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

For this question we have also chosen to produce a video response which shows all of the technology that we used. New technology has been extremely important during this project, from the camera to the world-wide-web, and has allowed us to research, plan, organise and produce our 3 media products - music video / website / and album art [digipack].

CAMERA:

• We shot our music video in Full 1080p HD - allowing for much greater quality than any of our previous projects which were shot in SD [480p].
• We managed to convincingly pretend that our video was shot with a 21:9 wide-angled lense, by cropping 13% off of the top and bottom of our video which wsa originally in just 16:9 widescreen. Of course we didn't shoot in 16:9 and then just blindly cut off the top and bottom - we used a humble roll of tape to conceal the parts of the video that would be cropped on our camera's digital display. 

ADOBE CS3 EDITING SOFTWARE:

• Photoshop enabled us to enhance all our photos incredibly. We could edit, colour correct, and adjust brightness and contrast to make our pictures look professional. 
• Did you know: The image on the front cover of our album is actually not just a photograph - it is composed of an individual shot of each band member 'photoshopped' together!
• Premiere Pro was vital in the construction of our video as digital editing software allowed us to cut and place clips wherever we wanted in just a touch of a buttton. As this year's project was a music video we ended up having far more video tracks than last years film project as there was so much footage for the same section of the song, however, we did not have to worry at all about editing multiple tracks of audio during our music video. We did use a lot of audio editing however in our other videos such as the 'Official Premiere' video.
• Did you know: Nsync's version of 'Just got Paid' is actually 4:20 long. Using Premiere Pro, we were able to seemlessly edit the songs duration to around 3:40!

STUDIO LIGHTING:

• We were lucky enough during this project to get to use our school's new 'Seward Studio' which is packed full of [mostly uneccessary and indulgent] technology.
• Did you know: There is over 100 miles of cable running through the ceiling and walls of the Seward Studio!
• The floor lights we used were key to our music video and became one of the videos greatest features.
• The haze machine we hired was also very effective in scattering the beams of light through to the camera which made the band more prominent.
• Did you know: During the filming of our music video, our excessive use of the haze machine caused the fire-alarm to go off throughout the school. During subsequent shoots we turned off the smoke detectors in the studio!
• We also used a three-point studio lighting set when on location in the photographic studio, this was extremely helpful in lighting our shots - something which could have been improved last year when we did our film project as we did not have these lights.

THE INTERNET:

• Blogger, youtube, and facebook they have been a great asset during construction, research, planning and evaluation of the project. 
• Facebook and youtube have allowed us to reach a wide audience with our video. It gives a platform to view our media product to young people which is easy, free and accessable.We were able to create a facebook 'event' to tell everybody about the screening, and we could invite all our friends. 
• Did you know: Our music video received just under 1,300 views in just the first 6 days of its release onto youtube!
• Of course, we can't talk about the internet and not mention 'google' - an invaluble search engine for research and referencing, enabling us to find all we needed to know about music videos.