Evaluation Question Four
- 1. How did you use media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?<br />Research: <br />Research was an extremely important part of my coursework because it provided me with the foundations for all of my later work. Within this stage the media technologies that I used were the internet, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Blogger, Microsoft Office, Slideshare and Free Play Music. Firstly, the internet was an invaluable new media technology that I used greatly when conducting my research into my potential target audience, music videos, the Indie genre, magazine advertisements and digipaks. It is a quick, easy and accessible piece of software that I used on a daily basis, as it provided me with quick results from a variety of sources. Most notably, it gave me access to websites such as Google, YouTube and Blogger. <br />Google, a well known search engine, was particularly helpful during the research stage of my coursework. Instead of having to travel to my local library and search through lots of books I could find out all of the information that I needed about various bands and my target audience at the touch of a button. As it also has an image search option it was easy for me to find relevant pictures of existing digipaks and magazine adverts that I could then analyse to find common codes and conventions, so that my group and I could make media products that were conventional to our genre and informed decisions on what to include in our media products.
- 2. As with Google, Wikipedia provided me with lots of relevant and necessary information whilst I was conducting my research. For example, when it came to researching famous music video directors I did a lot of my research on Wikipedia, so that I could find out what videos they had directed and look at their contribution to the industry. However, although Wikipedia was a valuable media technology that I used regularly I had to be careful that the information that I took from it was valid, as anyone can upload and change information on Wikipedia.
- 3. Blogger is the website that hosts all of my media blogs, from both AS and A2. Without it I would have either had to use a different blogging website or simply write out my research and evaluation. It is quick, easy and simple to use, and provided me with a platform that I could use to make my coursework look as visually pleasing as possible. It was also helpful because when planning our media products, my group and I could quickly go onto our research blogs and show the group all of the information that we had found, so it saved a lot of time because we didn’t need to constantly look through piles of paper or suffer the inconvenience of forgetting to bring something into school, because it was already there online.
- 4. Moreover, I used Microsoft Office, especially Word and PowerPoint, frequently when I was doing my research, as it allowed me to present the research that I had gathered in a neat and organised fashion. For example, I used Microsoft Office a lot when I did my analysis of five existing music videos, as I presented my findings in a variety of different formats (word documents and PowerPoint presentations), to prevent my blog from looking dull. In order to upload the work that I had done on Microsoft Office onto my blog I uploaded the files onto a file sharing website called Slideshare, which allowed me to embed my work onto my blog quickly and easily.
- 5. Freeplaymusic.com and BBC Introducing are both good websites that host undiscovered and unsigned bands/artists. To find the right song for our music video my group and I did a lot of internet research into popular unsigned bands/artists, in order to try and find a good song that we believed we could get copyright permission for and thus, use to create our music video. Therefore, without these websites it would have been very difficult for my group and I to find a copyright free piece of music.
- 6. Lastly, I also used YouTube, an innovative interactive video sharing website, during the research stage of my coursework. It proved to be an invaluable tool whilst I was conducting my research, because it allowed me to watch and analyse successful and popular music videos that belonged to the Indie genre. This meant that instead of sitting in front of my television watching MTV for ages I had hundreds of thousands of existing music videos available at my fingertips. It allowed me to watch the music videos as many times as a liked so that I could make sure that I had identified as many codes and conventions as I could in order to create an informed and in-depth analysis of what I had just watched. The commenting option on YouTube was another feature that proved really helpful, as I could read what people thought of the music video to see if it had successfully appealed to their target audience and if so why. Moreover, YouTube also allows you to view a breakdown of the video statistics so that you can find out detailed information about the videos target audience, such as what age group and what gender the video is most popular with. This feature was particularly helpful when I was looking into the conventional potential target audience of Indie music videos. Planning and Construction: <br />Facebook is a social networking website that my group and I used a lot during both the planning and construction stage. Whilst planning out our music video and ancillary tasks we used the messaging feature to email each other and the actors to let them know of about any important updates, such as the time that we were filming and what clothing we wanted them to wear. During the construction stage, however, I used Facebook rather differently, as I used it for feedback, rather than for sharing information. Using Facebook for feedback was particularly helpful because Anthony and I were able to upload our rough cut of the music video and get audience feedback so that we could make any necessary changes, so it therefore, allowed us to make our music video the best that we could possibly make it.
