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

During the construction of my digipak and magazine cover, and our music video, I used various different technologies. For my digipack and magazine advert, I only required still images and so used a DSLR camera.


This camera was really useful as it allowed my to take high quality images meaning they weren't blurry or distorted at all. Due to the amount of lighting, I didn't need to alter the shutter speed. However if the amount of lighting was too high or low, then due to the large range of shutter speeds on this camera, it wouldnt really have been a problem.

I then used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit the images. This was a very useful program as it has many different tools, functions and ways you can edit an image. Therefore, I wasn't held back at all by the technology. In photoshop I used the contrast and brightness function to make the images generally less dull looking. However those were fairly menial edits. The main edit that I did on my front and back covers of my digipack and also magazine advert, was to create a blurred effect in the foreground and background leaving just the middle part in focus. To do this I first changed the setting to quick mask mode using the small button at the bottom of the tool box, then I selected the gradient tool and made sure it was set to reflected gradient. Then by dragging, i could choose which area I wanted on the image to be in focus. Once I had chosen, I then again used the button at the bottom of the tool box to change it back to edit in standard mode. I went to filter, Blur and then lens blur and fiddled with the various settings until I got the right amount of blur etc. that I wanted.

The video camera we used was a Panasonic HD DV camera. As this camera used an SD card and not film, we were easily able film shot after shot and then to put them on the computer. This camera was very easy to use and we were able to achieve everything we wanted to as, even though our knowledge of the camera was lacking, we only needed fairly simple shots. Therefore, this camera was very useful and we didn't feel it hindered our creativity or ideas at all.

Once we had filmed and uploaded the clips onto a computer, we  imported them , along with the mp3 file of our song, into Adobe Premiere Pro.  Here we were able to pull the clips onto a timeline, match them up with the song, and cut them down or even slow them down or speed them up. Overall, this program was fairly useful in terms of being able to put the video together. However, due to the lack of complexity in this program, or more likely, our lack of knowledge of this technology, we felt we were somewhat limited to what we wanted to do or achieve. That also means that it limited our creativity was also limited because we had to settle for less ambitious ideas in terms of the editing and general look of the video.

With our finished video, we were able to upload it to youtube. This allowed us to be able to our video onto Facebook, Blogger and Prezi which meant it was a very useful tool. It also allowed us to get possible feedback in the form of comments on the video. It was also useful in the research stage as I was able to watch other music videos by various artists.

When it came to the audience feedback, Facebook was a big help. We were able to create a group where everyone in that group could comment and give feedback on our music video, and even out digipacks and magazine adverts. Without this, it would have been much harder to get much feedback as on Facebook the feedback can be given anytime and whenever the people giving the feedback are free which made it much easier. This is a definite example of a media 2.0 technology because we were able to interact with our audience by asking them questions about our video and also respond to their feedback. We were also able to interact with the artist of our song through Facebook.

Prezi was very useful when it came to making things like the mood board for our song, or presenting our idea to a group. This is because of the various features it has that makes these kinds of thing much more interesting to look at.

With Blogger, I was able to update my blog, during the planning and research stage, with various post that ensured that I kept up to date on work. When it came to doing the filming, Blogger became very useful as I was able to look back at my previous work from the research stage, so i could be reminded of the various shot types etc that were in videos of a similar genre.

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To gain audience feedback, we created a focus group on Facebook. This example of a media 2.0 technology allowed us to bring together a group of people online, so that we could post either work from the print stage or music video and we could get feedback any time and also interact with our audience. Here are some examples of the audience feedback we received on Facebook:
























From these comments I think its obvious that we need to develop our narrative a lot more in order to make sure that the audience actually know what is happening. Even though not all music videos have to have a complete and obvious story, or even a narrative at all, I think because our song wasn't very entropic at all, we needed to give an obvious message.
The direct effect on our audience was what we expected really, as they felt entertained and that's what we intended the effect to be and we didn't was them to feel educated or inspired for example.
When looking at the Cultural Studies Approach to the audiences reading of our text, its fair to say that they took a negotiated reading as they recognise the values given by the video as legitimate and accept them in general. However, because they didnt fully understand it at all times, they had to adapt their reading of the text to fit in with their experiences and interests.
I think because of the simplicity of the narrative, the sort of cultural capital they would need to understand this text would be one you would get from watching anything with an ordinary narrative in and they would require a vast amount of intelligence to be able to understand the video.

The uses and gratifications approach would say that our audience was an active audience meaning they actively choose what they watch. It also says that they use this media to gratify a particular need or want. In this case, I think our video is purely for entertainment as opposed to surveillance or education for example.

One person who gave us feedback said that' to improve you should have perhaps spent less time on your guitarists and more time developing a storyline for the character in the narrative. Perhaps introduced a 4th character to interact with him?'

If I were to go on to alter my work, i think the main area i would concentrate on would be the narrative in our music video. This is because, in most of our feedback, it was said that the narrative was not really understood or there wasnt enough of a story or even enough shots of the narrative. It was also said, by a couple of people who gave feedback, that they didnt actually understand what was going on at all. Therefore i would like to develop the narrative much more making it much more interesting and hence, the whole thing much easier to understand .

Something else that I might do, would be to remove certain shots that the audience thought didn't particularly work. Also I think I would add a larger variety of shots so that there is less repetition.

Question 2

Question 2 on Prezi

Question 1

Question 1 on Prezi