"How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of your project?"
The use of the web 2.0 provided a huge advantage for most aspects of our project. For example, throughout the research stages we were able to access thousands of music videos, album covers and websites to give us inspiration for our work. If access to the internet wasn't available, then our research would've taken much, much longer. We would've only been able to analyse CD covers by going into shops or buying them, and music videos would only have been able to be viewed by waiting for them to come on to music channels on the television or again by buying CDs with them on. So not only did the internet save us a lot of time, it also saved us money! It was also very easy to do so as we could use search engines on websites like Google and Yahoo to find websites, and then search engines on individual sites to find particular things. For example, when I used Katy Perry's website to find out information about target audience, I was able to search through the website to find certain forums where I'd be able to gain the information. The internet allows you to reach huge audiences, which enables you to find out diverse, valid results very quickly.
Music websites like Spotify and Last.fm were also very useful as they can recommend artists similar to who you are listening to, so when I wanted to look at music videos by artists similar to Katy Perry, I was able to enter Katy Perry on to Last.fm and was linked to pages of similar artists. This allowed us to find out about codes and conventions of pop music videos very easily, and meant that we could see what shots & mis en scene we should use. This is a very good example of web 2.0 as it shows the interaction between audience and the internet. For example, the way that these music sites recommend similar music to what you are looking for is by saying what other people who listen to the same thing also listen to. So if I was looking for artists similar to Katy Perry, and somebody else had listened to Katy Perry but also listened to RIhanna, this information would be on the website and would show the most popular similarities. Another website like this is Ping which is linked to user's iTunes account allows people to rate and comment on songs with their opinions. In my next evaluation blog entry, I am going to embed a slideshow of shots in our video compared to real media texts which is like a storyboard.
We used iMovie to upload our footage and edit our final video. Although I'd used the programme for my AS project, I still didn't know much about it and it was very different making a music video on it than making the opening scene to a film! We would've been able to create a better quality video if we had the time, as we would've been able to use Final Cut Express, another video editing programme. We used iMovie to sync together the shots we'd taken in different locations to fit it to the song. This was useful because it meant if we wanted to change something we could do it easily as it was all in different sections. For example, we were able to add a performance shot to our storyboard but then if we thought it didn't work well we could delete it and replace it with something else. We were also able to edit sections of our footage to fit the music and sync up the lyrics when it was on the storyboard which made the software quite straightforward. I found iMovie relatively easy to use as we got used to it, but was quite confused at first! But the help section of the programme gave us information to work out the best and easiest ways to produce our work.
When we were producing our ancillary tasks, most of the class used Photoshop to create high quality images. However, I found this programme particularly hard and struggled finding ways to use it and therefore had to use Paint Shop Pro 8 as I had a better understanding of it. This was quite a disadvantage as not only was the programme I used quite an old version, I feel that it didn't produce as high quality work as Photoshop does. Paint Shop Pro still enabled me to produce my ancillary task to quite a good standard though, and also provided help when I needed it. For example, when adding text to certain areas, sometimes I had to change the layer style but I was given warning messages when I had to do so which I found very useful. I was also able to find PSP tutorials all over the web which gave written and visual guides, which is another very useful aspect of the internet.
As mentioned in my previous post, the internet provided a huge advantage for our audience feedback, as were able to post our video on YouTube which is used by a huge amount of people and onto Facebook where we could get direct feedback. Without the internet, audience feedback would've taken much more time and effort. Sites like surveymonkey.com allow you to create questionnaires online, and share them with friends and followers on multiple social networking sites. I was going to use this, but as we'd already created a questionnaire for feedback, I thought it'd be a bit pointless. However, it is another example about how easy the internet can generate fast results, and if I was to complete this project it's something I'd definitely use.
When I have had to complete projects in the past, I've normally had to display them in a Word document, PowerPoint document or sometimes by hand. The use of blogs such as blogger.com and tumblr.com allow you to display your whole project in a small but organised place where you can access from just about anywhere. My blog has enabled me to use direct links to other websites I have used, and even show pictures and videos. Another useful aspect of this is that you can include PowerPoint presentations in a very tidy way by using sites like scribd.com and slideshare.net as they let you upload presentations just by using one window.
Overall, I'd say that the internet has had a massive impact on my project, as it's easy to use, doesn't cost very much and has access to millions of different pages and information. The use of programmes like iMovie and Paint Shop Pro helped me produce my work aswell, but I found them a lot more difficult to use! Although, I think that if I was to use the same programmes in future then I'd be a lot more comfortable with using them.
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