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

2. Movie Editing Software When creating my music video I used a program on the Mac that is named ‘iMovie’, this allowed me to create a professional looking music video using the easy to use features. It made me able to do effects such as the quick reverse that is at the end of my music video and also other, more subtle things such as changing the colour or light exposure. I also used Powerpoint on the macto create the opening visuals showing the song information at the start. It was quite difficult to do this as iMovie wasn’t responding in the way that I wanted. To overcome this I simply made a black slide with the writing in the bottom corner and saving it as an image which could then be put into the music video.

3. Desktop publishing software To create my digipak I used a program named MSPaint, using this I could make a good looking digipak. With it’s features I could move text around and insert other images such as the barcode or the images themselves from my music video.

4. Canon Digital Video Camera I used the Canon BP-808 whilst filming my music video, this was a more than useful camera as it had more features that I could add whilst filming. However it did not pick up light as well as I feel that it could have done as we noticed during the editing stages some areas in which we could have done with much more light to allow the viewer to become more immersed in the video as poor lighting can slightly lower the viewing pleasure that could be received. Next time I would use more artificial lighting to improve the whole video.

5. Weblog I used the website Blogger to create my blog, this was used as a way to create a diary in which I can keep people updated on what is going on with my music video, digipak and website. This allows me to find a secure place for me to upload information where I won’t lose it. I experienced a couple of problems with this website, one was on occasion a few of my posts would disappear for a number of days the reappear and another was the problem I faced when uploading videos. To overcome this I uploaded all videos to YouTube first and then embedded it into my blog. I also posted any changes or problems that I faced onto this website this made it clear to viewers what was happening at any time.

6. Webdesign When designing my website I used a website named ‘Freewebs’ this allowed me to create a website that can be easily edited with a URL to suit me. My website was called ‘EdSheeranMusic.Webs.com’ and because it hasn’t been used by anyone else I could use it. We originally had some problems when using Serif as it left quite a lot of white space however using one of freewebs’ free themes I could make everything look professional, simple and uncluttered. I made sure to include tabs that linked to pages such as ‘Merchandise’, ‘Tour info’ and ‘News’ as these are the sort of things that would be on an actual artist’s website. I also linked the website with the digipak by advertising it on the homepage, I also uploaded my music video onto the page as well as info about his twitter and facebook. I also made sure that I included original images such as the shoes at the top, this is Ed’s star image motif that I included as it works again as a link between the music video and website. I used MSPAINT to change the colours and to insert the text ‘Ed Sheeran’. There is also a welcome message to the visitors of the website and a members area for users to login.

7. Software used within my blog Within my blog I used various software that is available on the internet, whilst uploading YouTube videos I used the feature available on the YouTube website to embed videos. At other times I used Flickr, a website that allows you to make video slideshows of photos. I also uploaded pictures using the tools available on the Blogger website and tried to use a program named ‘CamStudio’ which records the computer screen like a print screen in video form. This however proved difficult as it moved very slowly and the video came out very jerky. The program I intend to use whilst uploading this PowerPoint is called SlideShare. This will allow me to upload the whole powerpoint document to my blog.

8. Improvements If I were to start again with this project I would look further into the problems that I could face whilst filming such as lighting. This became a problem when we were in the editing stages as lighting during some shots was poor. This could be helped by using artificial lighting. Another problem that we faced was with iMovie, there were some parts where the program wasn’t as user friendly as it could have been, we overcame these however the task could have been better handled using another program.