New media technology

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

Research Stage Overview The research stage was the stage

I used the least amount of new media technology. As a group our research consisted of watching several different textual examples of soap operas. This meant using programmes such as BBC IPlayer, 4OD and ITV Player. Along with being able to watch full episodes online I also used YouTube to access a variety of different clips with ease.

IPlayer's and On Demand I felt this was an extremely useful piece of

technology for my research phase of my project. These programmes allowed me to dive deep into analysis of different soaps over a range of broadcasting channels. If I didn’t manage to catch something I could rewind it and re watch the important parts I had missed. I relied on IPlayer and demand heavily for textual analysis, this was due to the fact it is the most highly regarded programme when it comes to watching back programmes from satellite television. Another impressive factor I found with these programmes is the back log of episodes, with such an incredible amount of episodes to choose from I could watch different episodes from different programmes from a variety of different months, and in some cases even years. This meant I could see what iconography and narratives may be useful to include when creating our final product.

YouTube YouTube was an incredibly useful software

to use when researching trailers. I felt that trailers were the only thing that was missing from the on demand channels. YouTube allowed me to access a wide variety of trailers from both soap operas and other genre trailers which I felt had features which could be used in my trailer. YouTube had an impact on my product as I went through dozens of different trailers taking notes on, it had quick pause feature and allowed me to re watch the clip I had just watched in a matter of seconds. The amount of clips on YouTube and the ‘recommended’ side bar meant I had access to so many different clips, this meant I had an eclectic knowledge of soaps and could manipulate features from all these different examples to aid me in creating my soap.

Filming Stage For our filming Stage we used several different

items to help us when we were on location. The main piece of equipment we used was the HD camera, this was an imperative piece of equipment as without it we couldn’t have filmed what we had planned. We then had to use the boom mic, and clip mics when filming to make sure our sound was crisp and clear. The tripod was also an important piece of equipment as it allowed us to keep the camera from shaking and made sure our footage came out as smooth as possible. We filmed most of our footage in day light and outside on location which meant we didn’t really use any lighting. We used our own mobiles as props within the programme and although this isn't their primary purpose it was useful to have as props to make our product seem more contemporary.

How did you use new media to communicate with your audience? New media technology was important

for me when communicating with my audience. I used a website called ‘www.surveymonkey.com’ to create a survey and gain audience feedback, linked to that I used Hotmail as a way of emailing people within the audience demographic the survey I had create. The synergy between the two media forms was important for me as it allowed me a fast, effective and organised way of creating a dialogue with my audience and allowed me to gain an audience perspective on what needed to be added/changed to my product to make it appeal more to the audience.

Editing Stage For the editing stage for our project the

main new media technology we used was Adobe Premiere Elements. This is the same software we used for our AS media product and evaluation. I felt the programme was extremely effective in providing us with the service we needed. Premiere allowed me to arrange my footage into named clips and import them from files within my computer. The editing tools allowed me to trim down clips of parts I didn’t need. I was able to add transitions to create a more fluid text. I also was able to add text to my product to create an opening title as well as closing information on what time the show was on. When exporting my clips the programme allowed me to export it at a high definition resolution at the right frame rate.