During the research and planning stages for his media project, the student used various new media technologies. He used websites like UK Tribes and the BBC Social Class Test to research demographics and target audiences. YouTube was used to research examples of his chosen genre and estimate audience size. Focus groups and interviews provided feedback on ideas. Movie Studio Platinum software was used to edit the music video due to its easy-to-use tools. Blogger and Prezi were used to document progress, and mobile phones assisted with research tasks like contacting artists. Adobe Photoshop helped design the digipak and magazine ad, while an HD camera and proper lighting equipment improved the quality of the music video filming.

1. Evaluation Q.4
How did you use media technologies in the construction &
research, planning and evaluation stages ?

2. Research & Planning

3. •
•
During the research and planning stages of my media product I had the opportunity to use a variety of new media technologies.
For my audience research I used websites such as UK tribes and BBC social class to find out the demographics and target audience
of the genre of music I chose.
The BBC Social Class Test made it easier to me to find out my demographics by
analysing the modern British class system. They came up with a new model made
up of seven groups and I used the calculator to find what group my demographic fit
in. After taking the test I found out my demographic was new affluent workers who
often come from working class backgrounds.

4. •
YouTube
•
YouTube played a very important role when it came to my research and planning. I was able to find videos of my genre at
estimate how much of an audience I was likely to get. With views in the millions I was able to conclude that music videos of
this genre are very popular and would reach a large audience.

5. •
Focus Groups
•
Another important thing was interviews and focus groups. We had a focus group in class where we discussed not only our ideas for
our music videos but also ideas for our digipaks and magazine adverts. This was very helpful because it gave me an idea of what I
needed to change and generally gave me an opinion of how my music video might turn out and if they would watch it.
Also very helpful were the interviews I carried out. Initially interviewing two people
they both had very different opinions in music. One who enjoyed rap music while the
other R&B. The interview helped me figure out what song to choose and also what and
what not to put in my music video. This made matters a whole lot easier when it came
to filming and editing because one of the people interviewed made a comment saying
she enjoyed the way R&B music videos were as it is and said she would not like them
any other way.
So for my music video I decided to use most of the forms and conventions of real
media, not really changing anything but adding maybe one or two things to make it my
own and not look copied.

6. •
•
Editing the music video is a very important task which would determine the content that would be on both my digipak and
magazine advert. So to make sure this was done properly I needed a software that would have all the tools necessary to
make my video and be easy as well.
The software that was made available to me was Movie Studio Platinum. This software was very easy to use and also had all
the tools I needed to make my music video.

7. •
There were also a number of other websites which we used during this whole period. One of which was Prezi.
With Prezi I was able to document my progress with my music video, digipak,
and magazine advert. Also documented were my ancillary tasks and relative
information needed. Prezi was a really good website to use because it made
the work look fun, and it was also fun to use as well and fairly simple to
grasp.
For all of my presentations I used the same template which was the
chalkboard, I don’t know why but I did 
Doing my digipak analysis was made much easier because with prezi you are
able to add an array of pictures along with text even videos as well.
Prezi also gave me the choice of how and where to place things along my
template giving me freedom to do whatever I wanted and make a fantastic
presentation.

8. •
Another website used was blogger. Blogger gave me a landscape to put all my work. Which in total was about 40 posts in
total. It also allowed me to embed videos from other websites I used like Prezi and Slidesahre which I will talk about in the
next slide. It was also what I used during AS to document my work.
Blogger also made it easier for me to receive feedback from my teachers
for example. Each comment and grade which was posted on each of my
posts were sent directly to my e-mail address which was very convenient.
Blogger also has apps on mobile
devices making it much easier for me
to catch up on work because I was
able to put up new posts at my
convenience.

9. •
With all of these websites being very convenient, they do have their problems sometimes. One of those problems at the
time was with the website Prezi in which I wasn’t able to create and edit my work. So with that in mind I had to use
Microsoft PowerPoint to continue my work. With Slideshare I was able to upload my work onto the website and embed it
into Blogger to complete my posts.
Even this website had it’s slight problems but eventually was ‘usable’.

10. •
•
Use of mobile phones came very much in handy with the research and planning process of my project. One of the tasks we
had was to ask for the artists permission before we made our music video. This was probably for copyright.
Another social media website I used was twitter, since this would have been the only way for me to reach out and contact
my preferred artist. I also did this on a mobile device.
I was also able to use YouTube on my mobile whenever I couldn’t use a computer which was also very helpful.

11. Construction (Ancillary)

12. •
Movie Studio Platinum
With movie studio platinum I was able to edit my video and create something I felt
would be suitable for a high grade. Movie Studio Platinum made it very easy for my
to edit my video due to the various tools and techniques that were quite easy to
master.
Some of the other tools I used included:
•
- When adding the clips to the timeline the audio from the background overlapped with the
audio track. This allowed me to remove the audio track from the clip without removing the audio
track.
•
- With the trimmer I was able to select clips and cut out the scenes I wished to edit on my
timeline.
•
- Another I used was the automatic crossfade, this made it easier for me and quicker to edit
my video because it automatically made a crossfade when two clips overlapped.
In this part of my video I was able to enhance it
by messing around with the brightness and
contrast a bit, but I was also able to make it black
and white which fit very well at that point of the
video.
Also shown was me using a cross fade so the two
different shots I used could merge perfectly.

13. •
Adobe Photoshop
•
Adobe was very helpful especially during the making of my digipak and magazine advert for my digipak.
I wanted to make the pictures black and white but have the gold chain still stand out as gold
so I used the history tool to add the effect changing the picture from this to this.
Images before editing
For the image of the artist on the front cover I used black and white as well with the gold
chain standing out. As you can see I wanted to use the black, white & gold as my colour
scheme.
Photoshop was very easy to master and had a variety of tools which I used to my advantage.
For example the texture tool came in handy a lot especially when making the CD part of my
digipak. This way it did not look to plain.

14. •
Camera
HD Camera
•
For my music video I was lucky enough to get to film with an HD camera. This made my work look a
bit more ‘Hollywood’ if I should say, with the footage looking a lot clearer and making it loko like it
was professionally done. This worked better than using an SD camera.

15. •
Lighting
•
Lighting which played a key part in my music video had to be done precisely. Using the drama
room came with a lot of advantages not only because of the plain white wall but also the
lights. With this I could create a background with the spotlight solemnly on the protagonist
on my video which is what a lot of performance scenes in R&B music videos do.