Q4: How did you use new technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

I made a presentation on Prezi to display my thoughts on this question:

https://prezi.com/vdqtcb3op4vp/edit/#31_30863873

Stop Motion With Live Action

Stop motion is a technique where lots of photos of an object or scene are taken where minute movements are made in the scene between shots. Typically, this technique is used with clay figures and scenes to make films and TV episodes such as Wallace and Grommit and Flushed Away. But stop motion has been used in live action. Popularly in scetches on youtube and in indie films to create an interesting effect in a scene.

This video illustrates how stop motion can be a cheap tool that can be used to create intriguing visuals that can compliment a song well, and also create visuals without the use of animation. Taking inspiration from some live action stop motion videos, i've decided to include a small scene of stop motion in my production. While it won't contain anywhere near the amount of frames as some other small scenes of stop motion as i want it to go with the rhythm of the song, it is still classed as stop motion.

Its interesting to me how well older stop motion videos hold up compared to newer ones. For example "sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. What was a groundbreaking piece of media for the time can still be considered just as groundbreaking many years on.

I believe the reason that this video from the 1980's can still hold up to newer stop motion videos is down to the fact that the fundamentals and technique of stop motion haven't changed. While they have been refined over the years, as can be seen in the Wallace and Grommit films when comparing the first and latest films together, they are still all about taking a sequence of many shots and putting it together to form moving image.

Evaluation Questions- Startup and Research

Now that my Main Task music video is well underway, i need to start focusing my attention to the evaluation and ancillary texts. The evaluation section of my main task counts for 20 marks out of the total 100 for my coursework in media. This means that it carries significant swing in the end result and grading. My teacher, Mr Buckmaster, has provided an in depth powerpoint exploring the 4 questions and how best to go about answering them. In this document, he includes the questions that need to be answered, possible methods to best display a response and past pupils work so that we have some examples. The PowerPoint is linked below:

09 Media Studies - Evaluation by Ben court on Scribd

Youtube Band Project

Cobus Potgeiter is a South African youtuber who creates primarily drumming based content. In January 2012, he set up this kick starter called "the YouTube Band Project", a scheme where he would get musicians from all over the world to send audition tapes over YouTube in the hopes that they could form a band and record an album. The kick starter was needed to fund travel, studio time and accommodation. During this process, after the band mates had been selected, Cobus made a vlog series following this once in a lifetime experience. below is a link to the Kick starter video and the first episode:

I feel like this experiment shows just how powerful technology and the internet is now and how it is able to connect us all. But aside from it being a good case study on how the media has brought us closer together; it is also a great documentary, which links to another type of media that i haven't gone into in my blog or research.

What i mainly draw from this is a greater understanding of the field in which i want to work in, sound for music and film. But it also carries the forms and conventions of many documentaries of a similar type. While it isn't a traditionally set out documentary, it builds upon many of the features present in them in order to best present the experience these 5 friends went through. I would highly recommend a viewing.