- 7. Furthermore, I used a scanner during the planning stage of my coursework to scan in a brainstorm and a plan of the magazine advert that I had drawn so that I could upload the images onto my blog to show evidence of planning.
- 8. iMovie and iTunes were another two new media technologies that I used. iMovie was the software that I used to edit our music video on, as it is the editing software that comes with the Apple Macs that we use at school. It has all kinds of features that were really helpful such as ‘stabilise’, which reduced the visibility of any shakes or wobbles that occurred when we filmed. Another feature that I used was the colouring wheel, as it allowed me to adjust the colouring and brightness of any shot in order to create continuity between any shots of the performance where the lighting was slightly different to the shot that came before it. Moreover, I used iTunes to purchase the single that we used for our music video and then uploaded the track from iTunes onto iMovie to provide the music video with the necessary audio.
- 9. Adobe Photoshop was the photo editing software that I used when I was constructing the magazine advert and helping with the digipak. It allowed me to enhance the colours in the photograph and add text over the top of the background image of the advert. The most useful device was the ‘content-aware’ tool that allowed me to delete any background features that I didn’t want in the image, such as a lamppost, without ruining the picture. This tool was also what I used to remove one member of the band from the image because he was pulling a silly face and insert another photograph of him in instead.
- 10. Moreover, I used the website Photobucket during the planning stage of my coursework to upload and embed photographs of the locations that we had chosen onto my blog in the format of a slideshow, in order to make my blog as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
- 11. Microsoft Office and Slideshare were another two media technologies that I used during the planning and construction stages of my blog. For example, whilst my group and I were planning the music video I wrote out the script/shot list on Microsoft Word before uploading it to Slideshare so that I could embed it onto my planning blog, so that all of the members in my group could read it without wasting paper by printing it off.
- 12. In order to keep in contact with all of my group members and the actors we all exchanged mobile numbers and often texted or called each other to confirm dates and times etc. We also used my iPod touch whilst we were filming our music video so that the actors knew what line to sing and what notes to be play. It also helped Anthony and I when we were editing, as we were able to identify where in the song they were when we were playing the footage back, which made it easier for us to match the lip-syncing to the lyrics.
- 13. When filming our music video my group and I used a HD video camera and a broken tripod, as our school did not have access to any working ones at the time. The HD video camera greatly improved the quality of our work, as it made it look a lot more professional than our AS coursework last year which we used an ordinary video camera to film. We also used the camera to create the blurred effect at the beginning of our music video as the lens of the video camera allowed us to adjust the focus of the image. The tripod, although broken, did help us to keep many of our shots steady despite the windy weather conditions, which was good because essentially it fulfilled its role.
- 14. We used a Cannon SLR to take the photographs of the band during our photo shoot, because it has a higher resolution than ordinary digital cameras and would therefore make our photos look a lot more professional and realistic. Evaluation: <br />As with all of the other stages, Blogger was a new media technology that I used constantly, as essentially it is the website that hosts my evaluation blog. I used it to upload the blog posts that contained my answers to the evaluation questions and I also uploaded pictures and videos alongside my blog posts in order to make my blog look as visually pleasing as possible.
- 15. Moreover, YouTube and Facebook were the two websites that I got the majority of my feedback from. I was able to use the comments that I had received from our potential target audience to help me answer evaluation question three (what you have learnt from your audience feedback?) and to help me evaluate my how successful my group and I had been in producing the music video, magazine advert and digipak. I have also used YouTube to upload my video response to some of the evaluation questions.
- 16. I also used both Microsoft Office and Slideshare during the evaluation stage of my blog. For example, I used Microsoft Word to type up this written response to evaluation question four and I will later embed this onto my blog using Slideshare.
- 17. Lastly, I used iMovie to edit the video recording of myself answering one of the evaluation questions before uploading the edited video onto YouTube.