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

1. How did you use media technologies in the construction & research,
planning, & evaluation stages?
Research
Throughout all four stages of this project, technology has been an essential
part in creating a high standard promotionalpackage. The advantageof
usingmedia technologies within the research stage meant it was easier and
quicker to gather information and ideas. A key website that was useful
since makingmy individualresponsepresentation was
YouTube. This freeonline video streaming service allowed me
to explore other music videosand research music video
conventionsand styles that I was interested in. After deciding
on an artist and song as a group, YouTubemadeit easy to research the
group and there common conventions, as all of Bastille’s music videos
could be found on their BastilleVEVO channel on YouTube. This extensive
research was then reflected in the construction and planningstages, as this
meant wecould create a promotionalpackage that was of a similar style to
Bastille’s. Without this website, video analysiswould havebeen made
difficultas this was my primary sourceof music videos, and where I found
artists and videossimilar to Bastille like ‘Arctic Monkeys’and ‘Imagine
Dragons’.
Another technology used wasthe onlinesurvey software SurveyMonkey.
Weused this website to create a survey and
gather qualitative and quantitative date from a
wideaudiencewhich meantwe could create a
video suitable for our target audience. Weasked the participantsquestions
on what featuresthey would liketo see in a video and what formsand
conventionsthey like in Bastille’s music videos. The survey included
multipleformsof responseincludingmultiplechoice, rankingby
numbersand text boxes for the participant to write their own
individualresponse. Theresponseswe received wereall
anonymous, whichmay mean the participants responded more
truthfully. Wedistributed the survey throughsocial mediaby
usingFacebook’s messaging service. This meant that the survey waseasy
to quickly share with other people, but onelimitation wasthat the sample

2. may not have been representativeas the majority of respondentswereof a
similar age group. SurveyMonkeythen presented the results in graphical
representations, which made the findingsof the resultsvery clear and easy
to understand.
Facebook and the use of social media actually became an
incredibly usefultool in the research process, as we
madea group chat in the messenger service. This then
allowed us to discussideas for our musicvideo and
digipak, and meant we wereable to work on the project
as a group out of lesson time and we could communicate
efficiently whist doingso. Wecould not only share ideasthrough written
text, but also through sendingimages and sharing links with the rest of the
group. Havingthis app on my phone meantthat I was
informed of any updatesor changes on the project by other
group members, even when I wasout and about.
The onlineblogging service Blogger was an effective use of
technology that has been used since the very beginningof my
work in the research stage, as this is the service I have used
to upload and presentmy work in a neat and organised fashion. As I used
this platform to presentmy project in AS, I decided I would stick to Blogger
in my second year as well as I found itsimple to use and felt like I already
had an understandingof the website. Uploadingmy work and
presentationsthrough Blogger meant that I developed my digital
technology skills as I learned how to embed links and add
PDF’s. Uploadingmy presentationsto SlideShare meantthat
I could embed MicrosoftOffice documentsand upload them
to my blog. SlideShare presents the
documentsin an easy to read format,
allowing you to view a Word documentasyou normally
would or in the style of a slide-by-slidePowerPoint
document. Beingable to embed documentson to my blog
meant that I was able to condensemy technological skills onto one
platform.

3. Planning
Mediatechnologies were also used in the planning
stage. When creating a pitch duringthe planning
stage of the process we used the online presentation software Prezi. This is
a more complexsoftwarethen MicrosoftPowerPointand can make the
presentation more interesting. Using differentsoftwarecreates variety in
our work. Other group membersdid find someissues when trying to
upload the presentation to their blogs as they used Wordpress,as that
blogging service required a codedueto how the Prezipresentations were
stored. I did nothave this issue whilst usingBlogger and the rest of the
group managed to work around it.
Software’s like Photoshop and Indesigncame in
very usefulwhen creating a storyboard and a digipak
draft. A group member created a hand-drawn
storyboard, which we then converted to a digital .jpeg
file usinga scanner. Wehad to make the storyboard
digitally accessible so that wecould upload it to our
blogs. We then edited the storyboard and the original
drawingsin Adobe Photoshop to enhance the quality and add colour. The
selection and fill tools wereused to select each individualitem and then the
colour picker and fill tools were used to fill the selected items with colour.
Colouringthe drawingsdigitally meant that the colour and consistency was
of muchhigher quality, as colouringthem by hand beforescanning would
mean the colour would notbe as clear. The colour scheme wasan
importantpart of our overall video and package, as we werecarrying the
themes of warmth contrasting with coldnessfrom the lyrics through to the
video. Wewanted the colour schemes to be consistent throughout all stages
of planningand production, and thestoryboard gaveus suitable platform
to base our colour scheme on.
Wealso used the publishing program Indesignto create
draftsfor our digipak draftand magazine advertdraft. We
found that Photoshop wasmore suitable to create drafts for
the moreimage based drafts like the album cover, as it was

