Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

New media technologies helped us not only to film the music video but also helped us to formulate our idea of our band and to then follow that up with research. It also helped us create the album cover and website that is linked to our band and the technologies helped ensure that synergy was created across all three platforms.

In our early research and planning stages, one of our tasks was to create a technical presentation explaining how we wanted to approach our music video from a technical point of view. This was ours:




Cameras:

The Sony V1E:

Me using the Sony V1E.

Our music video was shot on this camera. It was easy to handle and had manageable settings that we could manipulate to achieve the look we wanted. For our performance we wanted the "infinite black" look and the quality of the camera helped us to gain that look.













The Canon 5D Mark II:

We used this camera to take the promotional photos of the band for the website and album cover. This was professional camera with different settings we could experiment with to get the right look.








Web 2.0:

In our research and planning stage, we explored YouTube in search for the song that we wanted to use for our music video. It was also used to eventually upload our finished music video.

A piece of qualitative data I found said that in 2012 64% of surveyed teenagers said they preferred to use YouTube to listen to music

To create the band's website, we used a flash based website called Wix. It was easy to use and navigate through and had all the basic components of a website given to us. A challenge we faced was wanting to incorporate more functions into the website but the site did not have them.

To do that we had to use HTML. For example, to put up the band's Twitter feed and to create a mailing list section. This helped us to think of creative solutions around a problem.


Programs:

We used Adobe Photoshop to create our album digipak. We also used it to create the band posters that are shown in the music video narrative.

Adobe Premiere was used to create our music video. The audio track was layed out on a timeline and once the things we filmed were exported, we could drag and drop them into the timeline and place them where we wanted. The program was simple to use and had opportunities to add effects to our clips however, we didn't. This is something I might have changed in hindsight.








Social Media:

In the Research & Planning stage:

In order to plan and research outside school hours but stay connected at the same time we used Facebook to message each other and contribute ideas. We created a group and its purpose was to discuss anything related to our project. As Facebook is easily accessible, we were able to communicate well through and used it as much as possible.

As part of creating the band's image:

On the website & album cover:

To keep our campaign fully integrated interactively, we made sure our website and album had features to emphasise social links. There are links throughout the website to social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook. There is an opportunity for fans to sign up for the official mailing list for The Defiance which will keep them updated on tour dates, competitions, meet and greets, special offers etc. The album has a QR code for fans to explore even further into the band via it.

How new media technologies were used in the evaluation stages:

Our evaluation stage required feedback from audiences and to go about doing that we created surveys on Survey Monkey.

It was simple to design the survey, then a link was provided for us to be able to share the survey out and collect results and finally Survey Monkey provided charts and graphs of the data collected for us to analyse.

For the sharing stage of the surveys, I distributed the link via forms of social media I had in order to get as many respondents as we could.

I sent this message on Facebook to several people who had attended the screening of the music videos that we had had previously.

A post I made on Tumblr.

I also tweeted the link to my Twitter followers.

New media technologies has also helped me to present my evaluation in an interactive manner. 

Click to enlarge

Overall, I believe I exploited new media technologies to a great extent. In the production stage of our music video, I think we possibly could have made use of the technologies even more. For example, we could have added effects to our music video when editing on Adobe Premiere. In the evaluation stage, I used the new media technologies to help display my analysis and research in an interesting manner. Some that I had not even considered and I will definitely be making more us of in the future such as PadLet.