Throughout their coursework, the group used a variety of technologies to research, plan, create, and evaluate their work. They used blogs, YouTube, and other sites to gather information, develop skills, and present their progress. Photoshop and Final Cut Pro were used to edit photos, create ancillaries, and edit their music video. Feedback was gathered through surveys and used to improve their video. Overall, the technologies allowed the group to complete a range of tasks, from researching conventions to sharing their final products online.

1. G324 Evaluation Question 4
Throughout the year our group used a large variation of technologies in order to gather
information, present posts and create products. For the entire research, planning,
construction and theory application, we used blogs on a Google powered site called
blogger.com. This gave us the opportunity to upload different types of files from PDFs to
word files and share our work from different sites such as slideshare.com by using the
embedded code. This site also allowed us to personalise our blogs so that they could be
accessible and easier to navigate around. We used it to show our development over time
and to present our progress.
Research and Planning
We began doing tasks before our A2 year began, in order to improve upon our skills and to
prepare us for our upcoming tasks. This consisted of two main tasks, the first was to create
Photoshop tutorials and the second was to test our camera abilities by creating shallow
focus and deep focus videos. These tasks helped us develop our skills and prepare us for
future editing (such as the ancillaries) and recording. We used Photoshop CS5.1, Final Cut
Express and a Panasonic Camera during this to record and edit footage. This definitely
helped us obtain new knowledge about the technology we had access to.
Once we officially began the year, we started our research tasks. This consisted of video
analyses, audience questionnaires, mood boards and advert/album analyses. We did this
using online websites such as YouTube and Google images, in order to gather information
that helped in the planning and construction stages.
During the planning stage we created multiple planning documents such as treatment
sheets and location recces. We also created another survey to gather more information and
to back up our choices for our product such as the setting of the video. This is also the stage
that we had to request permission to use our song of choice.
YouTube gave us the ability to watch almost any music video we could think of from most
genres, it has specific channels that are specific to artists and video suggestions making it
even easier to get videos. It was used mostly for video analyses, from these we learnt about
different camera angles and shots used in music videos and different forms of conventions
from different genres. We then wrote about the information we gathered on Microsoft
applications such as Word or Powerpoint and uploaded, ever via Blogger, Prezi or
SlideShare, which we could then upload on Blogger using the embed code. The advantage to
all this was that we had complete freedom in the presentation of our work- we could create
slideshows or written documents and could add images and videos using embedded codes.
Our next main task was to create a questionnaire so that we could gather information about
different audiences. From this we learnt about the people taking the survey, what they
enjoyed and what they liked most about their chosen genre. This gave us an outsider’s
perspective, showing us what people like most about the media they consume. We did this
using a website called Surveymonkey.com; this site enabled us to write up to 10 open or

2. closed questions, for each of these we could also select how we wanted it to be answered
and whether it was compulsory.
For our mood boards, we used Pinterest and Padlet. Both of these sites provided us with a
board and the ability to put images and text on it. They gave us the opportunity to present
multiple pictures at once, which meant we could show where our ideas came from. This was
an ideal way of doing this, because once again we could embed it onto our blogs.
In order to do analyses on digipaks, our group used Google image search to find pictures of
albums which we then wrote about on Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, once again we used
Blogger and SlideShare to upload these. This gave us the capability to draw information
from other artists’ albums and learn what needed to be included in our own.
In order to get the permission to use the song (Covet by Basement) we had to ask the
owners of its rights. To do this we researched the band by using their Wikipedia page, from
this we found out that their record label is Run for Cover Records. Next we used the Google
search engine to find the record label site and from there we could find out how to contact
them using email. The last step was contacting them which we did using Google Mail. This
task was made easy thanks to the simplicity of basic internet use, all we had to do was use
Google to search for the information we needed then use email. These tools had became a
necessity to do our work- we used them throughout in order to research, plan and contact
each other.
Throughout this stage we completed a wide range of research and planning tasks that
helped improve our construction work. We used media technologies to a large capability so
that we could extract and retain as much knowledge as possible. The technology we used
helped us both gather this information and display/present it so that we could come back to
it for future assistance. It is because of this work that we were able to include many
conventions of our genre, in order to support theories such as Barry Keith Grant’s subgenre
theory to enable ourselves the best possible marks.
Construction
During our construction stage we had to make three products- a music video for our song of
choice (covet) and two ancillaries (an advert and digipak). The development of this can be
broke up into two section, the production and post-production. During production we
filmed and took photos while in the postproduction we edited our products and pieced the
footage together.
In order to film our music video, we used a Canon 550D. We chose this camera over a
Panasonic because it had better quality and gave us more control in lighting through its
better brightness and ISO selection, which was incredibly useful seen as so we were filming
in a dark studio and outside in the sunlight. This was used throughout the production
process for recording the narrative and performance of the video and for photos used in the
ancillaries. One important feature of this camera that proved useful was the zoom, it
allowed us to capture high quality footage from a large distance, which became useful when
capturing shots from across street.