4. easier to edit the image itself. However, with the 6-paneldigipak layoutwe
found that Indesign was a moresuitable softwareto create the drafton,
dueto its original purposeasa planningand publishingsoftware. Both
software’s werevery usefulto uswithin this stage and usingboth meant
that we could create the panel draftsin Photoshop then importingthem
into Indesign. Using both technologies meantthat when it came to creating
the finalproduct, wecould use multipleprogramseasily and to the best of
their capabilities.
Beforewe could start the production process, wehad to
plan the shooting schedule and create compulsory
filmingforms. We used Microsoft wordto create the
shooting schedule and the actor release forms, which
we needed peoplefeaturingin our video to sign to show
that we had clear permission from them. A group
member also sent an email to Bastille’s label Virgin Recordsto ask for
permission to use their song. If wedidn’thave the technology to do this we
could have been subject to copyright issues. Havingthis technology
available meantthat the planningprocesswas a lot easier and quicker.
Construction
Weused plenty of mediatechnology throughout the construction stage. We
filmed the contents of our musicvideo usinga Canon EOS 600D DSLR
camera, which we have used before in our focusgroup video and therefore
already had a basic understandingof the
camera. Whilst filmingthe video, we used the
camera to a higher standard and used video
settings such as exposureon the camera to
optimise our footage that we had not used
before. Wedecided to also usethe shoulder mountand tripod when
decidingwhich would bethe most suitable to use. Whichever mountor
stand we chose would havea huge effect on the finally footage in the video.
The shoulder mount may seem like an unstable choice for all of the outside
shots/moving shots in our video, but the movementof the camera added
authenticity to the franticnatureof the video.

5. Wethen edited the footage in post-production using Adobe Premier Pro
to create the video. Once we had transferred the video
off the camera’s SD card onto the college server we
could then importthe clips into the project library
window. Developingtheskills we learnt in our research
stage meant that we improved our importing/exporting
skills. Premier Pro wasa suitable softwareto useto
create the musicvideo, and allowed us to lay the clips of footage over the
musicand delete any footage that did not fit in. Wewere able to
synchronizethe cuts of the footage to the beat of the songto create a
professionaloutcome. This processis notdonequickly, and took many
attempts of addingand cutting footage to get the outcome wewanted, and
even used effects like time remappingto fill any spaces.
As the majority of the footage was shot outside, and the naturallighting
was notunder our control, this meant that we needed to slightly alter the
actual footage to give the finalvideo a moreprofessionalfeel. As weshot
the footage over many differentdayswith differentweather, the brightness
and contrast of the footage was altered to keep the lighting more
consistent. The lumerticolour hue saturation curvetool was used on some
parts of the footage that appeared extra dullor boring to give them an extra
burst of colour.
The useof Photoshop wasessential in the final stages of our production.
Weused Photoshop to edit the still images used in our digipak and
magazineadvertto give them a more professionallook. For example, the
images used in our digipak needed re-sizing. Weused the tools in
Photoshop to make the images look morecomplete, like airbrushing and
removingany imperfectionsto comply with the high standard of
conventionalmediaproducts. Another greatly used tool was the brightness
and contrast feature and altering the hue and saturation. Muchlike the
video, this allowed us to alter the colouringof the images dueto the photos
being taken in differentweather conditions. For example, weused these
effects to bringout the oranges and yellows in the images, to carry on the
theme of ‘warmth’ that we aim to portray throughout all products.
Wealso used Indesign to recreate Bastille’s iconic logo, using the program’s
measurementbased UI to ensurewe had an accurate recreation, meaning

6. that we could usethe logo on our productslike the digipak. This increased
the productsaudienceappealas the audiencewould recognisethis well
known logo from other Bastille media products. Wealso used a Bastille
look-a-like font, ‘lemon/milk’and putthe .oft file on to a USB flash driveso
each member could install the font on to our computers’fontlibrary so that
we could useit on the differentprograms. Exportingthe finished logo as a
.jpeg file meantthat wecould open it and useit in other programssuch as
Photoshop.
Evaluation