Throughout the project, the student used various media technologies for research, planning, construction, and evaluation. For research, a blogger website was used to write posts and collect information. YouTube and Google were used for inspiration and market research. Microsoft Word was used to create questionnaires. Final Cut Express and Photoshop were the primary software for constructing the music video and digipak. HD cameras and lighting equipment were used to film quality footage and photos. For evaluation, Prezi, PowerPoint, Screenr, and Windows Movie Maker were used to create presentations, record demonstrations, and edit video clips. All of the technologies were important for creating professional-looking final products.

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

2. Question Four.
How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the course of creating my; music video, digipak and
advertisement, I have used many different websites, equipment and editing
software's. Everything I used was equally important, and it would have been
impossible to create my products without the use of these technologies. It was
also important to use the right technology’s for the type of products I was
producing, in order to make it look as professional as possible. For
example, using Photoshop for editing the digipak rather than Final Cut.

3. Question Four.
Research:
Blogger: Before we started making any of our products, we set up a blogger website:
www.blogger.com/ . This enabled us to create posts, and write down our research findings, ideas
or anything else we felt was important for our blog. We created posts as a group, as well as ones
individually. I could access this blog anywhere for whenever I felt the need to make a new post.
This was updated regularly and we eventually built up a good list of posts that helped us with
making our products.
YouTube: YouTube was helpful during several stages, especially the research stages. It enabled us
to search indie-pop music videos and get an idea of what they look like in order to appeal to our
target audience and give them what they expect from this genre. It was also important at the end
of the construction stage as we were then able to upload our video onto YouTube and gain
feedback from those on there.
Internet: The Internet was an important part of our research, as it helped us access sites like
Google. Google was helpful during the research stages because I was able to look at chart
information that helped us know if our music genre would do well in a mainstream chart.
Also, we were able to go on sites like dafont and look for fonts for our logo and our promotional
poster.
Microsoft Word: We also used Microsoft Word during the research stages as we created
questionnaires and graphs on here. They were used to hand out to our target audience for
relevant information that would help us with our overall research.

4. Question Four.
Construction:
Final Cut Express: Final Cut is the main Photoshop: We used Photoshop when designing
software we used to create our music the logo and the ancillary tasks. Since the last
video. It enabled us to cut, edit and green media project I produced, my Photoshop skills have
screen our footage. It was the first time I improved drastically and I was much more
had used this, so we practiced before comfortable on it this time. I have got to grips with
hand. This was the result of my first time the editing tools- and I used things like
green screening. I was pleased with the overlay, brightness/contrast and curves etc to edit
results, and this encouraged me and my our images. I believe Photoshop has helped us
group to go on and use green screen in create a really visually interesting ancillary tasks
our actual music video. Final Cut was the and logo. Just like Final Cut, without Photoshop we
most important piece of software we wouldn’t have been able to produce professional
used when creating out video, and it looking pictures (like cutting out images correctly) if
wouldn’t have been possible to make it we hadn’t used it, and therefore was extremely
without this. important during the construction stage.
Click the picture above to see a quick video on how
we produced one of our panels using Photoshop.

5. Question Four.
Construction:
HD Video Camera: To film our performance shots in the studio, we used a HD
camera. This helped us gain the best quality footage which would then make it
easier for us to green screen our footage. The camera also made our footage look
professional because it gave us images of the highest standard, which is something
you expect to see in a music video. The HD camera helped us to create a
convincing music video.
Lighting: We used specialist studio lighting when filming our performance shots and
taking our ancillary task images. This was to give us well lit images that would appear
clear when we uploaded them onto the computer. The use of the lighting helped us
gain professional looking images overall as they stopped any glare or overly dark
shadows etc. Because our genre was indie-pop we didn’t try to overuse the lighting
and made it look subtle, as in this genre the lighting is made to look as natural as
possible.
HD Camera: When taking photos for our digipak and advert, we again used
the studio and used a HD camera. Just like the HD video camera, it enabled us
to take good quality, sharp, professional looking photographs. To make sure
our images didn’t come out blurry, we used a tripod to keep the camera still.
This helped our final products look more convincing and like a real product
because of the quality of the equipment we used.

6. Question Four.
Evaluation:
Prezi: I used Prezi to create a presentation to question three of my evaluation, I also
used it to create presentations on our audience feedback on our final products. It was
the first time I had used Prezi but I found it surprisingly easy to use. I enjoyed using
it, as it makes our presentations look more interesting and attractive. However, it did
take a while to produce these presentations.
PowerPoint: I have used PowerPoint presentation before and therefore I am aware of
all it’s features. I have used it for several of my evaluations, as well as some of my
presentations for the research stages. I like using PowerPoint as it’s simple to use and
gets across the information in a clear and well set out manner. I then used websites like
SlideShare to upload my PowerPoint’s and embed it onto our blog.
Screenr: I used Screenr to record my computer screen as I demonstrated how we
produced one of our digipak panels, that I uploaded to YouTube and added to this
presentation. This was something I had never used before, yet it was very useful and
was very simple to use. It again helps to make my presentation more interesting and
shows me branching out and using different technologies.
Windows Movie Maker: I used this to take clips from our video and cut it down to pick
out relevant parts to add to my evaluation. It’s a very simple footage editing
software, but it did what I needed it to do and was very simple and easy to use. I was
able to upload the footage straight to YouTube from the programme which was very
useful.

7. Question Four.
Overall, all the different technologies I used helped
to create a professional looking music video, digipak
and advertisement. Every technology and software I
used was important to creating our products and it
wouldn’t have been possible to create them without
the use of one of the technologies. They were all
simple and easy to use, even the ones I hadn’t used
before. In all I am very pleased with all of them and
would definitely use them again if we were to
reproduce our products.