The document discusses how new media technologies were used at various stages of creating a music video project. Research was conducted online using YouTube, Vevo, Spotify, and Tumblr to find inspiration, narrow down music choices, and share findings. Planning involved storyboarding in Microsoft Paint, scanning it into Adobe Premiere Pro for an animatic. Filming used a DSLR camera and different lenses depending on shot needs. Evaluation shared the video on social media for feedback, created a director's commentary using Voice Memos on an iPhone, and used Prezi for an interactive presentation.

1. How did you use new media technologies in the construction,
research, planning and evaluation stages?
Research.
Research is a crucial part in the creation of a final product. Using the research as a starting
point, creative ideas develop through the inspiration gained in this process. Research in this
project consisted of two parts; the main task and the ancillary texts.
The majority of my research for the main task
took place on Youtube and the music-video
specific offshoot Vevo. On this site I was able to
watch an unlimited range of music videos across
all genres. From this I gathered initial ideas about
what type of music videos I liked. I then added
these to my playlist on Youtube, which allowed
quick access to these videos for future reference.
When I then blogged on my Tumblr about what I
had found during my research (in which I talked
about specific aspects of a particular video) I was
able to link and make reference to the same video
in this post through selecting the video camera
icon and then embedding the URL of the video.
We used the online site Spotify to listen to
potential music tracks we could use for our
music video and added each one we liked to a
playlist which narrowed it down to just a few
tracks so we could make a decision of which
one to use.
Spotify was also useful for research into the
ancillary texts. The site allows you to select a
genre of music and once selected, shows you a
list of all songs created in that genre and the
names of the artists that created them. From
this you are able to see the album covers of the
artists from the genre you have selected. This
made researching the conventions for album
covers of male artists whose music was part of the chart and classed as ‘mainstream’, a lot
easier.
After deciding which audio track to use - Labrinths ‘Let it be’ -
research was then conducted into our target audience so we could
tailor our music video to their needs. For this we created a
questionnaire using Survey Monkey which allowed our audience to
fill it in online using digital technology. We also conducted a focus
group asking our target audience multiple questions about their
taste in music videos. To publish the findings from our initial

2. questionnaire onto our blogs on Tumblr (which was displayed in the form of a pie chart in
Microsoft Office) I used the publishing site called Slideshare. This site allows you to publish
documents such as Word and PowerPoint through an embed code which can then be pasted
into other sites such as Tumblr.
We then used a DSLR camera to film our focus group. This allowed us to gather a lot of
information and quickly ensuring everything that was said was recorded. I feel the use if the
DSLR camera was hugely successful as a pose to just asking the questions in the focus group
and noting what each individual said. We briefly used Adobe Premier Pro to edit this
footage together and Youtube was then used again to post this video to our blogs on
Tumblr.
Planning.
After choosing a sound track to use for our music video we then had to send an email to the
record label requesting the rights to use the song for educational purposes only and explain
that our video would not be released to a large audience. As expected we did not receive a
reply from the record label Sony.
We then created a storyboard by drawing each scene, which was later scanned into the
computer to make our animatic. Microsoft paint was
initially used to crop each scene, as there were
multiple ones on each page. These were then
imported into Adobe Premier Pro and laid over the
sound track. Each scene was edited in time to the
beat of the sound track and although this was a very
basic mock-up of our music video, using sketched
drawings, our animatic had been extremely useful as
a visual guide to follow throughout the production of our music video from filming to
editing.
Construction.
Throughout the construction of both the main task and the ancillary texts I was constantly
emailing drafts of my work, asking people for their opinion on what I had created. I asked
whether they agreed or not with specific decisions I had made and often gave them two
drafts of the same products, which were slightly different and asked which one they
preferred. From their response I then either changed and improved my product or kept it
the same according to their feedback.
When shooting our music video for the main task, we ensured we shot appropriately for the
edit. This included thinking carefully about the composition of the shot, the framing of the

3. shot and using the appropriate camera and lens for each shot. For the close up shots of our
actors, we used a lens that had a short focal length of f1.8. We did this to achieve a shallow
depth of field, which enhanced the quality of our shot, as the main focal point was our actor
whilst the background was out of focus. For our wider shots, we used a Nikon DSLR camera
on the manual setting, which had a normal focal length, to focus on the subject within the
shot whilst the background was still in focus allowing for the setting to be established whilst
the main focus was still on the subject. Choosing between each camera lens to use
depended entirely on the composition of the shot and knowing which shots were going to
be overlaid and cropped. We would then use each lens and frame each shot accordingly. For
example in the scene in which our actors meet, we used the camera with a normal focal
length and wide angle whilst placing the camera in the centre where they cross over.
Furthermore in the split screens we tried to get our actors as central as possible to ensure
both frames would fit on screen.
Evaluation.
Evaluating my main task involved using several social media sites such as Facebook, Youtube
and Twitter. By sharing the URL code (that by clicking took you straight to our music video)
on these social media sites we were able to ask for and gain audience feedback. By using
social media as a means of gathering feedback, we were able to have access to a wide
audience who gave their honest opinion without feeling pressured to say ‘the right thing’
because we were not physically present. By screen shotting each comment we were then
able to evaluate these and explain what we have learnt from this in Microsoft PowerPoint
and present these in the form of an animation.
To answer another evaluation question we decided to do this as a
director’s commentary which involved using another new and
developing media technology that is the apple IPhone. On this
device there is software installed known as ‘voice memos’. This
allows you to record audio and by using Apples ‘air drop’ we were
able to transfer this to my Apple Mac for editing. The audio
recorded was then laid over our music video and certain scenes that
the audio was describing were paused to illustrate what was being
said. Again this was exported as an MP4 file and uploaded to
Youtube.
To evaluate my ancillary texts I have used the online site ‘Prezi’. Prezi is presentation
software that allows you to create a visual presentation that links such as Youtube videos
and posts in Tumblr can be embedded into to illustrate your text. By using this software I
have shown I have good creative skill using new media technologies as this is a more
complex and interesting
presentation in comparison to
software such as Microsoft
PowerPoint, which is
relatively basic.