Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation? 

Creating our music video we used multiple different new media technologies, which without using would have meant a completely different filmmaking experience and we would have had to have used different techniques and learn new skills. These technologies include:

• Digital camcorder
• Apple iMac computer 
• Tripod 
• Monopod 
• Boom mic 
• Boom pole
• Headphones
• Final Cut Express 
• Photoshop 
• Blogger 
• Bluetooth
• Survey Monkey 
• Apple iPhone 
• x-mini music speaker 
• Facebook
• Animoto
• Prezi
• Wordle
• YouTube 

Some of these new media technologies I have put into an animated video presentation, which I created in an online software program called 'Animoto'.

New Media Technologies Used

Research:

During the research stage of creating our video we carried out a number of different tasks in order to collect the relevant information needed to learn about music videos and formulate our ideas which would lead us on to the planning stage of making our music video.
One of the tasks we carried out for the research stage was a vox pop, in which we used technologies such as a digital camcorder, a tripod, a boom mic and a boom pole. We used these technologies to interview people about music videos and gather ideas for our video. Later on we had to edit this video and upload it to YouTube, this required us to used Final Cut Express on an Apple iMac computer then upload the video on to the website YouTube. This is a large amount of new media technologies all working together in order to create one task from which we could gather information. We also used the same collection of technology when we created the focus group and asked students about our three possible narratives.
We carried out surveys online using an online service called 'SurveyMonkey' and then posting them on to social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, we would then upload the results to Blogger in order to track our progress and show the journey. SurveyMonkey is a good service as it displays the results in an easy to read format and will create graphs for multiple choice questions.

Planning:

For the planning stage we did not need to use many new media technologies as a lot of the process involved communicating our ideas with each other and writing them down on paper, such as when we created a brainstorm for our ideas.
We drew out a storyboard and created an animatic so we had a clear idea in our head as to how the narrative would unfold, it was also an effective way to demonstrate the progress and evolution of the music video. For the animatic we took picture using an iPhone and used Bluetooth to transfer the images to an iMac computer on which we could use Final Cut Express to create a video and upload the animatic to YouTube and Blogger.

Construction:

The construction of the video was the part of the process that took the most amount of time and in which we used the most new media technologies. For the filming of the video we used a digital camcorder,  with a tripod and monopod. The digital camcorder was very easy to use and very lightweight which enabled us to transport it easily and go to locations to get shots in a very short amount of time. The tripod allowed us to keep the camera completely still which was especially useful for filming the band sequence as we did not have a fourth member to film us while playing the instruments and lip-synching. The monopod was used for getting smooth shots that we would not have been able to get by simply holding the camera with our hands. 

After the filming of the music video we had to upload the footage on to an iMac computer using a Firewire cable, then we could edit the footage using the editing software 'Final Cut Express'. Final Cut is a very high-end editing software that is used by many professionals to edit films, music videos etc. 

Once our music video was completed we had to create a digipak and an advertisemnt for our album. To take to pictures for the digipak and advert we used our mobile phones, as the camera's on them are good enough quality to use and they are much easier to use and much more portable than a digital camera. We then used Bluetooth technology to transfer the images to the iMac, on which we could edit the images using Adobe Photoshop. These new media technologies that we used were very important to the making of our music video and it would have been a completely different process trying to create a music video without them.

Evaluation:

The final process of creating our music was the evaluation, in which we did not use a very large amount of new media technologies such as in the construction phase, however the new media technologies that we did use were very beneficial and noteable. 

I used an online service called 'prezi.com' in order to create a presentation evaluating how beneficial the compination of our main product and ancillary tasks are. This service helped me to lay out my thoughts and ideas in an easy to digest format. 

I also used Photoshop to create 10 images, comparing our music video and digipak to professional products. Again, this allowed me to formulate all of my thoughts and ideas in a way that demonstrates to other why we done things in a certain way etc. Photoshop is a image editing program that has a rather large learning curve, however as I had already had experience with Photoshop it was not difficult for me to create the images.