4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Ali Fayyaz

Research & Planning - iMacFor research and planning the new media technologies I used was the iMac computer and I used

it for researching music videos, planning for our music video and for writing on our blogs. The benefits using the iMac Computer over the PC is that the iMac are used for editing which helped me because we already had the software that we needed to edit our video. The software we used was Final Cut Pro, this allowed us to cut, add effects and sync our footage in time with the lyrics of the song. This helped me a lot because it made it easier for us to edit the video and told us what she was singing so we could time our artist in match with the song. The benefits of this program are that it offered us a wider range of editing tools and features, for example, split screen, black and white effect and speeding up action. If we didn't has access to final cut pro we would have had to of used iMovie which has much less editing features. Another benefit of using the iMac over the PC was that I had certain useful software's available to me such as Adobe and iMovie, which is already built in the iMac for me to use.

Research – InternetThe internet benefitted me as now in this digital age technology is commonly used and is now a

way for people to access whatever they want online such as to look at music videos I just have to go online on websites like YouTube. If I don't go online I would have to use the TV and go on music channels and wait for the right video to show. Another benefit is that online I can re-wind, pause and forward the music video which is so helpful during researching and analysing as if I miss anything I can go back and look at it or even once I see anything I can pause the video and then write what I saw as part of my analysis. For my digipak research if I didn't have the internet I would of need to gone to a record shop and look at the CD's there and buy them just so I can go and analyse them for my research. This is time consuming and expensive as I would need to analyse 3 digipaks. It would be the same with analyse posters of the front cover of an album and buying newspapers which may show the album inside, although, this can lead to a problem as images in newspapers are normally in black and white. This will make it harder for me to analyse the digipak because if it's a dark coloured digipak I would barely be a barely to see it. But because I have the benefit of using the internet I can go on websites like Google and type in an artist like Leona Lewis and look at the pictures if her album online for analysing. I don't have to spend money to see them I can just save them and talk about them at the same time. This saves money and time and lets me access it whenever I need to.

Research – iMac & (Internet) YouTubeThe iMac also allowed me to use internet for going on websites like YouTube to watch and analyse

music videos. This increased the level of efficiency as we were able to understand the conventions in our genre which we would then use to help us put these conventions in our media product. But even before we used YouTube I was a frequent user so I knew a lot of stuff before hand and this came as a benefit for me because I knew what to do so it became really easy for me to use.

YouTube was an important part for our product because we used it for importing our product onto it, which allowed people to view and give is their feedback on it but we also used it for researching music videos that was in the same genre of our song which was the 'Pop' genre. This let me gain a deeper understanding of what goes in the 'Pop' genre as I analysed the artist in the pop song and the song itself and how both the artist and song link together to form a successful pop song. I also wanted to research some of the reoccurring themes which appear in their videos in order to help me with our media product.

Research – iMac & (Internet) YouTubeIn addition, YouTube allowed us to add Pop music videos on our blogs to help support our

analyse from researching music videos using Goodwin’s Theory. It allowed us to embed the videos on our blogs and also helped me with my analysis by letting me watch the video and pause it at any time to give me time to write about what key point I saw. The benefits of using websites like YouTube is that it is free to use, it has so many videos to choose from which was good because it expanded our options to choose from, the fact that we can access it at anytime on many devices such as on our computers, phones, tablet and even on our TV (SMART TV's). And to put music videos on our blogs to help us with our analysis such as with the codes and conventions of pop songs. Furthermore, If YouTube did not exist then it would have been harder for me to watch music videos because then I would of had to go on my TV and wait for the song I wanted to come which would take time and it wouldn't give me more options of music videos to chose from.

For research we looked at real pop artists actual Twitter and Facebook accounts to give us an idea how to represent our artist online for people around to the world to see. For Planning we set up a Twitter and Facebook for our artist and I used this because almost every pop artist out there has a social network account and so it was creating to help market our artist. There is even a Twitter feed on the website of live tweets from our artist which was implemented because from researching websites, all the pop artist had them on. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook has taken over marketing online as there millions of users who are these accounts. This form of new media technology was used to make our artist appear as real as possible, to market her for free and to get her recognised for our audience to see.

