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

New media technologies have been essential to completing this project successfully. First of all the creation of this blog means that I can easily post a range of different media such as photos and videos to aid my research and planning.

When we were researching fans of The Coral and what people thought of their music, we found Facebook useful to quickly contact a wide range of people. YouTube was also extremely useful as The Coral have an official channel with their music videos available to watch and analyze. I find Google easiest to use of all search engines, and allowed us to research what we needed quickly and efficiently without getting lost in the enormous amount of information available on the internet. Google images was also helpful in finding photos of The Coral and other bands to get an idea of the image they create.

During the planning process, Google Street View was particularly useful in allowing us to find the right locations for our video and digipak. This feature is only about 3 years old so we were very fortunate to be able to go on a 'virtual' recce to possible filming locations without leaving college, especially as we were on a tight schedule and would have had trouble going to have a look at the locations before the shooting dates. It also meant we could grab screen shots from Street View to post on our blogs.

Our initial plans for the video and digipak were hand drawn on paper. Since this coursework is entirely electronic we used scanning equipment to access our plans on the computer, and then send the files to each other. Our group members emailed each other a lot throughout the project to share information and files such as Word documents, for shooting schedules and scripts.

Also on the shooting schedule were our mobile numbers, so that we could contact each other during the shooting days. Fortunately none of our group members encountered any problems meeting up so we rarely used phones, but the knowledge that mobile technology meant we could easily contact each other if we were in trouble was reassuring. Obviously for the actual shooting we used a video camera, and we also had a digital camera for the digipak photos. The use of a tripod meant that we could film with the camera in smooth and steady movements, and was particularly useful for keeping the camera still when filming and avoiding wobbly, unprofessional looking shots, which will have made a big difference to how the video looks overall.

In post production we used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to create the digipak and advert. The program's technique of placing each element of the picture on a new layer meant we could easily edit the product if there were things we wanted to change while keeping other parts the same. For the video we used Adobe Premier Pro CS3 which is also easy to use, with the simple drag-and-drop technique on the video time line meaning we could finish the video in good time of our deadline.

Once the video was finished, we found use for YouTube again as we could post the video on there where the public could watch and comment on it. YouTube is only 5 years old but in this short space of time it has gained millions of users from many different backgrounds, and we hoped to use this to our advantage and get some real Coral fans to see what they thought of our video. We also used the Survey Monkey website to create our own feedback survey for free. Furthermore we raised awareness for our video on Facebook, again sending a message out to a large group of people with a link to the video on YouTube. Recently social networking sites are working more and more to connect and share information with each other easily. All of these ways we have tried to get feedback have been linked together - for example the Survey Monkey web address is posted on our YouTube video and Facebook message.

All of these new technologies have meant we could find information (and share it) extremely quickly and efficiently, meaning we have managed to create a promotional package from scratch and then make it available to the world all within 3 months.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The audience feedback we have collected can be seen in this earlier post.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When producing the music video, digipak and magazine advert, the idea was that together they would create a promotional package for the Coral album we were supposed to be advertising, and by linking the 3 products together they aid each other in raising awareness for the album.

In our AS year of Media Studies we learned about synergy, where a product is promoted across different media platforms, such as a film being developed into a video game to coincide with its release. We have used synergy by promoting the Coral's album on video and print.

We have connected the digipak to the advert by using the same image of the bear in both. The bear acts as a motif throughout the products and can be something that the audience finds familiar and immediately connects to the album. The bear is also used in other Coral videos that we looked at, which is where we originally got the idea from, and means that our products can be linked to real products of The Coral, helping our video to appear more professional. The use of the bear in our products and the other Coral videos is we think to help create the surreal concept that The Coral goes for in their products. We continue to use this concept on our digipak, particularly when the album cover shows the actor playing the bear with the costume head taken off, showing them out of character and showing the bear as more of an illusion throughout the other products.

Another theme we use throughout our products is the main character in the video as a typical indie music fan. The character's bedroom can be seen at the beginning of the video and as an image on the digipak, and the mise-en-scene shows how we have tried to make this the stereotypical bedroom of our target audience.

Overall the 3 products give a bright and lively vibe that ties in with the main character's care free life and other Coral products.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation

Now that we have completed our product, the last part of the coursework is to evaluate how we carried out the project and what we have learned as a result. The 4 questions for the evaluation are:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
• What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Audience Feedback

Here are the YouTube comments we have received so far on our video:

And here are the answers we received from our feedback survey on Survey Monkey:

What rating out of 10 would you give our video?

What was your favourite part of the video?



How would you suggest we improve our video?


Any other comments?

Our Video

Here is our completed video, which we have uploaded on to YouTube.

We have also set up a survey for people to leave feedback on the video:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BY8PJLR