Evaluation question four

HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE

CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND

EVALUATION STAGES?

NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN CONSTRUCTION

• For the recording of the song we used a programme called Logic Pro X. This programme was of a professional level, and we got a recording of the song from people we knew who sat and helped us work this programme. It was hard to use, but the outcome was really pleasing. It had lots of features that were really useful, and was a big step up from garage band. • To edit our production we used Final Cut Pro X. This again was a big step up from what I used last year, iMovie, as Final cut pro X has many more features that are really useful too. It is also a lot more accurate with cutting down shots so you can be really precise. I much preferred this programme as there's lots more options for you to choose from, and the range of effects are endless, so if we wanted to use them we could have. They are quite simple to grasp once you’ve watched a few tutorials.

• This year we used a Nikon DSLR, instead of a standard video camera. Again, I preferred this, as the outcome of filming was a lot more professional, and you can do so much more with it. The depth of field was really effective in both the production and ancillary piece. Alongside final cut pro, it really made our production look quite professional. • YouTube was new in a different way to the others. I used YouTube last year to upload my production, which I have done this year, But I have also looked up music videos and editing techniques (e.g. the cloning and Pleasantville effect tests I did). These were extremely helpful with tutorials.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN RESEARCH AND PLANNING

• Blogger isn’t also a new technology as I used it last year. Although I used it last year, I didn’t use every single aspect of blogger to make my work stand out as much as it could. This year, instead of just typing things up with blogger, I began to embed a variety of different things into my blog to make it more interesting, such as the things as below.

• Prezi is a presenting app which allowed me to create more interesting ways of presenting my findings. It is basically a more advanced version of a PowerPoint, which I thought was really useful as it made my information more interactive, instead of my findings just being slide after slide of writing.

• Szoter was a photo editing app which allowed me to annotate my pictures. This was really useful when it came to analysing products, as it made comparing the two images easily. It was also a great help when looking at the band we were going to use, as we could include many different images and annotations to why they were a good choice.

• GoConqr, which was previously called exam time, was a great way to plan my media production, as it gave me the ability to create a mind map online. This was good for planning as all of my ideas were in one place where I needed them, and it was easily accessible to add and change ideas onto it.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN EVALUATION For my technologies for my evaluation, I didn’t really use any new

technologies as I have become quite confident using the ones I have recently found when trying new technologies for the rest of my coursework.

Two new technologies that I did use for one question of my evaluation was a drawing tablet. I used this for annotating images to show how my production linked to my ancillary pieces. The tablet I used was really simple to use, with two knobs at the top of it for zooming in and out and changing brush size. It was really helpful as it was more efficient than annotating by hand, and easier than using the programme I used to band research and poster analysis ‘szoter’.

Fire Alpaca is the free programme that I downloaded to use the tablet. This application was really useful when designing my ancillary pieces as well as annotating the evaluation. The application comes with over 200 brushes, which gave me the ability to change the style of how I physically wrote as the outcome was different with different brushes. I could also apply different layers for different things, so if I went wrong it could be easily rectified as I could remove the layer.