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

New media technologies are an integral part of any contemporary video production, and as such have played a large part in the production of our music video. In the research stage of our video, media technologies mostly came into play in the form of being able to see real music videos online on YouTube.com. This made it very easy to research forms and conventions, as almost all music videos that have been made are available on that site. Also this site was sued to research new filming techniques in music videos, such as the video produced by Doritos for Professor Green's video 'Coming to Get Me' which features a 360 degree camera which can be rotated by the viewer. The internet was integral in our research in other areas as well, such as looking up Photoshop techniques to apply to our album cover, finding website builders to aid in the construction of our website for the band, and for finding out as much about videos we found influential and their directors. In short, the internet was an incredibly comprehensive tool for all aspects of our research.

In terms of planning, new media technologies were less useful. Our planning was mostly done via storyboarding on paper, however knowing we were going to be using iMovie to edit the video, it did help that we were able to see what effects we would be able to use it to apply, which did help in panning the video.

As iMovie was used for the editing of our video, it was this technology that helped in the construction phase of our music video. The editing techniques that were available, such as cutting to the beat and changing effects such as contrast and colour shift throughout shots greatly helped in the construction of our video. The effects were used to break long shots up and stop them from being monotonous. Technologies such as Photoshop and www.wix.com were also integral for creating our ancillary tasks, as they allow for great creativity whilst helping you to create a professional appearance.

In the evaluation stage, new media technologies we used were in the form of social networking sites such as Facebook. This site allowed us to easily get audience feedback, as we could post the video onto the homepage of contacts we know. This made it very easy for people to both find the video and to leave their feedback. This was a much better way of getting feedback than simply uploading the video onto youtube, as on youtube the audience is a lot bigger, but there are a lot more videos for people to watch, so ours was not likely to be seen by many people, especially as the video we created was for a local band, limiting the size of the audience searching for their music.