Research – iMac & (Internet) Social Networks

Planning – HD Video CameraFor planning another new media technology we used was a HD video camera

and we used this to film our storyboard in order to create an anamatic of media product. This helped us to visualise what kind of shots we were planning to use such as close ups, mid shots, long shots and tracking shots, etc. After filming and editing the anamatic on Final Cut Pro we uploaded it onto YouTube, we did this because we wanted to put it onto our blogs so we embedded it through YouTube. We didn't just use the HD video Camera for our anamatic, we also used it for more location shots and for filming our preliminary task.

Planning – 3G PhoneAnother new media technology which help me a lot and was

useful during the planning stage was a 3G phone. This allows me to take photos of the locations and upload them directly to my blog by using the Internet of my phone. The advantages of using 3G phones is that it has a camera installed, fast speed internet and easy to use features & the way it allows you to upload a file straight onto the internet through YouTube.

Planning – iMac & (Internet) BloggerFor planning the internet helped me write blogs by letting me access Blogger

(www.blogger.com) which is a website where we had to make blogs before, during and after our media product. It was just to help us get inspiration and figure out how we are going to film, etc. We accessed blogger through the iMac, my PC at home and even through my Mobile Phone. For planning it let me upload my plans onto it such as showing how the digipak was going to look and add images of location shots of where we were planning to shoot. Allowing me to use Blogger for planning benefitted me because once I save it I can access my posts anywhere that has the internet so if I need to change something I can go online anywhere and change it without any hassle.

Construction – Adobe PhotoshopFor Construction I used Adobe Photoshop for creating the digipak instead of using the more

simple Paint. The reason I used Photoshop was because it allowed me to do more effects, edit and design the images better as it would give it a more professional look than Paint would. I had never used Photoshop before and to use it for the first time on an iMac was hard at first because I'm used to using Windows but I have really expanded my knowledge, skills and have developed an expertise in creating images in Photoshop.

At the beginning when I started using Photoshop I did struggle but as I started using it every day to create the digipak, my skills became better and the first cover which was the front cover I made was not that great but the more I was using Photoshop the more I was benefitting and then I recreated the front cover after learning some techniques and using the different tools that where available to me. The tools were extremely helpful to me because if it wasn't for them then the images wouldn't have looked so great.

The tools I used were 'Clone Stamp Tool' which I used a lot throughout creating the digipak. This tool allows me to copy anything and implement it anywhere on the image, but it was very useful for blending in the background and extending the background. The panel that used the 'Clone Stamp Tool' the most was the back cover because the image I originally used for it wouldn't take up the whole frame as it wasn't wide enough so I used this tool to copy the background and to extend the width of the image so it would take up the whole frame. At the end it proved to be effective as the background of the image looked as it was already part of it and doesn't make it obvious that it has been copied on to fill the frame.

A tool I used to blend the background was the 'Content Aware' tool, all this did was help me for certain areas of the image. In the photos I took the date and time was added on the bottom right of the image and there were two ways to get rid of this, one was the 'Clone Stamp Tool' and the 'Content Aware' tool. I chose the 'Content Aware' tool because it was a faster and easier approach and the reason I did not use it for the extending the back cover was because it copying the wrong areas so I had to do it the long way which was by using the 'Clone Stamp Tool'.

Another tool I used was the 'Gaussian Blur' because this type of blur is used to blur around an area we selected. This effect was used many times the digipak such as in the front and back cover. It is easily noticeable on both covers especially in the front cover. The reason we used the blur tool on the front cover was because from my digipak research one of the covers I looked at had this effect so I chose to develop it by adding making the background fully blurred in order to make her stand out. The reason I used the 'Gaussian Blur' on the back cover was because the background I extended looked more unnoticeable with the blur effect on and therefore, I chose to challenge and use it this for the back cover, to cover up the Clone effect and to help make the track list stand out and look bold.

The 'Text' tool was also used throughout the background for adding the artist and album name on the front and back cover and also the spine. I also used it for adding the track list, signature of the artist and for the copyright information on the CD and back cover. This tool was really easy to use and it allowed me to change fonts and change the colour of the right to help it link it with the rest of the digipak.

Furthermore, I used the 'Polygonal Lasso Tool' for the front cover to cut around the artist so I could have access the background. The reason for this was so I could use the blur effect and blur the background without getting the effect on our artist. It allowed me to make the artist stand out and show her position of her pose without any distractions in the background.

