The document discusses the various media platforms and technologies used during the research, planning, construction, and evaluation stages of a creative project. During research, the author used blogs, YouTube, social media, and online surveys to gather information. Blogger was the main platform used to present work. Planning involved using Pinterest, Instagram, and Publisher to create mood boards and present genre conventions. A DSLR camera and Final Cut software were used for filming and editing a music video. Additional technologies like Photoshop and PowerPoint were employed to create graphics and ancillary texts. For evaluation, different formats like blogs, video commentary, slideshows, and diagrams were utilized to showcase responses to questions. Overall, the author strived to incorporate

1. N
Research:
First of all, the research section of the creative process
had a diversity of technologies used as it was important to
present content and information I had gathered in
different mediums. The majority of which revolved
around online and website based information which was
useful for referencing to when creating thinking about the
creation of my products as they were easy access meaning
I could get to them from the classroom as well as at
home. Many of the websites I had used before so I was
confident in being able to use them professionally and I
easily understood how they work.
Formats I used for research included:
 Blogger
 YouTube
 Social Networks/ Forums
 Online Survey Software
Blogger - was a huge part of the entire course as it was
the platform that I used to present all of my work
meaning I had to know how to get the best out of the
software and how to use it to promote my work
effectively. Being specific to the research aspect, I used it
to embed videos from YouTube as well as images and
hyper-links from other website which were relevant to my
research for examples links to my artists Facebook page
or merchandise store as well as visuals such as examples
of music videos which I had researched and images or
screenshots of the bands/ artists to convey the style of my
genre. I could use the features of the blog such as the
fully customisable layout to portray an image which I
thought best represented an advert for the Mojokings, this
was done through buttons as the side, custom made
headers and backgrounds.
Introduction:
For my A2 coursework I made sure that I used a variety of media platforms/ technologies to aid me in all the stages of the
creative process. I will justify and explain my use of technologies under the categories of 'Research', 'Planning',
'Construction' and 'Evaluation.
I wanted each piece to look different and stand out to make the
posts appealing and also to show the experience and
understanding I had of the technology. To do this in my posts I
used a mixture of different formats such as the main feature of
the embedded video but with carefully selected screenshots
and accompanying images which helped explain my point
about what was typical, what worked and how it suited the
look of that band. A good example of this was my post on the
video analysis of The Graveyard Johnnys song Dead
Transmission where I spoke about how concept videos were
different for the genre and showed screenshots of where these
elements were shown in the footage as well as taking about
synergy throughout their products and then giving sourced
images & screenshots of their t-shirts, CD, other merchandise
and their website and how it clearly references the video. To
get the videos I had to find the embedded option on YouTube
and then simply paste it in to the HTML option on Blogger
and paste it. With the images I had to save and capture those
previously and then upload them to Blogger and insert them
that way.

2. Social Media - sites helped me a lot in gaining
information about my artist (the Mojokings) and also
their audience. In my initial research I used research
from the Mojokings Facebook page to find out about
them and to see what sort of things their fans post and
the bands that they are interested in, this was aided by
looking at upcoming gigs via their social media and
looking at like-minded bands they have played with
such as The Brains and The Creepshow which are
very popular Psychobilly artists. The content posted
on these platforms helped me to furthermore gain a
feel for the style and the look of the band from seeing
their promotional pictures and existing merchandise.
In addition, I used Facebook to contact the
Mojokings about using them for my project.
Online Surveys -
YouTube - helped me massively in my research as it allowed me to view and analyse real media products by bands/ artists who
were already producing content for the Psychobilly genre. To find content on their website I simply had to search the artist's
name in the search bar and if they had any music videos they would appear, for example "The Brains" and I found their video
"Misery". The usefulness of YouTube is that other videos related to the artists or similar bands are suggested down the side
which allowed me to further explore the genre and what is typical for the Psychobilly style.
This website FreeOnlineSurveys.com helped me
a lot during my research stage. It is a free online
program which allows to you make professional
looking surveys and distribute them online to as
many people as you wish. I used it to acquire
feedback from fans of the Mojokings about their
viewing habits, opinions and tastes on music
videos as well as what they thought looked a
good CD cover. The quality of my feedback was
down to the technological capabilities which I
exploited from this website, first of all being
online it meant I could reach a wide range fans
and I managed to contact the Mojokings who
kindly posted the linked to the survey on their
Facebook page assuring my responses were from
genuine fans. Secondly, the professionalism of
the program allowed me to create my survey so
that it reflected the bands image as well as being
interesting and interactive with the people filling
it in with drop down menus and also star-based
rating (ranking) questions which was not
available on alternative websites. All I had to do
was create an account and chose the question
style I wanted, then fill in the content of the
question and responses myself.
Forums – were the final place where I got information from.
This was specifically about technology as I used them to look at
reviews and ratings for the camera which I would use eventually
use for filming my music video. It was useful as I could see
footage from the camera as well as get feedback from owners of
the product to see if it was suitable for what I wanted to use (i.e.
in low-key lighting). NOTE: I also used social media (above) to
get information and recommendations about this camera by
contacting known Psychobilly artists such as members of The
Brains & The Graveyard Johnnys.

