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

The main evidence of my research is my individual blog, where I have shown all of my research and planning to make my music video and the ancillary tasks the best they can possibly be. This is a new technology as all of our work is now being presented electronically and none of the work is completed on paper and sent to the exam board. This new technology is much easier for students as we can add information into old posts instead of starting again, and is more convenient for everyone as it can be accessed at any time of the day.

The use of YouTube was valuable as it meant that I could research different videos and gain ideas from existing videos which I could access quickly and easily and I could look for specific videos that I wanted.

The equipment that we used included a DV camera and an Apple Mac computer including Final Cut Express and Adobe Photoshop programmes already installed. These programmes allowed me to create effects such as transitions between shots and cutting clips using the ‘cut’ tool which permitted me to cut sections of my footage which I did not want to use or to move. I would not have been able to colour pop my character’s hoody if the colour corrector tool did not exist, which would have changed the whole theme and feel of my video, and the overlapping and fading effects would not have been used and would have had a serious effect on the outcome of my video.
Adobe Photoshop is a new technology which I have used as I have manipulated still images of elements of my work using this. I used this for the construction of my ancillary tasks to make sure that the images were suitable for my target audience.

Even though I did not use a HD camera which would have given the video a much higher quality effect, the grainy image quality adds to the feel of despair and hurt in the video, and so turned to my advantage. The DV camera still uses an SD card, which needed to be uploaded through isquint which wouldn’t have been able to happen if this programme again did not exist.

As a prosumer, I have added my own content onto Youtube, embedded the video onto my blog to create media 2.0 which makes me an active viewer to the site. The video was created to entertain, put on a shared site and streamed it back. I am now able to broadcast my work to a wider audience instead of a local one.

The questionnaire was created on surveymonkey which was distributed to members of my target audience through email. This enabled me to receive feedback from my target audience electronically which is an example of a new technology as it is more convenient and faster to receive the results of my questionnaire.