Evaluation Pt4:

4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stage?

During our research and planning, we used search engines such as ‘Google’ to find out about local bands in Bristol. Social networking sites such as; ‘Facebook’, ‘MySpace’ and ‘YouTube’ proved to be extremely useful. We used these websites for initial research on our band, ‘The Hit-ups’. The band use ‘Facebook ‘and ‘MySpace’ to promote their music, they have a huge following on both sites. We even contacted their band through the information they left on their blog. I think the use of social networking sites is really crucial as it’s free advertising world-wide. They can showcase their music and really get it out there. We picked our song from the band, by looking at the music player on their MySpace page. We had strong communication with the band via the internet (hotmail) and our phones. Technology allows us to keep in touch with those who are far away, for example – I was emailing Charlie (the guitarist), frequently whilst he was in Southampton studying. Even though he was miles away, we were able to secure a meeting back in Bristol. When we met up with the band, we interviewed them using a camera phone – the picture quality was fine, it shows how much technology has evolved in the last few years that substantial software has been imported on everyday things like a mobile phone. We uploaded the video of the interview onto ‘Youtube’, so we could share it on our blogs. Of course our own blogs have allowed us to virtually ‘follow’ each other, just like social networking sites like twitter. The construction of our filming was carefully planned out. On the first day of our filming, we came fully equipped with tripods and camcorders. We placed one camcorder on a table, for various high-angle shots. We used ‘night vision mode’ on our camcorders because the lighting was poor inside of ‘the croft’ – however, this contributed to an underground, edgy effect. The analysis of music videos, has allowed us to delve into the world of HTML and coding. It’s quite easy to use once you get your head around it. Software on MACs such as ‘Photoshop’ encouraged us to find ways in how we could make our images better, whether it was brightening the picture of increasing the contrast, there was always something to fix. Imovie was easy to use and efficient – the effects we used in our video such as sound effects like birds tweeting and hearts pounding, added a more realistic element to our music video, a setting and tension too.