3. Planning:
Similarly, I used a range of
technologies when it came to the
planning stages of my
production. I aimed to use new
platforms for each stage to
ensure that there was variety in
my work, keeping it creative and
interesting. Examples of new
technologies used for this section
include Pintrest, Intsagram,
Publisher and Prezi.
I also continued using technologies like Blogger further in order to present my work and
continue updating the look of portfolio keeping up with the bands style and themes
popular from my audience research. In addition, I further utilised the creativity and style
of blogger in my planning to create a magazine analysis where I used scanned in images
and uploaded images from online collated together to act as a visual aid with the write-
up of the advert analyses. Its diverseness in terms of being an open-source program
meant I could bring in content such as embedded videos, images and PowerPoints etc.
from other websites, it allowed me to make my blog much more interactive and
interesting for the planning stages.
I kept on using YouTube and watching videos from Psychobilly artists to better my
knowledge of the genres forms and conventions, this was especially key for planning
my music video as I could see real life examples.
These programs and media platforms helped me greatly in the planning process especially in presenting my posts
creatively. I used ccreative media platforms such as Instagram & Pinterest for inspiration on my music video and
to present genre conventions in the form of a mood-board. The images were sourced from Pinterest and Instagram
by using their easy search tools similar to Google I could see photos that artists had posted from their Instagram
pages as well as searching general themes and bands on Pinterest which then gives me related images to a topic,
for example Psychobilly. Pinterest is a website where people can save and Pin photos related to a topic and save
them to their own Boards, for example a board about the Psychobilly music or classic cars. All photos under that
heading are linked to that specific title. It is good for finding inspiration and seeing images which are linked. One
thing I found out was the clear image from the bands was the Psychobilly clothes style and the heavy influence of
the double bass, this was something which I used in my music video as well as the use of low key lighting. With
regard to my digipak it further confirmed my ideas for using a female character/ star motif. Instagram is an
online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its you to take pictures and
videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as that you can then share them through a
variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. Finally, once I had
collected the images I used for inspiration I then used Microsoft Publisher to arrange, crop and place the images
in a collage/ mood-board format. I could freely arrange the images and edit them in the program then lastly save
them in the file format I desired (image). By using a mood-board it provided a much more visual representation of
the music genre which is sometimes better presented than simply writing about the forms and styles you can
actually see them and imagine ideas for your own production. These were all images related to the Psychobilly
genre or photos of bands similar to the Mojokings. Later on in my planning stages I used a storyboard to piece
together the performance / shots I was going to film for my music video, this was done simply on paper, however
to use a different form of media technology I presented it using a program called Prezi which is a form of Power-
Point-style presentation software. I scanned the storyboard in to the PC and then uploaded them to a Mojokings
themed presentation.

4. In the construction part of my overall project I made the most of both physical media and digital media in terms of the
technology I used. This was shown in my main production and ancillary texts. By using new and professional
technologies it helped to push my creative ideas and make my texts unique to a high quality.
When filming the Mojokings for my music video I used a Nikon
D3200 DSLR camera. It was used throughout my production also
being used to shoot the photos on my ancillary texts. I decided to use
this camera as it gave me a lot of control over different aspects of my
filming and shooting, such as the option for manual focus meaning I
could have shots go from a clear shot of the double bass and then
slowly blur out of focus as the bass is being moved towards and away
from the camera. An additional quality of this piece of technology was
its ability to film in 1080p meaning that my footage was to a
professional standard and it had a clear, crisp look to all shots when
desired. The reason I picked this camera specifically is because I
knew it worked well under low light conditions with its big lens it was
capable of filming fast action shots of the Mojokings under minimal
light as well as flashing lights from the stage. Constantly with the
colour change it kept up with the band. With having manual controls,
it meant that I could be more precise with my shot types.
In addition to the camera I used a backup
iPad which was recording the entire
performance from the side. This was done to
ensure that if the worst happened and my
camera did break which couldn’t be fixed I
did have some form of backup with footage
from that. Whilst I did not use and clips from
the iPad it was still a different form of
technology used to film the Mojokings.
To edit my music video, I used Final Cut as it is a
professional piece of software and I had previous
experience with how it works and how to make
the best of its effects etc. from using it last year
with my thriller. It offered a range of features
allowing me to adjust and manipulate my footage
precisely, for example adding the vintage style
look to my shots which was done by altering RGB
levels. It also let me experiment with other
options such as the brightness and contrast which
I lowered to make my video seem more of the
typical Psychobilly video.

