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

Throughout the course of the planning, research, production and evaluation of the media product and ancillary texts, variety of both software and hardware were used in order to create the products themselves. Below are tables presenting the range used.

The research entailed using nearly all of the software listed in the 'Social Networking' and 'Websites' rows as it was important to collate sufficient research. A large part of this was taken from YouTube in order to gather information concerning the stereotypes and conventions of Indie music videos.

Social networking was used particularly to post the questionnaire links from SurveyMonkey.com to gather general feedback. It was also used in the production stages in terms of auduience feedback of thoughts and opinions once the media products had been viewed.

Computer programmes were essential in all four stages of the media product as they were the basis in which all of our work was created. For example, the research and planning were written and stored on a Microsoft Word programme, the production and editing of the video was undertaken through Final Cut Pro on an iMac, and Microsoft Word and Paint were used in the evaluation processes in order to display the work accomplished.

The use of internet services was hugely realised when we were unable to access any online sites; whilst this is seldom seen as a problem, when the internet connection is lost, it interferes with pace of work, rendering it inconvenient and costly in time. On the other hand however, the sheer ease of using computer technology allowed for a much more rapid completion of task; it would have been almost impossible to collect any audience research without it.

The hardware used was the equipment that literally created the video; a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) Canon 600D Camera has a High Definition quality video filming, captured both stills and videos of the music video, pre-edit. The use of the tripod was of high importancy in order to film a good quality, smooth frame; it would show extreme poor workmanship had we simply held the camera in our hands.

A Memory Card was used in order to carry and store the frames shot and its contents were then transferred over to a MacBook Pro Laptop ensuing the use of software programme Final Cut Pro to edit and arrange the mixture of image and video film. The construction of the media product would have been made an increasing amount more difficult had we been made to use the older video cameras provided by College- filming would have had to have been sequential and the use of stills from the videos would have been impossible to create. The use of a better quality camera aided the production intensely; it equipped the video with an air of professionalism, similar to pre- existing music videos.



Evaluation Question Three: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The initial research into the media product began with audience research into the Indie music culture, something which would prove to be a large basis over which our media product would be grounded, along with the research collated from the real music videos and Indie bands.

 From the online questionnaire SurveyMonkey.com it was found that Bloc Party, Klaxons and Foals were listened to the most by our audience, with an average age range of 17- 22, and 77.4% as students.

The questions used both qualitative and quantitive data, as well as being both open and closed questions. This was purposefully directed as it was important to collect responses that covered both numerical, statistical and written answers.

Social networking programmes provided a platform in which the online questionnaire links were posted; Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube each differ slightly in terms of demographic and therefore gave a more biased span of age range, gender, and music tastes to post to.

 Choosing a Foals' song as the base of our media product was directly taken from the audience responses; it was felt that they were a "typically stereotyped" Indie band which gave the group a lot to work with. A question asked within the questionnaire were hobbies participated by those who answered; common themes were photography, art and playing or listening to music, something that aided to influence the style of music video we produced. This in particular references to the use of stop motion within the video, as well as motion filming. We found that seldom Indie bands currently use this form of editing and production within their music videos, and therefore wanted to challenge their stereotypes and conventions, to push the boundaries and to create soemthing that was visually exciting and slightly different to the norm.

A second survey was created after the production of the music video, and posted onto the same networking platforms in order to capture the similar audiences. This questionnaire was to collect responses, thoughts and opinions on how the music video was received; which parts were better or worse, whether it fit the Indie style and if there were any further comments- in reference to constructive criticism. Although it must be said that audience research can be unreliable and insufficient, over 30 results came back from each of the different platforms and consequently showed an evenly spread "reliability" in terms of the range of answers.

The above survey response is an example of the types of questions we asked and the answers possible. It highlights that whilst it wasn't thought of as much in concerns to following of the Indie trend, it was definite that it kept the viewer interested (60.2%) and made the video quirky and fun to watch. Whilst we pushed the conventions of typical Indie music videos, it has been learnt from the audience research that the video was well received; it kept an interest whilst containing elements of the genre and pushing its boundaries.