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

2. In the research stage of our production there were lots of technologies
used to provide us with information which would help construct our music
video. One of the most common use of technology was ‘Google’; Google
was a way for us to look into other bands and artists which could
potentially be inspiring for our music video.
When creating a music video it is very important to find the music that is
suitable for which we can use and therefore finding a band/artist who is
unsigned is important; before choosing to use a band who we knew we
researched into other potential bands/artists we could use on
‘unsignedband.com’- this was a website which we were able to find
through Google and was a good way to ensure the music which we may
have wanted to use was available for us.

3. Another thing which Google helped us with in
research was through images found on ‘Google
Images; for our magazine and digipak research it was
crucial to consider fonts, image angles, lexis etc so
being able to look at images of magazines and
digipaks helped us form a better understanding of
what the indie teenage audience were looking for- for
example, originally I thought it was best to create a
bright and colour digipak, but realised a lot of the
digipaks for this genre were either black and white
(this is shown in an Arctic Monkeys album) or quite
unusual styles, for example a vintage, retro style
(show in a Scouting For Girls Album).

4. http://www.arcticmonkeys.com/
When researching into the band we had chosen
(Laps Around The Lake) and other example bands
we felt it was important to know more about them as
this would help us form a better idea of the genre
conventions and styles, so looking at bands web
pages was very useful. A good example of a website
which I looked at was the arctic monkeys website.
The website provided us with lots of different things we could look at such as
photos and videos but also told us about up coming gigs and had a fans forum
which members of the forum could get involved in.

5. ‘YouTube’ was something else which we used to help us research into other music
which was related to the indie genre which we decided to choose. YouTube was a
great way to watch other music videos but it also has links down the side of where
the video is shown which suggests other music which we may like to consider which
is often related to either the same band/artist or same genre and these are songs
which we may not have considered using as case studies so it was helpful to
expand our ideas of the music related to the genre. A music video for example which
I would not have considered looking at is ‘Oxford Comma’ by Vampire weekend but
as it was a song which came up on YouTube I was able to watch it and it provided a
lot of ideas involving the indie genre, for example the way they keep the audience
engaged through the unusual clothing and settings but also the variation in pitch and
volume in the song.

6. Audience research was something which we thought
was important to consider before constructing or
planning our music video and therefore online
questionnaires were something which we wanted to do.
We used a website called ‘survey monkey’ which
allowed us to send out the questions which we wanted
to ask our audience, for example we wanted to see what
websites the audience uses as this would be a potential
marketing idea but also a way to advertise and share
the music video on.

7. The planning stage was where I mainly used
technology to communicate and share ideas;
Facebook is something which was often used in
the planning section to communicate and keep in
contact originally with the band and then with the
actors- it was an easy way of arranging to meet
with them and also share our information on what
we thought could be potential ideas for the music
video.
In the planning stage YouTube was also used;
YouTube was a way for us to look into other indie
music videos to help us form a better structure
for our video. When we were filming and
planning the shots for our film using YouTube
was always helpful and so we needed to do this
when we were at the locations and so 3G
internet was the way we were able to do this.

8. When filming we used a Toshiba Cameilio 530
camera which was able to create a clear picture for
our music video. It was important that the image and
video was clear as we aimed to make the music
video as professional as possible so it looked
realistic and had the best interest for the audience.
Without using a high definition camera we may not
have got as good effect and this would have let us
down as the shots may be blurry or not always in
focus and this would then provide the audience with
a very unrealistic view of the music video.
When taking the pictures for the digipak and
magazine advert we used an IPhone 5; the Iphone
was easy to use and also provide clear pictures for
what was needed. A good thing about using an
Iphone and not using a normal camera was that it
was a lot smaller and therefore easier to carry and
bring to the shoot with us.

9. After filming we used Microsoft Expression
4 encoder to ensure that the clips that we
had uploaded from the camera would work
in the best way with the editing program.
The encoder stopped the clips from
jumping when watching the video and also
made all the clips more combatable
together and within the other programs.
Premier Pro was the program where we were able
to edit our film; the program allowed us to put our
clips together but it allowed us to use different
effects to make our film more interesting, for
example the fades between the clips. The audio
was something else which we could edit and work
with on this program. There was a section of the
song which was very repetitive and we felt was
unnecessary and this program allowed us to cut out
the sections which we didn’t like or didn’t feel added
anything interesting to the music video.

10. Photoshop was the program where we edited the images
for our digipak and magazine. The digipak and magazine
had to be appealing to the indie teenage audience and
therefore from our research we had ideas of what we
could do, for example black and white and this was
something we were able to do on this program. For the
magazine picture, it needed to be extended at the top so
when I put the font in it would not cover the artist and so
these were things we were able to do through Photoshop.
YouTube was something which we used in the
construction process to advertise and show our music
video to the public. YouTube allows the audience to
comment and like a video and so therefore this is good
feedback for the evaluation as it would provide us with
more realistic feedback as they are members of the public
which we may not know so the feedback would not be
bias.

11. For the evaluation of our music video, digipak and
magazine article we used different programs to
write them on. Websites and software's such as
Prezi, PowerPoint, Word, Scribd and slide share
were used. The use of these different programs
allowed the evaluations to be varied and look more
appealing to those who are reading it as the style
of the blog is much more varied.
Blogger is the website which all of the work is
uploaded onto and this is the key part to all our
work. The website allows us to upload YouTube
clips, text, pictures etc and so it was very
appropriate for this work as these are all things we
needed to include. For example I have uploaded
my music video from YouTube on to my blog and I
was able to take screen shots which I then
analysed which was all shown through Blogger.