How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation st

During the planning and construction, research and evaluation stages of my media coursework I used a variety of different media technologies that would be of benefit to me in order to help make my blog presentation look as authentic as possible. By using different media technologies, when possible, is helpful because it shows that you have a variety of methods at your disposal rather than using the same technology repeatedly. For example, when our group (for our music video task) asked for our target audience to give us detailed feedback on our final product, we had asked them to do so using both well-known social networking sites youtube.com and facebook.com. This in turn, would ensure that our feedback would not be exposed on one predominant site. Despite this proposition, I believed that it is beneficial, to use the same media device throughout different stages of our coursework when possible, to avoid the stress of wasting time deliberating on an alternative medium.

Below are the various media devices I used during the planning and construction, evaluation and research stages of my coursework:

Facebook is a major social-networking service and website. It enabled us to ask our friends via the site (since they were also our target audience for our music video) to give us honest and detailed feedback on our final product. The advantage of facebook is that it is free and easily accessible and you do not have to go through so many complicated phases when posting a comment, or in sharing my group's media product. In addition to this, many of our friends on facebook would be exposed to our music video and as it relates to them, they would watch our video and further spread the product to other people that are of a similar age.

Youtube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share and view videos. The company uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display various user-generated video content, including movie clips, music videos and TV clips, as well as amateur content such as video-blogging and short original videos. Most of the products on Youtube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations such as Vevo, BBC and IPL, as well as other organizations offer some of their material via the site, to gain maximum viewers exposure. Youtube benefited my group and I alot because it enabled us to upload the final version of our video onto the website. As with Facebook, and the other new methods of technology we used throughout the different phases of our coursework, Youtube is free and easily accessible. In addition to these advantages, it is also simple to use with basic instructions, and you also greatly benefit from having a Youtube account because you can upload an unlimited amount of videos. As our music video is targeted towards a younger target audience, we also asked our friends (who meet our target audience criteria), if they can comment on our video via the site, and give us their approval ratings too (another helpful tool that Youtube possess). Youtube also gave me the license to research music videos that were made by popular indie groups, similar to that of our own band. This in turn would help me gain a better understanding of what our group needed to include to make our final product as authentic and professional as possible.

Slideshare was another new media device that I used to help allow my media presentation skills to flourish, albeit, primarily on my Planning and Construction blog. Slideshare is an online slide hosting service, similar to that of Photobucket. Users can upload files but only in certain formats, including Microsoft Powerpoint and Portable Document Format among others. I solely uploaded my files on a Microsoft Powerpoint format. If it was not for the creation of Slideshare it would have been impossible to convert my Powerpoint file onto Blogger. In fact, the site was originally meant to be used for businesses to share slides among employees more easily. So it was even more helpful and profitable, because since then, the company has expanded to also become a host of a large number of slides which are uploaded merely to entertain.

As much as Sildeshare is similar to Photobucket, as they are both online slide hosting services, the latter is anything but the former, because Photobucket is much more convenient and developed. Photobucket is an image hosting, video hosting, slideshow creation and photo sharing website. However, the website is usually used for personal photographic albums and storage of videos. I used Photobucket to upload photos of our band performing and for our digipak task during the Planning and Construction phase of my coursework. The main advantage of this service is that it makes your photo album look very well presented, rather than uploading your pictures from your digital camera and directly onto Blogger.com, which makes that particular work bland.

Print Screen is a key present on most PC keyboards. During the research phase of my coursework, this device proved to be a major contributor towards trying to maximise the best potential grade I could possibly attain. I used the key spontaneously whilst I was researching different 'indie' music videos to capture a variety of shots that portray certain meanings. In Microsoft Windows, pressing print screen will capture the entire screen. The captured image can then be pasted into an aditing program such as a word processor, email or graphics software, but in my case I pasted the captured image via word processor and then into my research blog. In general, print screen is simple to use, although on the Apple Mac, the process of print screening is more complicated.

DaFont is an archive of freely downloadable fonts. The fonts are categorized by theme, and can also be sorted by name, date and popularity. DaFont was useful to me when we were looking for the most convenient font for the title of my group's digipack front cover and our magazine advertisement.

I used a digital camera (digicam) throughout the Planning and Construction stage of my media coursework. All the photographs taken of the music video and the characters for the music video were all a result of the camera above. The advantages of the camera is that you can upload it onto the computer and store it on various websites, such as Facebook, Youtube, Photobucket and Blogger, via a USB. All websites were the recipient of the digicam.

What have your learned from your audience feedback?

Magazine Advertisement Feedback

In general, the critical reception we received from our target audience on our magazine advertisement was positive. Many thought that our advert looked very authentic and professional. They admired the angle of shot, and many thought that it suggested that the band had a serious aim, judging by the facial expressions of each and every member of the group. In addition to this, one particular individual thought that the font and colour of the title connotes that the band are portrayed as 'very cool' and would almost certainly attract a large young target audience. Despite the positive feedbacks, a small majority did voice concerns, ironically on the same point. This pessimism was brought about because they were dissatisfied with the colours we used for the magazine advertisement. For example, one individual felt that our advert would have been nicer if we could either incorporate more of a contrast with the colours or maybe try a black and white version. Despite the minor signs of discontent, we were really pleased with our magazine advertisement and the feedback to go with our hard work. If there was anything I would change, or what might go against me, it would be the fact that the feedback comments I received came solely from males, and if I had asked females to give me their thoughts on our advert, the feedback may not have been so one-sided.

Music Video Feedback

As with the magazine advertisement, most of our target audience were extremely pleased with the quality of our music video. Many complimented us on how authentic the video looked, and this was in part due to the fact that each member of the band were actually professional players of the instrument they were assigned with, respectively. So in that aspect, that helped our music video to flourish. Most of our audience were pleased with the amount of different shots taken, although a few believed we should have switched the locations throughout the music video on a more consistent basis. Ironically, one unique factor behind our successful music video was that the performance element was filmed on the school roof, this garnered critical acclaim from vast age groups. Other people felt that we could have included more narrative shots rather than mostly performance shots, but as a group we had spotted this potential problem long before we received these comments. The reason why we could not include as much narrative shots in our music video as we would have liked was because we was only given a limited amount of time to film the narrative element of our product, so we needed to maximise the time we had available.

Digipak Feedback

The audience feedback we received from all covers of our digipak were generally very promising. Most of the people that commented on the digipak via Facebook firmly believed that they all looked very professional and a few individuals had mistaken the product for an actual album cover. Out of the four covers, it was the inside left that caught many of our target audience by the eye. They commended us for the way in which we portrayed the band, which was as 'cool', ordinary teenagers relaxing in a local park. The positioning of James, the drummer was the best example, as it shows him sitting on a rail, using Anthony, the lead singer, as a marshal to maintain James' balance.