How did we use new media technologies in the research,

planning, construction and evaluation stages?

New media technologies within the research stages.

• In our research stages, I decided to look at 3 music video’s to begin with; one for each genre (performance, narrative and concept). So that my audience would know where my opinions have came from when I have analyzed each video, I decided to embed the video onto my blog, so that it can be viewed on the same page. To do this I went onto www.youtube.com searched for my song and then took the code it offers to embed onto my blog so that the video appears there as well. To the right you can see three screenshots which show the videos present on my blog.

• So that I could take pictures of my own research when looking into digital's I used my Nikon D3000; a DSLR camera. This offered me good quality photographs which I could then export to my computer, save to a folder and then upload onto blogger itself.On my blog you can see that I have taken pictures of the album ‘O’ by Damien Rice; to the right is a screen shot taken from my blog, so that you can see what I am talking about.

• Next in my research stage, I investigated three Artists homepages’ so that I could see how successful there promotion was.So that I could show what I was talking about, I took screenshots from each of the three homepages, then copied them onto Microsoft word 2007 and proceeded to add text boxes with my comments picking out little things that I personally feel work well and may not work as well.As you can see from the three images I have used arrows to show the certain points I am talking about. I then saved these images and imported them to blogger, by clicking the import picture system it provides. This can be step can be seen just below this text.

• So that I could put emphasis on my point, I decided to incorporate pictures onto my blog, this worked well because it allowed me show what I was talking about and point out certain aspects.Also it broke the text up so it didn’t look like an essay, it made my blog feel more detailed and professional. To import pictures onto my blog, I firstly saved them to a folder, then logged into my blogger account and used the ‘insert images’ icon that blogspot offers and upload them to the posts I wanted them. The icon for this procedure can be seen below.

• As you can see from these screenshots I have incorporated a lot of images to my blog.

New media technologies within the planning stages.

• Next we had to plan out our music video, to do this me and Kirsten designed a storyboard, which showed what our music video was going to feature, how long shots would last, who was in the shot, what was happening within the shot, what camera movement there would be; if any, transition from the shot before to the next and so on. So that we could show how our outcome for our music video was influenced by our storyboard, I took it home and scanned it onto my computer using a Canon scanner, then saved the files to an appropriate folder on my documents and uploaded them onto my blog.

• So that me and Kirsten knew where we would be filming we decided to take pictures of possible locations, we took pictures off our phone; blackberry curve, and then proceeded to upload these onto the computer by transferring the files, save them in an appropriate place and then once again import these onto our own blogger pages.As you can see to the right I have included a screen shot from my own blog, to show where I have placed the possible shooting location pictures and then wrote a small evaluation on why or why not these places would be good for us to film.

• So that we could get a feel for what it will be like to film, because there would be unforeseen circumstances that would prevent us from filming, our class voted for a music video and then split up into smaller groups and each had to make 30 seconds of the selected video.This allowed us to find out for ourselves what could go wrong. For example, people may be ill/away or we may not have the props needed. Once we filmed our 30 seconds in our group, we then moved onto editing our footage. To do this we used iMovie on the mac computers at school, these enabled us to cut out sections and match out footage to the 30 seconds we had been allocated.However we didn’t have enough time to finish all the editing, for example, we still had to include the transitions and soundtrack, but we had to start on our own music video.So that we could show what we had done, we decided to save our work, then upload this to www.youtube.com where it gave us the option to take the embed code and insert this onto our blog using the html.All of this helped prepare us for when it came to making the actual video, we now knew that we had to be extremely organised.

New media technologies within the construction stages.

• Within the construction stages, me and Kirsten had to plan out how to construct out digipak and magazine advert, as well as our music video.Firstly our digipak, to do this we decided we would try and use photo serif, however it became apparent that we didn’t find it user friendly. Because of this problem we decided to try out other free photo editing software, we used Picasa, a Google product, which is simple to use but didn’t offer us enough features. It was primarily used to touch up photographs not edit them drastically. Therefore we tried ‘GIMP,’ which again me and Kirsten found infuriating as we couldn’t use it, everything seemed more complex than it had to be. Because of this reason we kept looking for another software that would enable us to do what we needed, I found Photoshop Elements 9 from adobe offering a 30 day free trial, so we tried this. Overall this photo editing software was the best we used. It allowed us to do what we want with ease.As you can see from these images to the right we found that what we achieved from the use of Photoshop Elements 9, we produced a simple yet effective design for our digipak and our magazine advert.

Digipak

Magazine Advert.

• To get our images we manipulated to create our digipak and magazine advert, we saved the files to an appropriate folder, where we then signed in t our own blog pages and uploaded them to the posts where we needed them to be present.As you can see from the screen shots that I have included, this process then enabled me to evaluate the products and talk about how I improved and ended up with the final product. This was useful because it shows the development that has gone into my work.

• When it came to producing our music video, me and Kirsten began by uploading our footage taken on the Canon Digital Video Camera’s we borrowed from the school and uploading them onto the mac computers. To edit it out video we used ‘iMovie,’ this was a great programme to use, the reason being is because we have lip-syncing present within our film, and iMovie gave us the ability to be precise with our editing. So that the soundtrack matched the lip syncing sections.We didn’t want to use too many transitions, but where we felt that the cut’s from one shot to another were too quick and uncomfortable to watch we used a ‘cross-blur’ transition which made the process softer to watch. So that we had a level shot, we used a tripod, the advantage off this was it meant we could get a shot that was still and at a set height we wanted, also it meant that me or Kirsten had to hold the camera, we could let it film knowing it was steady.On the other hand the tripod kept tilting slightly under the weight of the camera which meant that the shot we intended for may not have worked out.

New media technologies within the evaluation stages.

• When it came to evaluation different stages within my project, I decided to use a power point presentation so that I could show my work in an attractive way and split up the sub-sections so that the structure was clear and precise. To incorporate my power point onto my blog, I used a site called www.slideshare.net which allowed me to upload my power point presentations onto their site, where it was converted and published and then I was given the choice to access my blog page so that I could incorporate an appropriate power point to a selected post. As you can see by the images, I have used this quite a few times.

• Within the evaluation stages, I incorporated videos by taking the code from www.youtube.com and then pasting it into the HTML section on each post, this allowed me to feature certain video’s onto my blog. This was useful because when I was evaluating these video’s it meant that you didn’t have to leave the page to view it or open a new window for it. I have done this when I have put my own music video and preliminary video, 3 music videos from different genres and my own videos where I am evaluating a product or my work.