1. Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
The use of Blogger was very useful in organising and showcasing my Research and
Planning, primarily because it allowed me to keep my research on the computer, rather
than having to print it out. It also allowed for easier access from both home and
college, via any internet connection, which was very useful when doing work outside of
college. The online nature of the blogs also allowed me to make instant updates that
were neat and tidy. Although there were some occasional issues in accessing my blog at
college due to technical problems, the blogs were a more organised and efficient
method of gathering my research and culminating my overall coursework
SlideShare played a very
important part in bringing
our blog together as it
allowed us to upload
presentations of research
and planning which was
needed as part of the
course.
The Internet was very useful while researching conventions to
use within my final products as well as examples of successfully
existing music videos, posters, and digipaks to give me the ideas
I needed to create ours ourselves. I found the most common
internet tools I used were YouTube and Google. They allowed
me to access a broad range of examples, including ones from
different genres as well as the genre of my choice. While this
was very useful when researching posters and digipak covers as
Google provided clear image of examples, it was even more
useful when researching existing music videos. YouTube
allowed me easy access to a wide range of material, which I
could then watch and analyse for example some existing Indie
music videos to research and gain an idea of what I will need in
my video. It also hosted a lot of unconventional music that
would not be shown in the charts, and may have required a lot
of researching to find, this was very helpful as the genre we had
chosen was indie/rock which isn't really found in the update
chart programmes. I was also able to find suggestions for
conventions to research, which I would have had difficulty
finding another way. This made my research much easier, as I
could focus on analysing the genre of my choice and the music
videos from this genre, rather than looking for ones that I didn’t
need. However the internet research was hindered by in-school
internet filtering which was sometimes a pain, but I was still
able to access it outside of school and could easily save links or
relocate videos if my research was interrupted. Therefore, the
internet was a major part in my research and planning, despite
minor technical disruptions.
Using PowerPoint to put
research together was also a
great asset I used during the
coursework process. These
were easily uploaded to the
blog via SlideShare to our
blogs.

2. After all research and planning was complete we could then begin constructing our final products we
also required a use of a lot of technology. Before bringing our music video together we first had to
record the footage, which we did by using video cameras provided to us by the school, this allowed
us to record all the footage we needed to create the music video, we had to use the camera to its
full potential as we had to make sure we had a number of different angles within our final piece this
meant using some of the cameras features for example the zoom button for long or close up shots.
Once all of our footage was collected we then had to bring it all together as well as editing it to make
sure it successfully fitted the genre of our choice. We did this by using a programme called Adobe
Premier Elements, which is a video creating/editing programme. It contained many features which
allowed us to edit our video to how we wanted, for example we made sure all the cuts were
extremely fast as this was found to be a typical convention of the indie/rock genre. We were also
able to add a black and white shaking effect to our video to give it that indie, urban and gritty nature
to it. Adobe Premier was also used to create parts of our evaluation, questions 3 as this involved us
feeding back to the examiner about how the audience feedback we gained helped us create our final
products. Once again we needed to use the program to its full, as we needed to edit the footage we
gathered, using the video camera to do so to how we wanted and to make sure it flowed easy and
made sense.
Photoshop was another important programme
we used to construct our final pieces but it wasn’t
in the making of our video but our digipak
instead. It allowed us to style and edit existing
images and images we collected ourselves to suit
the genre we had chosen, this process was made
easier Photoshop as it has many different tools
and options which allowed us to make a few
designs before settling for the one we thought
would be the most successful in appealing to
intended audience. Some tools we used included
the ‘magic eraser’ which allowed us to perfectly
cut around an image and keep parts we wanted,
deleting the rest this made it much faster process
in bringing our album cover and poster together.
Another tool we used was the fading option tool,
this was very important in creating our digipak as
it was needed to blend an image with an effect
allowing us to create a link between all three of
our final products, shown to be a typical
convention for the music industry.