Evaluation question 4

'How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning

and evaluation stages?'

Research • Google & Youtube – We used google to access websites such as youtube, HMV and NME to see real media

texts particularly from our chosen genre which is the indie genre to learn key iconography and to get inspiration for our own promotional package. We used NME and HMV to see which artists were the most popular and compared artists on downloads and sales to see who was the most popular and why so we could use the elements of the best artists and put them in ours e.g. type of music video so we chose to do a narrative music video as we found these were the most popular among audiences.

• Word – I used word to analyse existing music videos, adverts and digi packs to pull apart the iconography and to see the common codes and conventions to ensure our promotional package was in line with current trends and our genre.

• Spotify – We used spotify to search and listen to exisitng indie songs by indie artists so we could choose one to produce a promotional package for, as we had an idea of how we wanted to package to look visually we just needed to find and song that would fit the visuals and suited the bands appearance. We chose The Courteeners ‘What Took You So Long’ as the lyrics and attitude fitted the visuals perfectly and our band can relate to the song via costume.

• Survey Monkey – We used survey monkey to create a survey asking the audience what they think of the indie genre and what they’d expect to see in an indie based promotional package. The questions including things like ‘what would you expect to see in an indie music video’ etc. The results from the survey enabled us to choose costume, lighting and props that the audience would enjoy and also that would make the genre recognisable to our target audience.

Research• IMovie - We used iMovie to create a documentary which included analysis of existing media products with

a voice over explaining the key iconography and codes and conventions that we was thinking of including in our own package. Using iMovie during the research stage helped us develop our skills for editing at post production as we would be more familiar with the software, using iMovie for our documentary helped us present our findings to a professional standard and made our analysis clear and effective.

• Clip converter – We used clip converter when making our documentary to convert the appropriate songs and video footage from youtube to MOV so we could show the songs and videos clearly so the viewer could follow our analysis with no problems

• Blogger – Blogger is an essential platform for all of our stages of creating our coursework as it has been the technology that we upload all of our work and findings onto. Using blogger last year has increased our understanding of the website and allowed us to use more complex elements of the website such as viewing statistics and embedding links e.g. our surveys.

Planning• Celtex – We used celtex to create our storyboard which is our plan of how our music video would turn out and

what it would look like visually. We had used it last year to create a script and therefore we found it was easier to navigate around and was simple to add pictures of our storyboard and to add a caption explaining what was happening in the photo

• Powerpoint – We used microsoft powerpoint to present our pitch to members of our class, the pitch included background to our band and why we chose them and the song. We also inserted an audio clip of the song whilst we explained why it was suitable for the genre and our promotional package. Furthermore, we also included our inspiration and target audience in the pitch to show where most of our ideas came from and which ones we chose to include in our own productions.

• Slideshare – We used slideshare to upload a collage of our band ideas which included key iconography e.g. leather jackets, branded clothes and cigarettes. We also used slideshare to present our drafts of our dig packs and adverts along with an explanation of why we chose them drafts and how we advanced them to get to our final decisions.

• Iphone – We used an iPhone when doing our location scouting as it made it easy to share the pictures and discuss which locations we wanted to use for our promotional packages. The pictures were easy to uploads straight onto blogger and are good quality photos which is essential.

• Excel – We produced a shot list on excel using a template to clearly show the number of shots, what they are of, the type of shot and any camera movement involved e.g. pan. This process was easy and effective and was extremely useful when it came to shooting the actual music video as we could follow step by step without hassle.

Construction • Camera & Tripod – When it came to shooting our music video we used the Nikon DSLR camera to film on;

we used this camera as it is excellent quality which would make our video look professional and clean and as we had used these cameras before it was easy to use with no problems. We used a tripod alongside the camera to ensure our camera shots were steady and so that we could manipulate angles and dominate what was in or out the frame in all our shots.

Post Production• iMovie – We used iMovie to edit our music video together, as we was experienced with this platform we

could use more complex editing such as syncing our video to the song and match on action. We worked hard during our editing to sync the beat of the song with the footage in our video especially during the montage scenes to add enigma and to keep the video interesting

• Final cut pro – We used final cut pro to edit more complex footage that iMovie couldn't’t provide, for example making two shots and split screens of the boys and girls to show the relationship between them. This process was tricky but very effective in perfecting our music video

• Photoshop – Photoshop was a very important tool for us as we used it to produce our digipacks drafts and final one and also our advert drafts and final one. Photoshop allowed us to manipulate, adjust and perfect our Digi pack and advert and made it look realistic and ensured our promotional package was consistent and had continuity. We had never used Photoshop before so it was challenging to make our package exactly how we wanted it but it was worth the difficulty as our promotional package is in line with each other and it looks very effective.

Evaluation• IMovie – We used iMovie for our first evaluation question as we had lots of experience and it allowed us to

make our evaluation precise and easy to follow. We included pictures of our promotional package and used split screens and transitions to show a simple comparison between ours and existing packages in the same genre. Using iMovie gave it a professional film look and made the question easy to follow and was more enjoyable than using other platforms as it is less boring.

• Powtoon – For our second evaluation question we used powtoon as our platform, we had used powtoon before and therefore found creating the question simple and fun. Powtoon is a quick and fun way of explaining our question and making it more interactive for the viewer, with pictures and different font our evaluation question looked original and unique especially as we used powtoon as opposed to a simple word document

• Blogger – Our third evaluation question was written straight onto our blog, we felt this was the best way to include thorough detail such as statistics, results and quotes from our focus group. Through the easy use of blogger we also included photos of our focus group and photos of their written responses and feedback to show the viewer we had taken all of this into account. We also provided a PDF photo of our survey for reference and this was easy to do thanks to blogger which we found was a very suitable platform for this question

• Slideshare – We used PowerPoint for our evaluation question four and then used Slideshare to present our question. As we had lots of information we wanted it to be easy to follow with a clear structure and layout and therefore Slideshare was appropriate.