Evaluation Question 4

1. Evaluation Question 4

2. Technologies for Filming
• •The camera was definitely the most important technology to have while creating our music
video and creating the promotional package. This is because without the camera we would
have no other technology to record footage or get photos. The camera we used was from
college, so it was easy to access and store as it would always be there when we needed it.
This proved useful on days where not all of our group was able to make it into college, as no
one would have the responsibility of having to bring in a camera to film.
• The tripod also links in as a good technology to accompany the camera, as this proved useful
in situations where we wanted the video to run smoothly and look professional, and did not
want any sudden jolts from using the camera hand held for example. Also in the creation of
the promotional packages I personally found it easier to use a tripod to take the photos I
needed as everything would be on the same level.
• We also used our phones for playing the music out loud whilst filming the music video, as this
would ensure that our lip syncing would be in time. I personally used my iPhone and found
this useful as I downloaded the song onto my phone so could play it whenever it was needed.
A downside to using our phones was that some members of the group hadn’t downloaded
the song and if me or Lisa didn’t have our phones with us we would have to load the song on
YouTube which would buffer, and we also had to rely on 3G to use YouTube, which is an
example of technological convergence.

3. Technologies for Research - YouTube
• •A technology which I think was the most important in terms of research for our music video
and own promotional packages was YouTube. YouTube was a crucial research method we
used for these as it allowed us to research further into the Pop genre. This was useful as we
could take notes and ideas from other Pop videos in order to create some new ideas
ourselves so that our music video could be unique, yet still cohere with the genre we had
chosen as well as meet the conventions. By having Pop videos to look at it also gave us the
right indication of what our artists would need to wear in order to fit the genre. For example,
wearing popular, current clothing which would also appeal to the audience to inspire them or
help them relate to the artists or characters. Choreography was also something else which
was prominent in music videos, for example dance routines and the layout of the artists
within the videos. We learned from this and tried to create our own choreography as best we
could by using gestures and expressions that would connote fun and youth throughout the
video, as these elements meet the conventions of Pop. Some popular artists that fit into our
chosen genre whose videos we looked at most were Fifth Harmony, Little Mix, Ellie Goulding,
Carly Rae Jepsen, and Taylor Swift. These were useful artists to look at and learn from as they
are successful Pop artists, and connote both glamour and relatability through character and
clothing in their videos, which is something we also aimed to represent. Also from looking at
comments on these music videos we could see what the audience did and didn’t like; and
although we obviously wanted our music video to appeal to our target audience, elements of
controversy are still often used within costumes and the narrative of videos in Pop in order to
keep a video interesting and current, so we took that into consideration when doing this.

4. Technology for the Creation – Adobe
Photoshop
• •Photoshop was another technology I used and I used this in
order to make my print products such as my digipak and print
advert. I had only briefly used Photoshop in the past so
editing and creating these products still proved difficult to me
as I was unsure of how to use the site. I had to refer back to
pages on google and ask other classmates for help when
creating these products, and this is why I feel like this
particular technology held me back when trying to create
these products as I felt I couldn’t expand them to their full
potential. I wanted to create a particular “Pop Art” effect for
my print products which I had no idea how to create, so I did
end up referring to tutorials through google quite regularly in
this process.

5. Technologies for Recording Research
and Ideas - Blogger
• •The technology I used to record information and research that I
had found was Blogger, as Blogger is the website we predominantly
use to keep up to date with work in our media class. Blogger is a
useful website to record our research on as you can embed videos
and presentations from presentational technologies such as Prezi
which makes it more interesting and creative. By using Blogger I
could easily add text and images and refer back to all of my
research when creating my promotional package and the music
video. Because the rest of my group did this with their own blogger
accounts we therefore had a range of different ideas which could all
be contributed towards the making process of our video and still all
relates to our chosen genre. Blogger was the only technology I used
to record my research as it allowed me to collate ideas and
thoughts in one place, and have opportunity to look at others ideas
and take thought from those as well.

6. Technology for Research – Prezi and
Animoto
• •For my research I tended to use a few presentational websites to present
my research and further ideas, Prezi was my most used technology for this
as it was quick and simple to use however made the information look
more effective and also allowed me to add images to help explain and
represent the ideas I had further. Although Prezi is an easy website to use I
think it is effective because it allows you to expand your ideas through
different bubbles and boxes like a mind map; which allows you to think
more creatively.
• •Animoto is another presentational technology software that I used, I
particularly liked this piece of software as it was just in the form of straight
forward click by click presentations, and you could add text and images to
this as well as music in the background. The only downside to using this
technology was that I had not used it in the past so therefore didn’t really
know how it worked at first which proved to be quite time consuming.
However, when I had worked out how to create presentations on it, it had
proved to be quick, simple, and effective.

7. Technology for Collating Feedback –
Twitter and Facebook
• •Facebook and twitter were also media technologies that I used
when creating my promotional package. I got feedback of my
package through comments and direct messages about what went
well and what I could improve in the package. Because these are
social networking web 2.0 sites it was easy to communicate and
receive these messages quickly and easily as they would go straight
through to our phones. By using different social media sites and
adding different people to chats or groups it was a good way to get
a wide range of responses from different people who knew things
about the Pop genre. Because some of the people I added to the
group, specifically Facebook, already take Film or Media Studies
classes these were good people to ask for feedback from, as they
would already be similar with what conventions we needed to meet
or what would make a promotional package or video good or
professional, as well as what types of things could be improved.

8. Technologies for Communicating with
our Audience and Group - Facebook
• •I also used Facebook throughout the creating
process of the music video particularly to
communicate with the other members of my
group using a group chat feature. This allowed
us to talk about ideas we had for the video, as
well as keep each other up to date with things
we would need to bring into college such as
costumes and filming equipment. Facebook
overall played a huge part in the process of
making these products.