Question 4

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

and evaluation stages?

Brooke Patrick

Blogger:This is the first platform of media used within my coursework and is the place where I have presented all my research, findings, planning, products and evaluation. I used this website in my first year of media studies and decided with me having experience in the website I would use it again for this years media coursework, my experience in the website meant I had no issues when uploading files and changing the aesthetic of my blog, saving me precious time. I have found over the two years of using it that blogger is a reliable and useful resource for uploading my files in a professional and pleasing way.

Survey monkey:Survey monkey is another media product I have experience in from my first year and was a key component during the research stage. I have found that survey monkey is very simple to use yet manages to create a well designed survey and takes only minutes to make. It meant that I simply added my questions, chose the appropriate design and then sent it out to my audience. Other than an only survey designer the other option would have been to print and hand out questionnaires which adds up to be both costly and time consuming. By using this we could simply share the link onto our social media websites, this method opened us up to a wider audience and arguable meant the respondents felt more at ease to answer the questions more honestly with there being no human interaction, making our data more representative.

Google: Google has been one of the most useful tools throughout the coursework. During the research stage I was able to use good to look up information about genre’s of music, indie rock history, the band I based my products on history and also found out the key conventions and theorists of music videos, digi-paks and adverts. Being able to find out this information has not only made my knowledge of this media section stronger, but has made the products I have produced stronger and helped to make them professional and pleasing to my audience members. During the Planning stage of this coursework I was able to use google to look up the necessary images needed and also pick out design plans and ideas to make the look of my products well thought out and visually look the best possible. When it came to the production stages I used to google to find out various techniques and methods, this was extremely useful when it came to the making of the digi-pak as I sometimes struggle with Photoshop and google helped me whenever I was stuck or needed to find out how to do a particular method.

Twitter and Facebook: When I needed to quickly gain responses on my questionnaire both Twitter and Facebook were two websites that allowed me to quickly share my questionnaire out to a large number of people and gain quick responses without going out and individually getting people to answer the questionnaire. These two online websites really saved time during the research period of my coursework and meant I could quickly receive answers onto the questionnaire, and to add to this saved me money on printing costs. This was the same case when it came to the evaluation stage of my coursework, I was able to easily share all 3 media products with a large number of people all with a couple of clicks saving me time and money with easy and quick responses. With them not being face to face I feel the audience would find responding a lot easy as less pressure is there due to it not being a one to one situation which some may find intimidating.

Slide share:I found Slide share to be extremely useful throughout all the stages of the coursework when creating a way to present my written work. It is a programme I have become familiar with over the two years. As most of the work I have created is in PowerPoint form, slide share enables me to present the work online without it being just images on a blogpost, it makes it so the audience can view it like an actual PowerPoint presentation which I feel is more aesthetically pleasing for the audience and a lot easier to read.

Word and PowerPoint:These are two very basic forms of media technologies which have helped me to produce my work throughout the past two years and are programmes I used throughout each stage of my coursework. They have given me the ability to structure my information in a professional and easy to read way for my blog and due to having a lot of experience with the two programmes for years I find them the best methods to produce documents of work. I was able to document all my research, filming forms, information and evaluation onto these two programmes with ease and simply upload them via slide share onto my blog.

YouTube:YouTube was extremely useful during the research stages as it allowed me to find videos of similar and related bands to that of our chosen artist and helped me when it came the music video analysis. It also was a big help as it provided a media platform whereby we could upload our music video, this media is known for sharing videos such as ours and is more likely to gain a larger audience.

Adobe Photoshop and Premiere:Adobe Photoshop and Premiere are two of the more complicated programmes I have used within this coursework however I have experience with them both due using them in my first year portfolio. Adobe Photoshop has allowed me to create and design both my Album Advert and digi-pak during the production stage with ease. The tools that come with this programme have allowed me to create sleek looking pieces of work with simplicity e.g. the ruler tool allowed me to align text and images, making the work on both pieces more aesthetically pleasing. The opacity tool was also a useful feature for my media product as it meant I could change the opacity of my images and texts to create an original affect to make my product stand out more. Premiere was the main component to the editing of both the small interview video and the main music video. Due to its simplicity we were able to easily cut and connect shots together and make them look sleek. The programme also allowed us to do something different with the colours of our video and due to the simplistic layout of Premiere we were able to easily find the tools needed to get the effects we desired e.g. we were able to change some of the film to monochrome to create various meanings within our music video. The good thing about these adobe technologies is that each of them are linked together making them easy to use with one another and also easier for me to quickly become familiar with them.

DSLR Camera:We used a DSLR camera during the production stage of the coursework for our music video. Dan (other member of the group) has done a lot of work with filming and cameras so when it came to the filming of the music video we felt confident due to his experience. We also made sure to follow our storyboard as close as possible to avoid any mistakes. The DSLR was good quality and captured the images we desired for the music video perfectly allowing the editing process to run smoother and overall have a well filmed media product.