Question 4How did you use new media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used a huge range of new media technologies in every stage of my media project. Firstly, 'Blogger' has been the main new technology to bring my media project together as I have presented my whole project on my blog. From my experience using Blogger, I have found that it is very easy to use and is a very successful way of presenting my work clearly and neatly for others to understand.

Another new technology that I have used to present work throughout all of my stages is 'Prezi', which is an interactive and creative way of presenting ideas that I can then embed on my blog for others to read. I have also used 'Microsoft PowerPoint' to create slideshows of my work, which then led me to use 'SlideShare, which is extremely helpful because instead of the reader having to download the PowerPoint file to their computer to view my work, they can simply see it on my blog because 'SlideShare' enables you to upload a PowerPoint to the Internet and embed it onto your blog. All of these methods of presenting work helps to avoid presenting all of my work in the same method and adds some variety to the way in which people view my work.

Using technology in researchWhen researching into existing media, 'YouTube' was the main technology that I used. This enabled me to search for any music video I wanted to analyse, and embed it onto my blog so I could put the video and my analysis of the video together. This allowed me to present my research into existing music videos clearly and effectively. I also used 'Google Images' when researching existing digipaks and posters. I could simply type in the artist's album name or poster that I wanted to research and it would bring up a wide range of results for me to analyse. Again, I could then copy and paste the images onto my blog next to my analysis, allowing me to present my research into existing media clearly.

Using technology in planning‘SoundCloud' was a technology that really helped when it came to planning as it is where I found the unsigned song that I used in my music video. 'SoundCloud' contains a huge database of all types of music and sounds that you can listen to, download and embed onto your blog. Not only does it contain music, it also contains artist profiles, so you can find out more about the artist. This helped me when looking for a song to choose as I was looking for an unsigned artist, and their artist profiles provided that information and therefore I was reassured that the song I was using was unsigned. I also used Email to contact that artist of the song that I was using to ask permission if I could create a video to their song.

Using technology in constructionThe 'Macs' were the main technology I used when creating my music video as they contained all the necessary software I needed to create the video. The particular programme that I used to do this was 'iMovie', which was used to edit all of the footage for my video. It is a very fast and easy-to-use programme that allowed me to select the footage that I wanted to use, cut the shots and place them together with the audio track. 'iMovie' has many different effects that I used in my music video, such as adding different colour, contrast and saturation effects to create the desired look to my video. 'iMovie' also allows you to speed up or slow down any footage, which really helped when correcting the lip syncing. To film my footage I used my iPhone due to the high quality camera that it has. I chose to use my phone over a video camera because I believed that from past experience last year on my AS project, the iPhone camera provides footage with a higher resolution and sharper colour. I was able to easily transfer to footage from my phone onto the 'Mac' by transferring all of my footage from my phone onto a memory stick, and then plugging the memory stick into the Mac and importing it straight into 'iMovie'. I also used my iPhone to take the photos for my ancillary pieces, again because of the high camera resolution that it has.

Using technology in constructionTo create my ancillary pieces, I used 'Corel Draw', which is an advanced editing programme. I was able to transform the images that I had taken on my phone into a digipak and a poster by resizing the images to the correct measurements, adding various different colour and contrast effects, and adding text. My experience with 'Corel Draw' was very good and I was able to create high quality ancillary pieces with this programme due to the wide range of effects that it offers.

Using technology in evaluationI also used a new technology in my evaluation when receiving audience feedback, by using the social networking platform ‘Facebook’. I uploaded my media products onto ‘Facebook’ where my friends and family were able to view them, and message me with their opinions on them.