Question 4 (J.P)

Q4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the construction of my media work I have used a variety of different technologies to help me through the stages of my research and planning. The first main technology that I used for my work was the Apple Mac that I created all of my work on for my blog. My computer became a huge part of my course and all of my free time was spent on the device. This helped me to learn how to use the computer which has a lot of different qualities that normal computers don't have. Unfortunately there was a downsize to using the Apple Mac is that a lot of videos that would have helped me with my research were not able to play due to a 'blocked plug in' something that Apple products suffer with. 

As a group the first technology that we all used together is the digital camera that was used to capture all of the different scenes of our music video. This camera became an asset to our media work as with out it we wouldn't have been able to capture our movie in good quality shots. Along with the camera, there was other different items and technologies that went along with it, such as the tripod, which I find easy to use as I used it a lot last year, and then other accessories such as camera lighting and a sort of home made green screen. To be able to use the lighting, Jess, Keira and I, the whole group, decided to attend photography club, this came in useful when we had to set up the lighting for the photo shoot for our digipak's and magazine adverts. Using the lighting and the media department camera was difficult at first as I was scared to experiment with brand new, high value equipment, but in the end it was fun to get stuck in and it has taught me a new skill. In the media room, there has been a dedicated space that has been re-decorated especially for photographs to be taken. The wall has been painted white so that it makes it easier to edit the backgrounds on photographs, and lots of props are available. 

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also came in handy for my course,especially when I had to request permission to use the artist's song, as Twitter was the easiest way to do this. We used Facebook to promote our music video to our friends and we also uploaded the video on to YouTube which was a good way to get feedback from unbiased people. As I have all of these social networking sites on my iPhone, I was able to use this technology to use these different media sites to promote my music video. 

Another social networking site that I have been using every day after starting media is Blogger, the site that I have ended up loving and hating at the same time. I love that all my work is documented online as it is a more up to date way to record everything, as you wont loose it or get it ruined like you might with a book full of work. Although there is the upsides of using blogger, there is also a lot of downsides, like the fact that blogger was blocked on all school computers by the council at the beginning of the course, which didn't give us the best of starts. There is also the problem with uploading pictures and videos, as they all end up being blocked and invisible, so organizing them becomes a huge unnecessary task. Saying that, I do enjoy using blogger and I believe that if these problems are fixed by blogger and other appropriate authorities, that using this technology to do course work will get more and more popular. 

The next main technology that we used as a group was iMovie, this also became a big part of the course as we had to edit and cut our whole music video on the Apple product. As we used this application last year for our horror movie, we already new how to use it and make a good quality video, so less time was taken up trying to learn how to work it. Although we did learn a few new tricks along the way when it came to editing the colour of different shots to reflect the shots that were flashbacks. 

Another application on the Apple Mac that came in extremely useful to me was the Photoshop app that I used to perfect all of my images so that I could use them to make a professional looking Digipak and magazine advert. At the beginning of this course when the prospect of using Photoshop became clear, I was worried due to the fact that I had never used this application before. So after taking all of the photographs that I needed, I decided to dedicate some time to practising how to use the app so that I could edit my photographs easily. After spending time trying to work out how to use the app, I became better at doing the simple thing that made my images and ancillary tasks look better. I am now happy to use Photoshop in my spare time as I finally know how to use it successfully, I am also happy to help other people use it and teach them how to do the simple things on there that lead to the more complicated tasks. 

To do my evaluation I decided to use more technology so that I can experiment to the very end of my course. For my first evaluation question I decided to use Prezi as a way of displaying my answer, creating a sort of PowerPoint to break down masses of text and make it more interesting to read, as chunks of text can often be extremely boring to read. 

Question 3 (J.P)

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To capture some unbiased audience feedback on our music videos, we as a media class, decided to show all of our coursework pieces in a 'Media Showcase', where we invited all teachers and a big group of pupils to watch the film and then to be filmed for an interview. This is the end result of our footage, Keira Pain wrote the questions, Jessica Higgs filmed as I then interviewed several people.  



Q1. Did you understand the concept and narrative of our music video? 

From this we found that everyone we interviewed understood that the video was based on the act of bullying and how to overcome it, one interviewee also thought that our music video was the best regarding the narrative. People also considered the narrative to show that it reflected bullying being like a cycle, where the bullied becomes the bully.  

Q2. Do you think that the video raises awareness for bullying? 

After asking this question we were told that our video showed all the different elements of bullying that goes on through schools and how it showed the process of the act of bullying and that the choice of characters and scenes reflected bullying well. We were also told that it worked well if our target audience was of school age, which they were. 

Q3. Is there any elements that you think we could improve on? 

The majority said that there was nothing to improve on when talking about our music video, a teacher also said that our video didn't have any wasted shots like a lot of the others, where shots were included for no reason or to just add time to their piece. One person did say that some of our editing could have been sharper, but we did good with the amount of time and facilities we had available to us. 


Overall, due to audience feedback, I have found that people did enjoy our music video and they easily understood the meaning of the video and what we were trying to get across to the audience. 

Question 2 (J.P)

2. How effective is the combination of your main production and ancillary tasks?

Evaluation Question 1 (J.P)

1.     In what way does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions on the real media products?

Our Media Showcase (J.P)

For the media showcase I decided to make my own poster advertising my music video and advertiseing the whole event.  After making and printing the posters, I then stuck them up in the most popular parts of the school, to attract a big audience. 

I then had to make a programme which could be handed out to the audience. Me and Liam Bowen worked together to create one that advertised everyone's music videos and the year 12's horror movies.

Final Magazine Advert (J.P)

Here is the final version of my magazine advert for Katy Perry's album release. I have decided to go along with the idea of using my digipak design for the advert, just so that people can keep the design of the album in their head and then find it more easily in the shops. I have tried to change the design a little bit by adding a bright, eye-catching boarder and then adding the date of the album release, which is the actual date that the album was released, hence why its in the past.