Question 4

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

Evaluation By Lauren Selby

Click on the links below…

• InternetBlogWikipediaGoogleSocial Networking Sites

• Mobile Phones • Transferring Data• MS Office • PhotoShop • Premier • DV Cameras• Digital Still Cameras

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

stages?

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

stages? To record all of the work for my

coursework, I used a blog called Tumblr. Using Tumblr enabled me to write up all of my research and my planning with an addition of pictures, audio clips and videos. I could also use power points for my evaluation and put them on Tumblr.

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By using this blog meant that I could show different skills I have learnt through the different stages of the course and it also made the blog more interesting to look at as it wasn’t one big chunk of text.

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

stages?Wikipedia

Wikipedia was used mostly at the start of the project throughout the research stage. When we had to find out about Florence + The Machine, Wikipedia was the main source we used for information to the background/facts.

We learnt where Florence got her ideas from, why she did things in a certain style and then to basic facts of how she started in the music business to how successful she has become.

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

stages?Google

I used Google when finding inspiration for photo shoots. Depending on what photos where most popular determined what we needed to be aiming for when re-creating our media products. Google is very easy to use and because of how quick you get results, it is the best program to use when researching.

Google was also effective if we needed specific pieces of information. Wikipedia gave you a lot of information in one big chunk of text whereas Google can define your search to one page that may become relevant to your own work.

We used YouTube for our video research. This was the newest piece of technology that related to our research but it wasn’t necessarily the one that gave us the most feedback. It allowed us to research similar artists to Florence + The Machine and see what they included in their videos. It gave us more material and ideas to work with in order to make an idea that suited the genre as much as possible.

By having access to YouTube, we could also show our video worldwide. It gave us a broader audience to receive feedback and it didn’t confine us to only people we knew. YouTube enabled us to look at other videos (by other A2 students or Florence’s videos) and compare ours to see if it looks like a real media product and to see how effective our product was.

FacebookOverall, the only need for Facebook was for audience feedback. It made getting comments quicker and easier and we ended up getting more detailed comments on Facebook than on YouTube.

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

stages?

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

stages? Mobile Phones

We used our mobile phones schedule our filming days i.e. because we were filming at one of the actors homes, we would use our phones to find out what time we needed to be there, if we needed to bring anything last minute or if anything had changed since we last met.

We also used our phones to get some feedback on our video. Some feedback we got through texts was:

“I think the bits towards the end are very professional”“You’ve done a good job”

even though the texts were not as detailed as what we received through Facebook/YouTube, it still gave us a general idea of the target audience’s opinions.

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

stages? Transferring Data

Another way of transferring data was through Email (hotmail) and memory sticks.

It made it quicker and easier if there was a certain piece of work that we all needed.We also used Hotmail to contact the record company when trying to get permission for our song.

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

stages?

Microsoft Office

PowerPoint

I used PowerPoint for my evaluation. Through using this technology enabled me to create an evaluation which contained audio clips, videos, pictures, hyperlinks etc... It makes the evaluation look more interesting and it allowed me to use more skills because of the development in new technology.

Word

Word permitted me to type up all of my work through all of the stages of my coursework. Using word gave me a backup in case my blog stopped working and make uploading my work onto the internet a lot quicker and easier.

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

stages? Photoshop By having access to Photoshop, enabled us to create our Digipak and advert. Because of the advances of technology, it made our products look more professional and more like the conventions of Florence + The Machine’s products.

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We used Photoshop to create the overall products and the detail that was on the individual pictures. An example of this is on one of the pictures, there was a telegraph pole in the background. We thought this made the composition of the shot less professional so we used Photoshop to delete it. We then used the ‘smudge’ tool to blend our editing in with the rest of the background and intensified the colours of the bunting. However, using this tool could have been a technique we improved as you can see where we have attempted to change it.

Before...After...

We created the collage (it is on the inside middle panel of our Digipak) to relate to the nature theme Florence has throughout her media products. To do this we edited all the pictures we had of natural settings along with some pictures of our body parts to break up the collage, this made some focal points within the collage.

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

stages?Photoshop

For the advert, we started off with a plain, black background but then added circus themed tape to coincide with the props that were in the picture (it is this tape that spells out ‘Dog Days Are Over’ in the hay) and what is actually in our video (hung up around the forest scenes).

As well as this we added Florence + The Machine’s type face to the advert along with other information about what singles are featured on the album. These points were what we thought were most prominent in Florence’s advert and therefore thought it would make our product look more effective. This is something we wouldn’t have been able to do without using new media technologies (Photoshop).

PremierBy being able to use Premier, we were able to create our music video. We could edit all of our clips together to create our plot, change the opacity of the clips to make the video look more aesthetically pleasing and change the speed (slow down and speed up)of the clips to fit with the tempo of the music as well as making the video more entertaining.We also put some of our clips in reverse. By doing this it made the video interesting and enabled the audience to watch the video until the end without becoming bored.

In the beginning, Premier was quite difficult to use but this was due to it being a new product to me. Once I had used it for a while and had experimented with the software I started to add effects to the video using the skills I had learnt i.e. Changing the opacity, cutting clips at certain points/splitting them, putting them in reverse.

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

stages?

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PremierIf I were to do this again, I would have added more special effects as I don’t think I learnt as many skills as I could of done when using Premier. There are also some cuts that could be smoother than what they are so that would be another part I would have changed if I had more technique in using the software.

However, by having this software has developed how we can make our videos. Before we might have only been able to use software such as Windows Movie Maker which wouldn’t of given us a very effective or professional final product.

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

stages?

DV CamerasBy using DV cameras we were able to capture our footage. Once we familiarised ourselves with the buttons (zoom in, zoom out, record etc...) it was easy to use this technological device. As it came with a tripod, this enabled us to have all four characters in the shot as well as making the shots steadier/smoother.However, parts were handheld to create the impression we were being chased or followed i.e. When we were running through the forest. The shot did then become blurry but it was an effected that related to the plot. We also used the DV camera to record our audience research which helped us to gather more information about our target audiences opinions.

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

stages?

Still CamerasWe used the still camera to create our Digipak and our Advert. By doing research into Florence + The Machine a lot of her pictures are posed. Because of this we decided to do that form of photography in our ancillary texts. We noticed that in her pictures, most of them did not just have a plain, white background (it had scenery in it or it was set up with props) so this is what we based our photographs on but then came up with our own settings based around our video ideas/location.

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

stages?

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Florence + The Machine’s Photography

Our Photography