5. Continuing with Final Cut, it gave me the free
reign to create special effects which were a
unique feature to my music video alone. This
was done through their advanced use of filters
whereby I could change levels of thing like
static, clarity and contrast; this combined with
the blue filter gave me the iconic effects used
to emphasise parts of the song in my music
video. I then just had to apply those filters to
the desired shot (or part of shot) to then give
the blue ‘out of control/ bad TV’ style visual
effect.
I used Final Cut for both my rough cut and
final production as by practicing on it gave me
further knowledge of the software but also it
meant that when it came to tweaking my first
draft it was easier since it was already on that
program. When saving and uploading my
footage it gave me loads of different options
including different audio compressions and
video quality. I decided to use the top quality
options since I had filmed in HD, this did take
longer to render and convert however the
overall product was to a much higher standard.
A crucial part of editing was
reliant on the technology of the
computer I used. The Apple
Macs are high spec and were
easily capable of coping with the
HD footage and most important
it was these PC’s that had access
to the software of Final Cut
which is exclusive to the Apple
OSX platform.
The Macs were also good because they have large HD screens which meant
I was able to edit in the best quality possible (same quality as my camera
footage). They were also very fast which was useful since I didn't have to
wait for ages for the clips to render, it saved a lot of construction time as
oppose to using standard Windows computers.
When creating graphics for my music video, I relied heavily on digital
technology with programs such as Adobe Photoshop when it came to editing
images and creating animation frames which would work with the style of
the footage. The images I created were for the beginning and end of the
video displaying the song title in a classic 1950’s style TV frame, this was to
reference the genres roots.

6. When creating my ancillary texts, I used a wide range of media technologies taking the best parts from each in order to form
the adventurous stylistic look I wanted for the Mojokings. Two of the most important programs I used in this process was
Microsoft Power-Point, which I used for placing basic images together and I used the text tool to make the title of the album
"Whatever Happened To Rock 'N' Roll?". The font used is 'TrueCrimes' which is a 1950's poster/ comic style font which
links back to the roots of the genre. The text was then manipulated to make it central and emphasise the middle of the
sentence. The second program I used was an online tool called PIXLR photo editor. Since I created my anciliary texts at
home I didn’t have access to anything like Photoshop however this program proved much better. I used to it drain the colour
from the images to make it black and white, then I used a filter to give a blue tint to the whole image. After it was tinted I
then emphasised this by increasing the vibrancy of the blue while also turning up the contrast to make the black shadows
stand out (this also made the text and sleeves on the t-shirt appear the pure contrasting black). Finally, I used a whitening
tool to change the t-shirt from blue to a bright pure white colour. I finally used a border tool to create a ripped-paper edge to
the image. I did this to extract key themes from the Psychobilly genre and also with the tinting making something fresh.

7. Evaluation:
To continue with my want to use different
forms of media technologies, for my
evaluation section I used a different format
for each question I answered. This included
web based programs and PC software:
 Q1 – Written Blogpost (Blogger)
 Q2 – Directors Commentary (Final Cut)
 Q3 – Slideshare (Power-Point)
 Q4 – Poster/ flow chart diagram (Word)
FINAL CUT
Like throughout Blogger was used for all my evaluation questions
to present my evaluation questions as its diversity allowed me to
upload my work in many different formats and have it embedded
into my posts. For Question 1 specifically it proved useful as it was
good for the simple essay style format I was looking for and I
utilised the technological capabilities of this service to use both the
textual information but also pair it with images I had uploaded as
well as a short clip and links from YouTube, keeping the post
interactive for the viewer. It was most appropriate because of the
sheer size of the content I had written meaning it would be far too
wordy to have as a PowerPoint and it would be too busy for a mind
map or a video. It wouldn’t hold the interest as well. The only issue
however with blogger is that on occasion the formatting of the
program isn’t brilliant and how you se things on the post isn’t how
it appears when you upload it, specifically images and captions.
This means I spent a bit of time playing around with it trying to get
thing correctly aligned.
For the second question I used final cut for my director’s
commentary. Initially I had planned to do this at home using
Windows Movie Maker however I soon decided to move to final
cut using it at college as it was actually easier and more
professional in terms of the transitions I could make but most
potently I could overlap images and audio which was something I
couldn’t on Windows. It was also easier to trim clips and add
sections make faster cuts in Final Cut. The only downside is that
this took longer since it had to be done in class time but overall it
produced a better looking product.
My third question was a PowerPoint
presentation which a rather simple piece of
technology but compared to something like
Blogger it allowed me to be much more creative
in the way I presented my answer. It was good
in illustrating the link between what I was
writing in the answer as well as providing
stimulating visuals which related to the text, for
example talking about my focus group I had
photos of some of the most influential people.
When talking about typical conventions for the
genre I could the images and the style/ layout of
the presentation to show pictures which
supported my points. it was easy to customise
the overall design of the presentation to make it
reflect my ancillary texts and my Blogger
design. The only downside again was formatting
when I uploaded the PowerPoint to Slideshare
to be able to get it on my blog it changed the
positioning of some of the text and images. Also
if I were to add any slide transitions these would
not be carried over to Slidehare
For my final question I decided to use Microsoft Word in creating a poster/ flow chart
style piece of work. This was to have a good combination between text (content like a
blog post) but with also a good design which reflects the Mojokings style and carefully
acquired screenshots. Photoshop would have been better for creating a poster/ chart
like this however since this work was done at home it was creatively what I decided to
use as the best mixture of design and content. It was also a platform that I hadn’t used
for a while so I fancied a challenge getting back used to this creative extent.