Evaluation Q1

1. How did you use media technologies in the construction &
research, planning & evaluation stages?
Research
I used a variety of media technologies in my research. In my initial
independent research, a key digital resource was the video streaming
website Youtube. Through Youtube, I was able to access a vast library of
music videos, which were essential in identifying and familiarising myself
with music video conventions and styles, which I then used in my
individual response Powerpoint presentation. After I progressed into
group work and established our project focus, I used
Youtube to view Bastille’s music videos on their official
BastilleVEVO channel. Due to this usage of media
technology, we were able to establish an understanding of
Bastille’s prevalent themes and motifs, which we utilised
in the planning and construction stages to develop a
digipak, music video, and advert that adhered to the
Bastille style. It was also my primary site for my music video analysis, in which I wrote
extensive commentary on music videos in a similar genre to Bastille to further identify
common music video conventions, including Arctic Monkeys’ “Arabella” – these videos were
available for free streaming on artists’ official channels. Without using Youtube, accessing
these videos would be far more difficult.
Another media technology I used in my research stage is the online
survey development software SurveyMonkey. This allowed us to get
both qualitative and quantitative data
from wider audiences regarding our chosen
band so that we could tailor our product to
a target audience. The service provided an
opportunity for anonymous responses, which I
feel may have caused participants to be more
honest in their answers. Our main method of
distributing the survey was through social
media. We sent the link to various friends via
Facebook’s messaging software – a limitation of distributing
through Facebook however was that the majority of our respondents were of a similar age
group due to the people on our friends lists. SurveyMonkey created graphical
representations of our results, which was a great way of implementing the data into our
audience research presentation, and it is a format that makes differences and similarities
easily observable.

2. A further use of social media in the research stage was a Facebook
group chat we made when our group was formed. In this chat we
discussed our project and potential ideas for our music video and
digipak. This was incredibly useful, as it allowed us to develop the
project outside of lesson time easily and efficiently. We were also able
to send various resources to the group via the chat, such as links to
music videos with prominent ideas/basis for
inspiration – I used the chat to send the group
a .pdf draft of the music video script I had
written so that we could brainstorm ideas and
changes, allowing the process to be collaborative rather than an
individual task. This group chat could be accessed with any device
with the ability to access Facebook, meaning we could participate in
the chat via our laptops/desktops or even our phones, meaning we
could use the chat when not at college or home.
One example of digital software we used in the research stage was
Adobe Premiere Pro which we used to edit our focus group
discussion. Using the program, we were able to import .mov video
files that we had taken on a Canon EOS 400D DSLR camera from an SD
card into the program’s user interface, where we edited the clips
before exporting them into an .mp4 video, which we then uploaded
to Youtube and embedded onto our Wordpress blogs. By using
Premiere Pro, we were able to compile various clips and put them into a structured, succinct
video. Without having the program to edit, we would have had to upload a single long take
to Youtube, which would have contained a lot of unnecessary footage.
My Wordpress blog was also an effective
use of technology in the research stage. I
used Microsoft Powerpoint to create the
presentations of my work; the slide format
allows information to be presented
categorically. After I had
completed my
presentations, I uploaded
them to SlideShare, an
online service designed for the website embedding of Microsoft Office
documents. SlideShare was a great choice as a middleware-type service
to get my presentations uploaded to my blog, as Wordpress embed code
was available using the site’s “Share” function, meaning I
could quickly and easily embed my uploaded documents into
my blog posts. SlideShare’s Flash embed player allows for
navigation through the presentation’s slides within the
player; this means that the presentation does not have to be

3. displayed via slide-by-slide images, saving space and allowing the reader to process the
information at their own pace. By using embedding, my research is all viewable and
navigable from the main page of my blog and is viewable without having to click on
individual posts to view the contents, creating a more compact compilation of my research
which may not have been possible without my use of external digital technologies in unison
with Wordpress.
Planning
Media technologies were also used in the planning
stage. I used the digital screenwriting software Final
Draft 9 to write a draft for our music video. The
program provided the ability to use correct
screenplay formatting, such as use of scene location
headings and transitions, allowing our video to be
more precisely planned than would be possible
without the use of the software. The script
formatting also allowed us to more carefully plan out the music video
shot-by-shot and draw up the storyboard. A group member drew out
the storyboard by hand on templates, which – using a scanner – we
were able to convert into digital .jpeg format and use Adobe
Photoshop to fill colour into some parts of
the drawings. We did this digital
conversion in order to be able to upload
the storyboard onto our Wordpress blogs,
and used Photoshop to add colour so that we had reference
points that we could call upon when composing our shots
during the filming/production stage, as we felt the colour
scheme of our video was very important to our intended project
themes of warmness contrasted with coldness. Without this
usage of digital technology, the colour scheme of our final music
video may not have been as consistent, and the storyboard
would have had to be drawn digitally rather than by hand so
that it could be uploaded on our blogs.
We also used Photoshop and the Adobe desktop publishing program
InDesign to create drafts for our digipak product and associated magazine
advert. We used Photoshop to create drafts for the more image-focused
drafts, such as the album cover draft. However, with the 6-panel digipak
layout draft, we found InDesign was a more suitable application to create the
draft due to its more intricate user interface and its general purpose as a
publishing/drafting program. We achieved an effective balance of both
programs by creating the panel drafts in Photoshop and then importing them into the
InDesign draft. This co-operative use of digital technologies helped our drafting be more

