HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

Dan Brown

CONSTRUCTION & RESEARCHDuring the construction and research of my media project I used a vast amount of programs to help me further my knowledge. I used a lot of different software and a couple of different websites which were key to the creation of my final production. I tried to use a vast amount of different software packages as the research stage is a very word heavy section to my project. In this section, I did generally use software and websites that are well-known and easily accessible to everyone using a computer or tablet. The fact that I could use a tablet to do some of the research meant that I could do work on the go when I was away from my computer.

PLANNINGThe planning is another word heavy section of the project. This meant that I was trying to keep on using different software and websites to help me to plan out my production so that it was easy to get hold of and not of a repetitive layout.

The planning stage also involved using some different pieces of hardware. I used cameras, a scan, a printer, a tripod, a phone etc.

EVALUATIONIn the evaluation stage, the media technology I used was to change the layout of work so that it wasn’t in a repetitive format. To do this I changed the software and websites I used to present information.

I also decided that a good way to get audience feedback was through a focus group as I got a lot of information though my focus group in the planning stage of my production. So I also ended up using a little amount of hardware too. This was mainly just a camera and a tripod.

GOOGLE Google was one of the most helpful search engines possible when researching for my production, especially when I was researching for my ancillary pieces. Firstly I had no idea of what sort of stuff people would expect to see on a horror film poster as horror posters are only normally advertised at cinemas. Google images allowed me to look at a whole range of horror film posters and notice similar and different aspects to each. This helped me to pick out conventions that I could follow and conventions I could challenge. I was a lot more direct in AS Media, I knew that I wanted to keep my work as similar to one film poster and that was it. In A2 Media research I felt more confident in picking out conventions on film posters and looking at different ways that I could challenge them instead of just following them

Google being a search engine meant that I didn’t really use it in the planning or the evaluation stages of my work.

YOUTUBEYouTube was a key website featured in a lot of my work. I used YouTube for the video side of the project. I used YouTube as a website to watch film trailers so that I could gain knowledge on what was in them and what wasn’t. YouTube helped me to find conventions within horror film trailers and also helped me with what some people didn’t like about certain trailers, this was down to the comments sections. This meant that I could read other people views about a trailer who I knew nothing about, meaning that I could get an unbiased opinion. The popularity of YouTube also meant that the amount of information I received by looking at the comments was massive and also incredibly insightful.YouTube doesn’t only contain professional work, but also work of past A Level Media Studies students meaning that when I was planning, I could look at the kind of conventions that other Media students thought could be challenged or followed and It gave my an insight to whether it would work or not.

YOUTUBE CONTINUED…YouTube was also key to the evaluation stage of work. In AS Media I wouldn’t have dreamed looking at what other people thought of my work, but at A2, I saw the comments as a way of improvement. People who had took the time out to watch my media would surely have comments on ways to make the production better. After putting my final production on to YouTube, I also used the description underneath the video, to add a link to my blog which I hoped people would notice and then see that I would be open to constructive criticism.

IMDBJust like YouTube, IMDB was a key player in the research stage to my project. This was because IMDB has a complete database of almost every film ever made which meant that I could search for any film and IMDB would bring up all the information and the trailer to the film.I did use IMDB to watch film trailers as I knew they were the legitimate trailer and not some parody which could be found on YouTube. I could use the trailers to see what real media texts looked like and pick out conventions that I could follow or challenge in my own production.

I used IMDB in the evaluation of my project because I couldPick out the conventions that I challenged or followed and Show that in my evaluation question one.

EMAZEEmaze is a great piece of presentation software that I used in the research and planning stages of my production. I used emaze in the research stage to present some of the findings that I did, for instance, I used emaze when I was looking at the genre conventions of horror films.I used emaze because it was different to using Microsoft PowerPoint which has limited amount of designs, but I feel that emaze had a wide variety of designs which I could use to differentiate some of my presentations of information. Emaze also included all of the tools that I needed to make my presentation appealing to other people. Emaze allowed me to insert image which I feel is crucial to presentation as they give the audience something else to look at instead of a text heavy presentation. Obviously text could be added but the sizes, colours and fonts could be changed. A key part to this website is that the presentation would automatically save itself after about two minutes meaning that the lost of work by ‘accidently’ not saving, was minimal.

This was a completely new piece of software to me as I had not used it in AS Media and onlyheard of it during the start of A2.

PREZIPrezi – yet again, another great piece of presentation software that allows the user to add and manipulate text, add pictures and shapes to presentations, making them more appealing to an audience. The work on Prezi was also saved online so there was almost no worry of losing the work unlike saving it onto a memory stick.

The thing that makes Prezi unique compared to the other presentation software packages and websites was the strange but fascinating navigation route the website could use through the presentation. It can be used normally, just going from ‘slide’ to ‘slide’ however you can put information in the middle of words and have the website zoom into that piece of information. This is what stopped Prezi from being the same as a normal presentation package.

This was one of the presentation packages I used in AS Media, however I didn’t really know all of the tools I could use and what everything did.

