Evaluation Part 4

Evaluation Part 4

How have you used new media technologies in your construction, research, planning, and evaluation

stages?

In this presentation I am going to be reviewing how I have used various new

media technologies throughout the research, planning, production, and evaluation

processes of my coursework. For each technology, I will explain how it was used,

whether it was beneficial to me, what skills I have learnt by using it, and what the impact

was on the final productions.

ComputersComputers were used throughout the various processes as they allowed me to create the content required. The three products were all digital media products, which can only be created using computers. The computers were also used for research purposes as we could easily access information on the internet.

The computer was very beneficial to me, as without it, I would not have been able to create digital media products, and my research and planning would have taken much longer. It has for this reason, impacted greatly upon my productions, as they would not exist if not for the computer.

The skills that I have learnt while using computers have mostly been on the software I used, which I will analyse later in the presentation.

The InternetThe internet was used heavily throughout the research process, and also used to present my work and evaluation. Search engines like Google helped me to research all of the topics that I needed to in order to understand new media products. Other websites, including YouTube, Blogger, and FreeplayMusic were also used throughout the four processes, and will be explained later in the presentation.

The internet was extremely beneficial to me as it gave me access to information and other media products that I needed to research. It also gave me a virtual area to present my work, which can then be seen anywhere by anyone. The internet has made my work possible and much easier to create.

I have learnt research skills, and skills with various websites that I have used.

Texting & EmailTexts and emails were used to organise film sessions with actors for the filming process. Both technologies allowed me to talk to my actors without having to meet them, and also gave them a method of contacting me in the case that they couldn’t make it to the film sessions. I used these processes to give the actors dates, costume requirements, and information on their role.

Texting and emailing was very helpful as it saved a lot of time and hassle in organising actors and film sessions. Without them, the filming process may have taken much longer.

BloggerBlogger is a free blog creation and hosting website that I used to present my work. I created posts for each topic of the four processes, and embedded images and videos, including my final productions. I also sent out the URL of my blog to some peers, so they could provide feedback on my creations.

Blogger was helpful for presenting my work. It is a very easy to use website with lots of functionality. It can also be viewed by anyone, from anywhere which was useful for audience feedback. Although I could have used another blog website, Blogger was chosen because of it’s accessibility and popularity.

I have learnt how to use the website well, and tried to present my work in a creative way, which has got better with more practise with the website.

YouTubeYouTube is a website where people can upload their videos for free. I used this website to upload my final teaser trailer, and also, part two of my evaluation. YouTube is very easy to use, and can be easily embedded into a Blogger post. This was the reason why I used it to host my videos.

YouTube was beneficial to me as it gave me somewhere to upload and host my trailer and evaluation pt.2 for free. I was able to send out the link to my trailer to peers for feedback, and able to embed the video into my blog.

From using YouTube, I have learnt how to upload videos, which is something I haven’t done before.

Microsoft WordMicrosoft Word was used for many parts of my research and planning processes. It is a very simple program used for writing text documents. It can also be used to create tables, which is what I mostly used it for. The reason I didn’t use it to type up all of my work is because Blogger already has a post creator with all the functionality that I needed apart from table design.

Tables like my Shot List and Actor Call Sheet were created using Word so it was useful in my planning processes. I could have used other programs like excel to create tables, but they tend to take more time.

I already knew how to use Word, so I haven’t learnt any new skills during the course of using it.

Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Excel was used to create graphs and tables that I could not create in word. It is a spreadsheet program that also has a table design function to create different types of table easily. I used Excel to create my pie charts from my audience questionnaire feedback. The graphs look great and are easy to interpret.

Excel didn’t have much of an impact on my overall productions as it only was used to create the audience questionnaire feedback graphs. However I wouldn’t have known what else to use to create these graphs so it was still useful and had a small impact on my work.

I also didn’t learn anything new while using Excel as I already know how to use it.

Digital/Film Cameras

I used two cameras to film my productions and take pictures for my magazine cover and poster. My filming camera was a small digital camera. It had a good quality image, and was portable and easy to use. The camera used to take the pictures was a larger camera with a better quality image but no video functionality. The cameras were used, along with a tripod, to film and photograph some great quality footage for my productions.

The cameras have impacted greatly upon my productions as without the use of them, I would have no footage for my teaser trailer and no images for my poster or magazine cover.

I have learnt many skills while using these cameras. These skills are mainly filming skills but also skills with the individual cameras, meaning that I can now be more creative when taking videos or pictures as I know what the cameras can do.

Adobe Photoshop CS5Photoshop was used to create my poster and magazine cover. It is a program that takes a while to get used to, but can be used to create amazing products. The text on my magazine cover and poster was all created in photoshop with the default fonts and plug-ins. I also used photoshop to edit my images, by making the colours look better, and removing any unwanted marks or objects.

Photoshop was beneficial in creating my products as it gave me a way to create advanced, professional looking, attractive creations. If I had used a different program, like paint, my products would have looked boring or unprofessional.

Although I already had basic knowledge of how to use photoshop, I have learnt many more skills while creating my poster and magazine cover, like how to remove marks and correct colours. I can now be much more creative when using photoshop.

Adobe Premiere CS5

Premiere is a video editing software used to edit footage for videos. I used it to transform my raw footage into my final trailer. To do this, I imported all of my footage into the program and then started to edit the clips together and cut them down to the right length. After I had edited the raw footage, I added transitions, and titles, which are created within the program. I also imported music and edited it with Premiere.

Premiere was very helpful for creating my trailer as it is quite a simple editing program yet can still be used to create professional looking, great videos. I could have used other video editing programs like Sony Vegas or Final Cut, but they were not available and are more advanced and harder to learn.

I had no knowledge of Premiere before creating my trailer so everything I did was a new skill that I learnt. I can now edit footage and create good products, so have become much more creative.

Music Downloads

The music used for my trailer was downloaded from a website called FreePlayMusic. I was able to use this site to download the music that I wanted to use quickly, and for free instead of having to get a physical copy of it on disc. The music was then imported into my Adobe Premiere trailer file, and edited to fit the footage.

This was very helpful as I had to find copyright free music, which is very hard to find on disc. Therefore, downloading it from the internet was the only viable option. Without music, my trailer wouldn’t have been very good.

I haven’t really learnt many skills from downloading music as there aren’t many to learn from the specific task. I have however learnt some royalty free music download websites which I can use for future creations.