Evaluation - Question 4

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



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

I used a number of different media technologies in the construction of my products. This ranged from the use of over a dozen software packages and websites, to filming equipment and lighting. Throughout the entire project, I used Blogger to document my work. This included all planning work, research, final products and a diary to keep an account of the work that I had carried out during the week. There both advantages and disadvantages towards using Blogger. One advantage would be its easiness to learn and use. The layout made it simple to create new blog posts efficiently. Another advantage was the fact that it is accessible virtually anywhere, meaning that I was able to upload blog posts during shoots on location with my mobile. However, a disadvantage would be the upgrade. Several months ago, Blogger updated its layout and stopped support for Internet Explorer. This meant that I was unable to view several of my posts until I upgraded to Firefox. During the planning process of my products, I used a DSLR to take images of potential locations in London to film. I chose to use a digital camera as I felt that it had many more benefits than if I were to use a film camera. The ability to instantly playback images that I have taken helped me in deciding whether or not I needed to retake the photo if I wasn’t happy with the lighting. The fact that I was also able to take a much larger amount of images meant that I could go to multiple locations without the need to carry extra film around with me. I used websites that converted my planning documents to PDF format. These websites include Scribd and SlideShare. Some documents that I completed on paper such as sketches and storyboards were scanned into the computer and then uploaded to Blogger. Part of my planning was to create an animatic in order to create a rough guide for my music video. I sketched the animatic and scanned it onto the computer. I then imported these sketches into Sony Vegas Pro 12.0, a video editing software package. There are a huge amount of benefits to modern editing software, compared to the older analogue methods. Using software packages such as Vegas enabled me to edit my video with incredible accuracy, with the ability to zoom in frame by frame, whereas years back people would have had to physically splice the tapes together which required much more skill and time. We are also able to create an infinite number of video and audio layers which makes it much easier and less time consuming to edit clips. I rendered a number of drafts throughout the project in order to show how my products developed. The music video drafts were uploaded to YouTube, a video sharing website. The drafts of my ancillary texts were uploaded directly to Blogger. I used two different graphics editors to create the draft and final versions of my poster and Digipak. These programs were Macromedia Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CS5. I used a number of features on these programs in order to help me create certain features of my products. These features include the magic wand tool, spot healing brush, and the actions tool. For the research stage of my project, I created a number of documents in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, and then converted them using SlideShare and Scribd. I then uploaded them to Blogger. I received feedback several times for my different projects. I felt that the best way of recording this information was through surveys and polls. I used the website SurveyMonkey to send surveys across the internet to peers and teachers to carry out. The information was then sent to me in the form of a chart. I then screen captured this and then uploaded the information to SlideShare. When filming my music video, I used a number of different lighting equipment, including redheads and fill lights. I used the Canon 550D to film my entire music video. I felt that this camera would provide the best results as it handles well in low lighting. I used a 50mm 1.8f prime lens, which gave my music video a more cinematic look. For my Digipak cover, I used the Canon 550D again to take the images and Adobe Photoshop CS3 to piece together the final products. For the poster, I used images from the Digipak photo shoot. I used a number of different websites to publish my work and to receive feedback. These websites include; YouTube, Facebook, Dailymotion, and Twitter. These social media websites are a great way of gathering audience feedback and data. These websites are used by millions of users every day, which provides me with a vast amount of potential feedback. The fact that it is also easily accessible to the audience makes them more open to viewing the products and giving feedback.