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

2. Blogger is a social networking site that can be used
for many different purposes. It allows you to create a
domain, choose a theme and a title, and start posting
straight away. A blog could be private or public
depending on what you want to use it for, and is easy
to use in terms of creating new posts and editing their
content.
As you become more advanced you can edit your blog
to look however you wish, people can also follow your
blog. These are all important reasons in why blogger
was used for our music video Media coursework.

3. Google Maps allows you to easily enter
the address of your chosen destination, it
can then show you the distance and
amount of time it will take you to get
there via walking, car or public transport.
It also allows you to see an aerial view of
large areas of land and also street view
where you can put yourself in the street
and see without having to be there.
This was essential for us when choosing
location because it not only allowed us to
see appropriate nearby forest areas but
also we could see exact meeting points on
streetview.

4. We used a Sony Handycam HDR-CX115E. This camera has
the playback quality of 1080p which is important for when
we upload to YouTube because we want the quality to
remain high. This camera also has steadyshot and 25x
optical zoom which are both important components when
it comes to creating a video.
This camera is easy to use and lightweight to handle. It is
perfect for creating high quality videos without the use of
things such as studio lights, and even tripods.
From the USB connection we could just drag our files on to
the Mac computer which allowed us to easily upload and
safely file our footage for editing.

5. The editing software we used after uploading our footage was Premier Pro. This was
new to all of us in our group and was easy enough to get to grips with after watching
some basic YouTube tutorials and asking for advice.
After uploading your footage you drag it on to the timeline. From there you can cut
and edit it however you want, and add effects from the hundreds available in the
video/audio effects folders.
Exporting from premier pro is an easy process also and the quality remains consistently
high.

6. To edit our ancillary tasks we used Photoshop. Photoshop is an essential tool in
creating good images for a media product.
Photoshop was something familiar to me from photography lessons but either
way is relatively easy to understand. Once you have the image opened on a new
file, you can add layers and to each of these layers an effect, such as changing
the opacity of dark edges, or making it appear that ink has splattered on the
picture, etc. The possibilities with Photoshop are endless, which is perhaps
what makes it such an important tool in Media as it causes such controversy
with what is classed as ‘realistic’ in an edited image.

7. Online research was essential at every stage for
our music video coursework. It was useful for
images for our digipak and magazine advert, and
the Google search refine allows you to narrow
down your search to achieve only results that are
useful to you.
It was mainly important once we had done the
editing of images and the video as we had to
upload it to sites such as YouTube and Blogger.
The internet is such a key tool to use in any media
task that it became second nature, however it is
important to remember what sites you are
getting information and images from and that you
have permission and that they are
reliable/accredited.

8. YouTube was a key site for our group because it
allowed us to upload all of our videos from rough
cuts to final cuts, and embed them on to the
necessary sites.
YouTube is easy to use, once you have created an
account with your email, you can upload straight
away to your channel. You can tag your video to allow
for more views, add the title and description, and
change the privacy. The upload button is easy to see
and it usually only takes a few minutes to
do, depending on the size of your file.
Our video remained a high quality after uploading to
YouTube which was of key importance to us as this is
the platform in which it would be viewed.

9. Prezi was an internet site we were familiar with
from last years media work. It is easy to use and
allows you to immediately pick a theme/layout
for your slides. Each individual slide can be easily
moved around in whichever order, and on every
slide there is an easy to use text box and button
to add files such as YouTube videos and images.
This is an easy way to present information in a
way that will eventually flow in to a great
PowerPoint that requires minimal effort.
This was important for our group evaluation tasks
as it is easily embedded on to the HTML of our
blogs.

10. Each one of these steps has been essential in creating our music video and ancillary
tasks. I have learnt so much from using this wide variety of tools. It has allowed me
to learn different ways to present information, as well as the key skills of shooting
and editing both pictures and videos to a high quality.
Each one of these tools can link to one another. For example, YouTube tutorials can
help with understanding how to use Adobe Photoshop and Premier Pro – and the
internet search engine Google allowed us to find images and use the Maps to find a
location. Each step came together to create the promotional package we have for our
Ben Howard music video, and I am very happy with the results and all that I have
learnt along the way.