Sarah used various new media technologies for her music video project. For research and planning, she used a Bloggie camera to record minute extracts and a Mac for researching on websites like Final Cut Pro, PowerPoint, and Google. She constructed her music video using Final Cut Pro to edit video clips. For her advertising campaign, she used a Samsung camera, Photoshop to design graphics, fonts from Fontmeme, and SurveyMonkey to collect feedback. Throughout the process, she documented her work on a Blogspot blog. To gather audience feedback, she used Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube.

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

2. Physical Technologies

3. Bloggie.
Our bloggie, Ralph, was used to record our
minute extracts (research and planning) and
out music video (construction).
The Bloggies record in 1080p HD which is
fabulous; however, it does have its setbacks.
We didn’t use the zoom very much last year,
and so this year we discovered that the zoom
is not very good on the Bloggie. This was a bit
of a problem, but we managed to get past that
by only using one, brief one.

4. Camera.
This is a Samsung S850. It has a
5x optical zoom and I’m not sure
what that means. I used this to
take the photos for my digipak
and advertising campaign poster.
Many thanks to my mum for
letting me borrow it.

5. Apple Mac.
We had a Mac which we named
Macintosh last year, and this year we
have a different Mac. He has no
name because he has been nothing
but trouble for us. However, this Mac
was important in all stages of this
process.
Research/planning: used to get onto
FCP, use of Powerpoint, researching.
Construction: FCP.
Evaluation: FCP, Powerpoint,
Google.

6. Software/websites.

7. Final Cut Pro.
Integral to the construction of our
music video, as this is where all the
clips were put together and edited. It
was also helpful in our research and
planning stages, as we edited
together our prelims on FCP,
including our one minute extract
‘Wuthering Heights’
• In/out tool: allowed us to choose
where on each clip we wanted it
to begin/end.
• Crop tool: allowed us to create
the split screen effect for the
phone call scene.
• Fade in/fade out tool: allowed a
transition which wasn’t as harsh as a
regular cut.
• Text tool: allowed me to put text in my
animatic ‘Fish’.

8. Photoshop.
I used Adobe Photoshop CS6 in
the construction of my digipak
and my advertising campaign.
We learned to use Photoshop in
lessons, and took a few weeks
to master.
• Filter tool: use of a violet filter to slightly change the colour and feel of
the digipak. This made it more aesthetically pleasing and less harsh.
• Polygonal/magnetic lasso tool: used to cut things out of one picture to
enable them to be dragged into another one. This was quite fiddly and I
had to keep zooming to make sure I had it right.
• Pen tool: used to achieve the ‘doodle’ effect on the digipak/poster.

9. Powerpoint
Anyone who knows me or has seen my blog will know I adore Powerpoint.
I used it in research and planning and evaluation to present my work
clearly and efficiently.

10. Fontmeme.com
This is where I got the fonts for use of the construction of my digipak &
poster from. The two used were called ‘Frankenweenie’ and ‘Sucker
Punch’. This site is easy to use; you just type in your text and it generates
it in your selected font, ready for you to save to your computer and use
however you want.

11. Surveymonkey.com
This website is how I collected responses for various surveys throughout the
process, especially in the research process. This site was also easy to use, as
you just told it what questions you wanted and it gave you a link to send to
people with those questions in a survey. You can then see all the results
together, so they are easy to analyse.

12. Blogspot.com
Blogspot is fabulous. This is how I’ve been keeping track of all my work
this year; by posting it onto my own personal blog. This has been
extremely useful in organising my work into one place, and allows Mr
Nichola to see it all easily so he can mark it. I’ve used it to post all three
aspects of work.

13. Social Media/Web 2.0

14. Facebook.
I used Facebook to collect audience feedback. Facebook is a good way
of doing this because you can post links, pictures etc. and they just come
up on peoples’ timelines, thus making it easier for them to reply.

15. Tumblr.
Also used for audience
feedback. I have lovely followers
who replied and gave me good
feedback. Tumblr allows a ‘reply’
option, so you can post a picture
or video etc., and people can
reply telling you their opinion.
There is also an ‘ask box’ option,
where people can post to you
anonymously or otherwise. This
was invaluable for audience
research.

16. YouTube.
This is the CatsInSpace YouTube channel. We used this to display our
videos, making it easier to show to people and to put them onto our blogs.
There’s a function for people to leave comments; however, this was not
our main source of audience feedback as many people left us Facebook
or Tumblr messages instead.