The 'Smudge' and 'Eraser' tools were the two including some of the others tools that I knew how to use from different software's like Paint. I used the 'Smudge' tool on backgrounds to cover some of the areas that were left plain. I didn't want to show that I left some areas unfinished so I 'smudged' the colour around the plain part to make it look finished and to prevent any areas that have been left plain. The 'Eraser' tool was to rub out mistakes made and to make the background a plain colour because I wanted to use a different colour and the best way was to erase the colour that was already there and it implement the colour I wanted which was the colour Black.

The 'Magic Wand Tool' was used to help me select certain areas in the image to either remove it or for adding an effect to it such as the 'Blur' effect or a colour effect in making the contrast more brighter. This is also one the main tools I used which cannot be found on software's like Paint as this tool allows you to change areas you want to change which really benefitted me in some stages such for the making the artist look a bit brighter to make her stand out.

For the CD design in the digipak I used a lot of tools because I had to make it look real and professionally done. I used some of the tools I previously mentioned but the other key tools I used was the 'Stroke' tool and I used this because looking at my research the common convention was that the CD's had an outline so I wanted to use this convention and so therefore, I added a white outline which also helped the CD stand out from the background.

Another tool I used was the 'Bevel and Emboss' tool and this was used for giving the CD a 3D look to make it look as real as possible, it also gave the CD shadows of the inside rim which helped make it more real.

The final tool I used on the CD was the 'Gradient Overlay' tool and this was used for the colour of the CD. This tool gave it a 'fade in colour' effect by making it light at the top and dark at the bottom. The reason I used this was because it goes well it the overall colours which are used throughout the digipak, these colours being Grey and Black. And because the artist's name was in red it didn't go well with the light grey background so I added this fade effect using the 'Gradient Overlay' tool and with the dark bottom it goes well with the red writing used and with the actual background on the CD panel as the colours are darker.

Construction – HD Video CameraFor construction, I also used the HD video camera to film our media product. This

allowed us to capture videos and images of our artist for our media product, digipak and website. The video camera was used to capture various shots such as a close ups, mid shots, long shots, tracking shots, etc. As I was Director for the music video I used this video camera because it was lightweight, portable, digital which benefitted me as with digital it made full use of natural lighting. Also, the ease of getting the videos and images of the camera using a SD card and putting them on iMacs for us to edit and design, helped me and my group because it is a simple and fast process. All of our footage and images were stored on an SD card where we could all put our work on each of our computers for us to use and work from, for example editing the images for the digipak.

Construction – iMac & (Internet) BloggerFor construction, the use of blogger helped me to show my changes that I

made to the digipak and the process of creating the digipak. With Blogger, I can upload images of the digipak and explain about why I chose the images and how I edited them, but the best part is that I can save my work and come back to it later to finish it off if I don't time to finish my work that day. I also embedded our media product onto my blog from YouTube so I can show it's on my account as well as on my groups. The website for our artist is linked again to my blog by entering the URL onto my blogs in case I need access it.

Evaluation – iMac & (Internet) WixFor Evaluation I used the internet to create and use Wix to use as the

base for where my answer for each question is located. Wix is website that allows you to create a free website where you can upload images, videos, Twitter feeds, etc. Why I chose to use Wix was because it's a good piece of new media technology and it allows me to implement other pieces of new media technology to answer the all the evaluation questions such as by use of voice, a video response and presentations from Prezi and Slideshare, etc.

Evaluation – iMac & (Internet) PreziFor Evaluation I used the internet to create a new Prezi presentation to answer two of

my evaluation questions. The reason why I used Prezi twice was because of the way it lays out my answer, it gives it a flow towards it which is nice as it gives the viewer a better visual. Prezi is website that allows you to create online presentation for free where you can upload images, videos and add different movements in how you change your slides. This is called changing Paths. Why I chose to use Prezi was because it's a good piece of new media technology and it allows me to implement this presentation to other pieces of new media technology like Wix.

Evaluation – iMac & (Internet) SlideShareFor Evaluation I used the internet to create a new SlideShare presentation to use as a

way to represent one of my answers for my evaluation questions. The reason why I used SlideShare was because it allows me to just implement my original slide show straight online and exactly the way it looked before. It’s a good method of uploading your work online and it can be embedded so I can on put on websites for me and others to view. SlideShare is website that allows you to upload a presentation online for free where you can view it and even share it. Why I chose to use SlideShare was because it's a good piece of new media technology and it allows me to implement this presentation to other pieces of new media technology like Wix.