3. For the post-production we used two editing applications/programs- Photoshop CS5.1 and
Final Cut Pro X. Photoshop was useful for the editing of the ancillaries- we used it to
completely create the products starting with just the photos and images. To begin with, we
imported the photos that we captured in the studio and began to apply them to the
templates we had, the digipak template for the album and a plain a4 sized page for the
advert.
Our main idea for the album had a chicken with its eyes leaving its sockets, to apply this to
Photoshop, we drew it by hand and scanned it through to the computer. Photoshop allowed
us to use multiple layers so that we could recreate a digital version of the drawing without
editing the original. This use of layering helped so that we could put in multiple things
without altering others. We then put in the photos and text which we chose on an online
text selecting website named dafont.com. Other tools we used included the paint bucket,
pencil, pen, zoom and eraser. These select tools helped us create a successful album that
looked professional and met standard characteristics of the product type.
For the album, we used the same basic tools along with our photos and images we collected
from Google images. We chose certain images so that the advert would fulfil its purpose- to
inform the target audience of the album and to give access to it. We also applied the same
imagery of the album to create a brand identity. Overall we have used editing applications
and online websites/search engines to create ancillaries that are linked and meet specific
criteria.
Final Cut Pro X was used for the video editing. Once we had completed our filming, we
would import them onto the macs and drag the files to a new project appropriately named
Covet. There we were able to import the songs audio so that we had a timeline to apply the
footage to. We then dragged cropped footage onto the project where we wanted it, we
could then use cutting tools and different video editing tools to link the music through lip
sync and thought beats. Once we had all the present footage in place we would export the
file into an mp3 using the share option, which we would then upload to YouTube.
Once we uploaded to YouTube, we had to title and describe the video, we could also tag it
to make it easier to find. Once the video had processed, we used the embed code to put the
video onto our blog. At this point we would ask for feedback from our class members, tutors
and other people who had knowledge about music videos (such as Ben Young- a member of
Teesside University). Again we uploaded this to our blogs to show progress and then used
this advice to improve the video. This definitely helped to develop the video shown greatly
by the enhancments in the video quality and in narrative storyline.
Other editing techniques we used thanks to Final Cut included different transitions to link
the clips (such as fade in and out), saturation/contrast automation (to improve lighting
errors) and stabilisation. We used these editing techniques to improve our video and meet
the standards/characteristics mentioned by many theorists such as the ones in Goodwin’s
theory that 6 main characteristics can and should be seen in music videos. We used this
knowledge of theories and available media technologies cooperatively to meet these
standards, by linking thing such as the lyrics to visuals and the music to visuals.

4. Evaluation
During the evaluation stage we have answered three other questions to this one. In order to
get the best marks available, we have to use different more advanced options of technology
and media. To do this we have presented our three questions in three ways- a video, a Prezi
presentation and a Popplet. We also created a website to present the questions on, which
we uploaded on to our individual media blogs. It’s also notable that for all of these
questions we used Microsoft Word, previous work, screen shots and basic internet use of
our blogs.
For the first question, we used two Canon 550d cameras and recorded at the same time so
that we could get two angles without filming twice. We used a pre-written answer that we
wrote using Microsoft Word and then printed out- giving us more preparation for the
answer while we were recorded. Once we had finished recording, we used final cut to edit
together the clip. This task included syncing the cameras together so that there were no
repeats, wrong lip sync or gaps in footage. We also used a collection of photos and video
clips found on YouTube and google images to put into the video were it is relevant to do so.
For the second question we used Prezi- an online presentation/PowerPoint making website.
For this we created individual slides talking about different subjects that individually answer
the question. Using this website, we could automatically create transitions between the
slides, which helped to improve the quality of the slideshow. We could also add photos from
google images or our own documents and add videos using YouTube. Doing all this helped
make the Prezi more interesting and helped us show what we were talking about during the
slide.
For the third evaluation question, we created a popplet. Using this website, we could create
a visual presentation of all of our information on one page. The site gave us the opportunity
to share multiple text boxes at once as well as pictures uploaded from our computer.
Thanks to this we are able to answer our question as well as present it clearly and in
appealing way. This was useful because it allowed us to be more create while also being
informative.
Conclusion
All these uses of media technologies have helped to create a successful blog and product
with a good brand identity and use of media conventions. We have been able to create,
research, evaluate and analyse different media products and successfully link them online
for people to view. We have also been able to find information on theorists so that we could
apply it throughout our course (in different construction and evaluation stages) and
thoroughly improve our grade.