The student used various media technologies at different stages of their project. They used YouTube to research existing music videos by specific artists to get inspiration. They also used YouTube to upload and get feedback on their own work. Facebook was used to get audience feedback on print work, though some responses lacked detail. Google was helpful for finding pictures of existing media products to use for research. The student documented their entire process on a blogger site to keep their work organized.

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

2. What technologies did I use: Youtube : I used www.youtube.com to research into existing music videos. I found this very useful, as I knew some exact artists that I wanted to research. So I could narrow down the search to find exactly what I wanted. I have to admit that there were so many videos, it was hard to find particular ones, as a lot of work on there is put on my the general public, so with some videos I wanted to find I did struggle to find the actual video, not something made by a random member of the public. I also used ‘youtube’ to put my own work on the internet do access, and gather audience feedback. I used ‘youtube to embed work into my own personal blog. These are some of the artists and videos that I looked for on Youtube to inspire me for my own media product. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oYkZs4yR2o Taylor Swift Love Story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbjZPFBD6JU Norah Jones Come Away With Me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVgZmUuYryc&feature=player_embedded This is the link to our video. Lifetime Jessica Allen.

3. What technologies did I use: Facebook: I used www.facebook.co.uk to gain audience research and feedback on my work. For gaining feedback on what the target audience liked #I found this quite useful as a lot of my contacts on their appeal to the acoustic/love genre that we went for. However, when it came to gaining feedback on my own personal video, and print work, I didn’t find the feedback I received all that useful. Bits and bobs of the feedback I gained had some use but a lot of it unfortunately didn’t. With so many A2 students trying to gain feedback on their work, using maybe the same way of emailing contacts with attachments, people may of got bored of replying or maybe didn’t have the time. Also, some of the feedback I received was just one word answers like ‘Yes’ which wasn’t the most useful when it came to making adjustments to suit the target audience. Here are a few screen shots of some of the feedback I gained. This is some of the good/bad feedback I received: (see next slide)   

4. Good/Bad feedback.. This is some of the better feedback I received(print work): This is some of the not so useful feedback: In relation to the video:

5. What technologies did I use: Google: I used www.google.com to find pictures of existing media products e.g. magazine adverts, CD front, back and inside covers, pictures of the existing artists that I was inspired by. I found this method extremely useful, even though there are SO many different images and things to look at using such a broad method of researching I still managed to find useful images and information that I could apply to my own work. I could narrow down my search by clicking ‘UK only’ which limited the search a little, or when I was searching an artist in particular I could just type in their name e.g. Taylor Swift Love Story. I did struggle to find CD covers which gave me the front and back cover of the CD package, but after a while clicking through and typing in different things in the search box, I thankfully found some appropriate material to use as research.   

6. What technologies did I use: Blogger: I used www.blogger.com to document and keep all my work in one place. This is very useful for time management and keeping my work and myself organised. I tried to do a blog post every lesson I had to keep up to date and so I could follow my own progress. This is where I put all my research and planning and exam practice. This blog shows the many stages of the research leading up to the making of the video. It also shows the making of the video, with the things that went well, and things that didn’t etc. Also on here is all my print research leading up to my draft print work and the images I took for it, finishing off with the final Digipack and final layout. Here are just a few of the blog posts I have done so far.