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

Technology in Research Stages

During this phase of our task, the Internet proved incredibly valuable in finding out about our target audience and conventions of the rock genre. Using search engines like Google, we were able to research other music acts that were similar to our proposed band, such as Paramore. Their websites contained a lot of information that we could use for ourselves.

Paramore's webiste

In addition to this, I found it fairly easy to research our primary 13-20 female target audience using social networking sites. Due to the angry, heavy style of music, we decided that Dropouts Fans would probably be a little angsty and rebellious, which meant that I would have to go beyond looking at facebook profiles of friends, as the lack of anonymity means that people don't present an accurate depiction of themselves. A social networking site that proved more helpful was tumblr.com, as it is expected that you will follow people you don't know, based on shared interests. Here, a lot of teenagers share much more personal thoughts as their identities are far more concealed, and therefore I could get a much stronger insight into the thoughts, interests, likes and dislikes of our target group.  

Tumblr Dashboard

When we were looking for inspiration for music tracks and video ideas, the site youtube proved invaluable in supplying video content. The comment section of certain congs also contained some interesting feedback from the marketplace.

Youtube

Technology in Planning Stages

Our Blogger Page

We were set up with a group blog on Blogger.com so that we could have a platform for sharing ideas. This meant we could share research and planning posts between the group without having to meet up in person. We also used a facebook group to share ideas before posting formally on the blog.
Email messaging also proved helpful in contacting media staff who arn't contactable using social networking sites, especially when we were buying our coffin off ebay.

Email Account

Our band and logo designs were drawn onto a Promenthean ActivTablet and then uploaded to the internet, which meant I could use the images to find a matching costume fairly quickly.

Initial Design: Pandora

Initial Designs: Sparks, Vyper and Xen

Technology in Production Stages

 On the shoots, we used a Sony HVR V1E Film Camera to capture our footage. This was helpful as the images come out in high quality and it has a high battery life. The footage was filmed onto tapes which we could store in the media block when we were not using them.

An action shot from the shoot

We used the Seward Studio to film our video, which is a multipurpose arts room. We had the good fortune of having access to a full range of studio lighting, which meant that we could black out the room entirely and set up spotlights on the main action.

Frank's time to shine

The editing programme we used was Adobe Premiere CS5, which is really good for this sort of project, as it is relatively simple to use, but does include a lot of extra features, including colour grading, screen cropping and video transitions (we begin ours with a fade in from black). We could also use different timelines for each 'set-up' which helped us organise and time our shots to the music before we edited them together.

The programme we used: Adobe Premiere CS5

For our official band photoshoot, which produced images for the album and website, we used a Sony DSC H40 digital camera, in addition to three point lighting. The ability to look over photos we had just taken was helpful in improving our shots, and the good lighting minimised the time I had to spend editing the images in Adome Photoshop CS5.1. Photoshop was also the programme we used to design the album.

Before

After

For our website, we used http://www.wix.com/, as it provides a vast range of features for site building, such as active links, galleries, and the ability to embed videos, photos and twitter feeds (follow us at @thedropoutsuk !). The site allowed us to make a detailed band website, as seen at www.wix.com/latymermusicvideo118/thedropouts

Technology in Evaluation Stages

Posts were put up on the school's Intranet System to advertise the music video audience screenings, which occured in the Seward Studio, which this time was set up as a cinema.

Our Intranet System, which contains a news feed

 Using an overhead projector, we screened the video onto white canvass. After this, we uploaded our video to youtube, and from there shared it across facebook, twitter and tumblr to collect feedback.
 

Recent tweets from the Dropouts @thedropoutsuk on twitter. If you look further down the timeline, you spot Pandora arguing with @burningcarrecords, and @thedropoutsxen having a bass-off with the XYZs.

Goin' Down on Youtube