1. Question 4 - How did you use
media technologies in the
construction, research, planning
and evaluation stages?
In recent years, media technologies have become an increasing
necessity in everyday tasks. Within this project, many of the methods
of research, planning, construction and evaluation that I have carried
out would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, without
these technologies being readily available.

2. Research
Research is a highly important part of any project, and without
it relating my products to genre and themes would be near
to impossible. YouTube has been a valuable source of
research for me, as the ability to view an unlimited amount
of music videos has been extremely useful. Also, the
"recommended videos" aspect of YouTube has meant that
finding videos from similar artists has been much easier.
YouTube has also allowed me to compare the
representation of gender within contemporary folk music,
as I was able to view Laura Marling's video for "Rambling
Man" and Ron Pope's "Atlanta" alongside each other,
making the differences in representation much clearer.
Google and Wikipedia have been useful to me for researching
locations. For example, I researched mountains in South
Wales on Google in order to find a location for my print
production and found the Wikipedia page for Cadair Idris.
Without this tool, it would be difficult for me to find
locations such as this without a large amount of travel.
Google also made it simple to find images of other artists'
album artwork, allowing me to gain inspiration and ideas for
my own print productions.

3. As for planning, technologies played a large part in
allowing me to ensure I linked my music video to the
genre and theme. I took screen shots from various
music videos I had researched and printed them to
take with me on the shoot for my music video. This
meant that I could clearly reference these videos
within my own by using very similar shots.
I used a scanner in order to upload my storyboard
sketches and notes onto my blog. This was useful as it
allowed me to gain feedback on my ideas much easier
and quicker.
I used Microsoft Powerpoint to create moodboards for
location, costume, genre and similar artists. This gave
me a source of inspiration, as I could return to this
easily if I was lacking ideas for any of these areas.
SlideShare allowed me to upload this Powerpoint onto
my blog, which was also useful as it allowed me to
analyse each moodboard in further detail.
Scanner
Planning

4. Media technologies were vital in the construction of both
my music video and print productions. For example, I
used a Canon EOS 5D mark 2 camera for both the
shooting of my music video and the photo shoot for my
print productions. This camera gave a professional finish
to my productions due to the camera shooting in high
definition.
The negatives of using this camera to shoot my music video
was that the format of the footage was not compatible
with Windows computers, meaning I could not edit my
music video on the school computers. Therefore, I had to
edit my music video on an Apple Macbook Pro, using
Final Cut Pro 7 editing software, which overall allowed
me to give the music video a much more professional
look due to being more familiar with this software than
with the software used within school.
I used 2 16GB memory sticks in order to transfer my footage
between home and school, and also to back up my
footage files to ensure they did not get lost.
Construction

5. I used Adobe Photoshop CS4 in order to edit
my images for my print productions. For the
images from my digipak, I reduced the
saturation to give a slight sepia effect to my
digipak. This also gave a cold effect to the
images, which acts as a cultural signifier as
England and Wales are well known for their
cold weather. I also increased the contrast
and decreased the brightness in order to
give the images a bolder appearance,
making them look more appealing to an
audience when seen on a shelf in a store.

6. Evaluation
I used Facebook and other social
networking sites to gain feedback
from my target audience in order to
evaluate how successful my video was.
This was useful as it allowed me to
target a wider audience much quicker
than if I had not used social
networking sites.
As for writing my responses to the
evaluation questions, I have used both
PowerPoint (& SlideShare) and Prezi to
display my written work. This has
meant that my written evaluations are
creatively displayed, and allows for
much more visual evidence to be
added relating to the answers.

7. Evaluation
I used Facebook and other social
networking sites to gain feedback
from my target audience in order to
evaluate how successful my video was.
This was useful as it allowed me to
target a wider audience much quicker
than if I had not used social
networking sites.
As for writing my responses to the
evaluation questions, I have used both
PowerPoint (& SlideShare) and Prezi to
display my written work. This has
meant that my written evaluations are
creatively displayed, and allows for
much more visual evidence to be
added relating to the answers.