Q3. How did you use media technologies in the contruction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used media technologies by using vide cameras (with memory cards, obviously). That came n really handy because it allowed us to record with sound and had a good picture on it.
I also used blogger for the planning process, research (on google which was helpful and get useful information and change it iNto my own words.) and evaluation. I think the blogger works well, because it's like an on-line diary, where you put in everything- links/embedded videos, pictures anything. That helps a lot for what we were doing - keeping in track of what we've done.
The sites I used were: Youtube, to get an embedded video or a link of a particular song, or screenshots. Google images to get ideas and influences for the album covers of the band or researching the digipaks that were an inspiration to me. Wiki, to get precise information about a certain band that influenced me, or the precise dates of the album names/dates (year). Sometimes a band's official website to get more information and ideas for my ancillary. That was really interesting because all of them are different, and I had to be careful which ones I looked at, and it definitely gave ideas for our video and my ancillary. For example, I used Young Gun's official website, because of the genre and music was similar to our one.
For my ancillary texts, I didn't use Quark, however I did use Photoshop for both my advert and digipak. I decided to use Photoshop, because the effect I wanted to create - which was the black circle around the picture - old only be used on that programme. Also, I wanted it to look in a specific way and how I could easily put certain things together. I used to feather effect to do the black circle, and I drained the colour from the shoes and guitar to give it more of am impact and emphasising the object in it - shoes and guitar.  For the feather effect, i dyed the background black and cut a circle in  it, then transferred it to the picture I wanted over.
I used final cut pro for editing, which worked really good. We used the cross-fade transition between the performing band and 'real life', showing the contrast between the two and how time passes. Also, showing the differences and how it gave a 'homely' effect on it, making it seem more personal. Another thing, we slowed those scenes down (black and white), emphasising what was happening behind the stage. We didn't use a green screen as we thought that it wasn't necessary and it wouldn't work with the song we picked. Also, we wanted to keep it simple and not add a lot of things on our video, as we thought it would ruin the 'look' and green screen is mostly used for pop videos.
We did do an animatic, which was effective and told the story similar to how we made it final. it wasn't that  different.

These are the sites i used to help me with out video and ancillary texts. i found them very useful because it gave ideas and influences to do my own one, and precise information. :)