New media technologies helped improve various stages of the project. Digital cameras made filming easier than tape and allowed both indoor and outdoor shooting. Final Cut Pro enabled easy editing and exploring new techniques. Websites like YouTube and Slideshare were used to upload and share videos and documents. Social media like Facebook and Blackberry Messenger helped with audience research through comments and direct messaging. Google searches provided useful information for research and inspiration. Photoshop offered layout presets and customization for designing the digipack and magazine advert.

1. QUESTION 4
HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION
AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND
EVALUATION STAGES?

2. Firstly, using the Cannon xm2’s for shooting the music video was a lot easier than
using the Panasonic to record on tape. Using SD cards gave us more freedom
when it came to shooting indoors and outdoors; we didn’t have to worry about the
tape jamming in the changes in humidity or temperature and overall the cameras
were smaller and this made travelling easier. The only downside was that all the
settings were automatic so we didn’t have as much creative control when it came
to focusing and auto focus did create some aesthetic problems at times.

3. Using Final cut pro to edit was easy, accessible and I learned to explore more
techniques to recover or enhance the music video. Colour correction was the
main filter used to enhance visuals, it pushed the visual quality past a home-
made video quality. Using opacity to superimpose images gave a flash back
quality, it allowed me to show scenes from “the night before” without revealing
exactly what happened and this added to the effect of being hung over, not
remembering what you did last night.

4. Websites we used were sites like slideshare, prezzy and youtube to upload
videos, documents and slideshows and use embedded links to use them on the
blog. Not only were they easy and practical, they made the blog look better.

5. During research, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger and youtube helped when it
came to audience research. Comments on youtube videos where a place where
we observed peoples feedback on our and similar videos. For example out
“prelim” task got two positive feedback comments, one from the producer of the
original track and one from a random user. Blackberry and facebook let us
contact our target audience and ask questions using instant messaging services
and screen grabs for recording the conversations.

6. When searching for artist information or record label research and even
looking at past products, google was the easiest way of finding what we
needed to look for. For an archive of album covers, I simple searched for
album covers to compare and get inspiration for our digipack.

7. I mainly used photoshop to put together the digipack and the magazine advert.
Since there are preset layouts installed onto photoshop it was easy to customize
and create a digipack/advert with maximum creative control. With choosing font I
had control over the length, spacing, colour, transparency of the text, and if the font
I chose wasn’t to my liking I could manipulate it to suit my vision. Without using any
presets, a vision in my head could easily be transferred onto the screen and
perfected over a few drafts.