based on digital storage and communication of data, using 0 and 1 code to compress the data into tiny packets, which givegreater speed and quality and huge amounts more storage. This is a lot better than the oldanalogue system. Digital technology underpinscomputers, mobiles phones, modern video and still cameras, editing, the Internet and most technology equipment raging from in hospitals to schools. This technology means that media productions have the advantages of being a higher quality; interactivity and convergence are just some of the many. For the producer the advantages of digital technology are that it is faster, lower costs, higher quality and ease of production. This is all based on binary code.

We used new media technologies extensively through out all the stages of our productions. Including in the stages of research, development, planning and construction of the shoot, post production and evaluation. Theses are Richard Maltby's five stages.

When carrying out the research and planning for my pop video we used the

internet to access information that we would not have been able to collect, before new media techno

logy came along,all the necessary information’s that helped us through theses stages of planning without digital technology. Digital technology helped us look up potential locations to shoot our film, also allowed us to use youtube to research other pop video and see get inspiration from other people. We got our idea of using the multicoloured lighting from a clip that was posted on youtube, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ8ahElWOk8) this was a technique that we used in our filming and proved to work well and contributed to the meaning of our song, without the internet and youtube we would not have been able to do this.

As for the Planning, we had to draw out our storyboards for our pop video. After drawing them we were then able to film them using new cameras which were smaller and therefore easier to control when filming such a small thing like our storyboard. We then edited the footage of our story board on mac computers using a software called Final Cut Pro. This use of Digital technology allowed me to easily capture and edit our story boards into a clip that was easy to see the different shot types and layout our story board clearly. We also were able to do a camera test easily and quickly using these new cameras.

On the shoot day we used new technologies in many different ways. We were using new cameras that were smaller and lighter. These two factors allowed us to pan a lot more easily around the set making it easier for us to capture the pan that we use at the beginning of our pop video where you see the two twins lying on the set. We also had the cameras linked up to a big plasma TV allowing us to see better quality the footage that was being captured. This leads me on to my next point because they were lighter and better quality with better sound it was easy to carry them and capture free hand footage and not have to worry about so much. The new cameras are better quality which in turn deals better with lighting and darkness, this meant that we did not have to be constantly worrying about the aperture and lighting on set and could focus on the actually footage, in this was the use of new technology and digital technology helped use greatly on our shoot day. Because of New Media technology, the equipment is easier and smaller to used this allowed us to shoot more and increase our ratio, meaning that when it came to the editing stage we had a bigger choice of footage.

With Post Production we were able to use mac computers, which rely on binary code, and an editing programme called Final Cut Pro and Adobe After effect to edit our pop video. Both of these programs fit into the category of new technologies. They are easily set out and simple to use. The editing of the video was used Final Cut pro, which we cut the shots down form the digital storage they had originally been captured on and we merged them together. We used Adobe after effects to colour grade our music video so it was like the video that we had got our inspiration like on youtube with many different colours. Colour grading our music video allowed us to add colours that we didn’t actually shoot on the day and make it have more of an ethereal, fantasy feeling about it. The editing process took about 2 weeks and would have probably take double the time had we not had the new technology to deal quickly, easily and effectively with things.

The internet underpins much of distribution and evaluation. New media technology make the internet possibly by linking tens of millions of computers together, with millions of pieces of binary code whizzing about. New Media technology would mean that we could do two things that we could not do with out the internet. Through youtube we could put our pop video up for the potential of 123 million people to watch it and give us their comments very quickly and easily. It would be impossible to get such a vast amount of audience and there reactions without new media technology. The interned also means that we can put our pop video up on our website and people can download it if they want to broadcast it, so radio stations and TV stations can see and use the pop video instantly if we email them, and this is all very possible through new media technology and the binary code system.