4. useful and informative when it came for us to use
it as basis for our final product, as we were able to
create our drafts using multiple programs to their
most appropriate capabilities.
We used Microsoft Word to create a shooting
schedule for our music video, as well as actor
release forms so that we had clear permission from
the people featured in our video to use their
performances. This was a quicker and more direct
process than it would have been without the availability of technology. We also sent an
email to Bastille’s label Virgin Records asking for permission to use the song and the band’s
likeness; without contacting them, we would have been subject to copyright issues.
Construction
In the construction of our products, we further used
media technologies. Our music video was filmed using a
Canon EOS 600D DSLR camera, which we had previous
experience with using. We used this technology to a
greater extent, however, than we had previously,
becoming more familiar with the camera’s user interface
and optimising our footage using video settings such as
exposure on the camera. We used Adobe Premiere Pro to
edit our footage and create the video. We refined our importing/exporting skills we
developed in our research stage, as well as learning how to change shot colouring using
Premiere’s built-in post-processing tools, which helped us maintain a consistent colour tone
throughout the video.
We used InDesign to recreate Bastille’s iconic logo in vector form, using the program’s
measurement-based UI to ensure the logo was an accurate recreation, so we could use it on
our digipak; this meant our digipak was more consistent and in-line with other Bastille
products and packages, increasing its audience appeal as a media product. The primary
typeface we used in our digipak was Lemon/Milk, a Bastille-like font. For each group
member to use it on their own workstation, we put the .otf file on a USB flash drive and
installed it into our computers’ font library from the flash drive so we could use it in
Photoshop or InDesign. We exported the finished logo as a .jpeg file so that we could open
it in compatible programs such as Photoshop for implementation into our product.
Our use of Photoshop in the construction stage was essential to our final product. We used
it to airbrush our photos to remove imperfections or change the photo to be more in-line
with our intentions – essentially ensuring that the pictures were of the high quality standard
of conventional media products. When making the magazine advert, we used Photoshop’s
brightness/contrast tool to exaggerate the shadows of the photo, providing the light/dark

5. look we wanted for the photo. We also used Photoshop to write the complimentary text
and copying and pasting the record label logos – implementing all the magazine advert
conventions. Without our use of Photoshop, the image would be bare and would not
resemble a magazine advert much at all.
When our music video was edited and exported into a Youtube-compatible .mp4 file, we
uploaded it to the site. From here, we again used social media and distributed the video to
friends and acquaintances on Facebook. Youtube allows for embedding in most social
networking sites, making distribution on other sites such as Twitter easier and our content
more accessible for potential audiences.
Evaluation
I also used a variety of media technologies in the evaluation process. After the construction
stage, I uploaded our products in .jpg file format to my
Wordpress blog. This allowed me to be able to access our work
easily through the blog from any computer or device with
internet access for reviewing and evaluation purposes. It also
meant I could implement the digital files into my evaluation
answers to back up points or demonstrate aspects visually that I
talked about in the text. I also used Wordpress for my answers
to Questions 1 and 3. The built-in image integration features
were very suitable for balancing my text with accompanying
images and demonstrating the similarities between them I
talked about in the accompanying text, especially in Question 1.
A purely text-based response might be less informative or less
effective at conveying my points.
I also used Microsoft Powerpoint and Microsoft Word to create my other evaluation
answers. I aimed to use a variety of software to create an overall interesting and varied
evaluation, and used Powerpoint’s slide-based design to categorise and structure my
answer, which would have been more difficult on another program. I uploaded my
Powerpoint and Word documents to SlideShare, which allowed me to embed them into my
blog.
Over the course of developing my coursework, I have developed my understanding media
technologies and become more confident and familiar in my ability to use them. Because of
this, I was able to create a stronger evaluation due to my improved awareness of the utilised
digital technologies.