Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning
Google
Internet search engine.

MySpace
Myspace was a very useful piece of new technology. We used it in order to research new songs and also to compare them. It was a useful technology because it also helped us choose from a variety of artists from one genre, meaning we could explore and compare our song ‘Back to the Start’ with other songs, but also other bands image and style.


Youtube
Youtube was an obvious source of potential music and as a source of research and reference points to other videos. It was a good source for examples of band styles, but also a really important source for inspiration and research into music videos. We used Youtube in order to research, compare songs. Similarly to Myspace, we used Youtube to find a song that we both agreed upon, and also to research into our genre of indie-pop/folk. It was especially useful as it is a free source of videos meaning we could really examine different aspects of music videos. We found some of Polly Paulusma's songs on there and could compare our approach to music videos to previous videos of hers.

Blogger
We used our blogs in order to document and structure our ideas. We have used it as our base for all coursework, with links to external sites.


Apple's iTunes
Similarly to Youtube and Spotify, we used it to research and compare songs. However, we also used this in order to purchase the song in order to help us construct our video - for example we used itunes in order to help our actors lip-sync our lyric in our performance shots. 

Spotify
Spotify is a free music service in which the consumer can stream music for free and create a cost-free music bank. We used this, again, as a source for song research and comparison.


Construction
SD Video Camera
Although the shots weren’t as sharp as a HD (High Definition) Camera would have been, we still captured the shots we needed.


Camera
We used this in order to document our filming and construction as evidence.

Final Cut
This was the software we used in order to edit our music video. We uploaded our footage from the camera via the SD card and Mpeg Stream Clip (the software converter) and formatted our footage so we could use it to edit. We used final cut in order to manipulate, splice, cut and distort our footage

Photoshop
This program was very important for when we were constructing our digipack. We used is to edit stills from our music video, which we felt were appropriate, and craft a layout. We used is in order to edit the images, but also to create text and format the layout.

Conclusion
New media technologies were incredibly important to us, as they provided an
irreplaceable part of our digital research. When researching, initially, we used new media technologies to explore different genres, styles and themes. 


The internet was almost essential for this, as it was the most convininet hub of information for all the different bands. Sites like Youtube and Myspace proved invaluable to searching out new bands and songs. For example if we wanted to find a band which was of a similar music genre to that of Polly Paulusma, Myspace was very useful for finding artists for this purpose - as the band would often have album artwork on their Myspace page in which we could be inspired by to produce our ancillary tasks, for example. Simialry, Youtube gave us a platform inwhich to evaluate our music video alongside other videos from artists of the same genre. It gave us an opportunity to be inspired by other video and also to see other videos and make comparisons between our own and professional standard music videos.


The use of new media technology in constructing the music video and ancillary tasks was also essential. Obviously, the camera was the most important piece of equipment in this, allowing to capture our various shots, but we used software to convert the footage into our videos, and stills into our ancillary tasks. For editing our video, we used Final Cut for cutting our footage and putting our shots in order. The software was also used for adding effects such as transitions, such as fades, flashes, overlaying. For our ancillary tasks we used both Final Cut and Photoshop, as to continue the themes and concepts accurately from our video to our magazine advert and CD cover. However, we primarily used Photoshop for our ancillary tasks to arrange and create text for our digipack but also to crop and transform our images to create a look for our work that we believed suited the needs and wants of our target audience.



A screen shot of editing on Final Cut