MICROSOFT POWERPOINTPowerPoint was a great and accessible piece of software that I used during the research part of my project. PowerPoint does have a minimal amount of designs to use but so many tools compared to Prezi and emaze which could be used. I also used this software for a lot of my AS work because I was very confident in using it.

I started using PowerPoint to create some presentations and then uploading that presentation to Slideshare, another great website that presented my work in a different way to the other sites I have been using.

MICROSOFT WORDI didn’t really use word to present any work but did use it a lot. Firstly, I used it for planning work before I started on the presentation software. Any time when I thought of a new idea, I would use Word to note it down so that I could member this later. This meant that any ideas I had would be saved somewhere on a computer, meaning that I always had all ideas I had come up with.

I also used Word in the planning stage of my production as I created the Script using it. This was because Word allows templates and contained one for a movie script which made my script look very professional and realistic.

In the evaluation stage I used Word to crop images that I wanted little bits of. This allowed me to only show the audience the parts of the images that I want them to focus on as the use of shapes and arrows showing the bit I’m explaining doesn’t allow a big enough picture.

MICROSOFT EXCELI only used Microsoft Excel in the planning and evaluation stages of my work. I used it in the these stages as I had just received results from my questionnaires and I wanted a way to present my finding to make it more interesting than just writing. This is the reason I used Excel. Excel allowed me to collect my finding and then resent them in different kind of graphs and charts including pie charts; bar graphs; line graphs etc. This again just made it look like the work wasn’t all the same and just added some more appeal to that section of the planning.

I also did the same in the evaluation as I received questionnaire results back during this stage too and thought that the nicest and most appealing way to present the findings was through the use of graphs again.

I was also very confident in using excel for the creation of graphs as I did this in AS Media too.

E-MAIL E-mail didn’t play a huge part in my project, however I did use it. In the planning section of my project, I decided to e-mail a profession media company based in England to see if I could get some ‘expert’ opinions so that I could make my work a bit more special and maybe make it stand out from the rest. I sent the e-mail earlier in the year still now, I have not received a reply. This doesn’t make my project a failure, but does mean that I don’t have the ‘expert’ opinion that I wanted. I would have maybe received an reply if I had messaged numerous companies or one not as successful as the one I did. I used my own gmail account which means that if I’d have received a reply I would have received a nofication about the e-mail thought my phone.

ADOBE PREMIERE PROI decided to use the editing software, adobe premiere pro. This is because, I used this software to edit my AS media piece, which means I am use to the software. Using the software before also meant that I knew what most of the things did, which made it a lot easier than using another software which I would have had no knowledge of. It is also the software which I use at home, which means that it was readily available to my unlike final cut, which I would only be able to us at college. I also feel that it is the most professional software to use as it contains a lot of functions that are not seen on final cut or movie maker.

I also edited my focus group’s with Premiere Pro as it’s one of the editing packages I have and it also allowed me more time to gain more knowledge of the different tools that I could use when editing my actual product.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOPI used Photoshop for the creation of my ancillary pieces. Photoshop is only photo editing software, however I found it so easy to use to make the actual layout of my ancillary pieces so I decided to use it for the whole thing. Having a keen interest in using Photoshop meant that I knew a lot of the features and tools that I had at my disposal so that I could create the most professional looking magazine front cover and poster. At AS we were not given any ancillary tasks, however at we were for are A2 preliminary. In this I didn’t use Photoshop, but actually publisher. When finishing the creation of my preliminary I felt that it looked very unprofessional, that’s why I decided to change graphics package.

SURVEY MONKEYI have used the website ‘Surveymonkey’ so that I could get some audience feedback as I went along planning my production. I created a survey which helped me to decide some of the conventions which my target audience would like me to follow and some conventions that they thought I should change, as they would like to see something different. The website allowed me to copy the URL to the actual questionnaire so that I could send it out to people of my target audience. This website made the questionnaire that I sent out look very profession. Not only did SurveyMonkey have great features to help create a questionnaire, but it also presents the results back, so it can be easily interpreted by the user.

I also used this website in the evaluation, as I created two more surveys to help me with what people thought of my finished production.

FREESOUNDThe most effective horror film trailers use a variety of atmospheric sounds and music. The main thing that is need though is some atmospheric, scary music. To find some of this music, I went on the website ‘Freesound.org’. This website is full of royalty free, music and sounds. This is a good website to use as everything on the website is royalty free, and YouTube is likely to take a video down for copyright infringement if it contains music owned by someone whose music isn’t royalty free.

Freesound also meant that I could download the sound straight from the website to my laptop allowing me to use it straight after downloading it.

This website contains a lot of sounds that were ‘usable’ as well, it wasn’t just one that I thought of using.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITESSocial media websites and application were great to use in the evaluation stage of my work. Facebook allowed me to send out a post with a linking in it to my blog and my production pieces. This meant that everyone in the world who stumbles upon the post could potentially access my work, increasing the size of the audience to my production.I also used the chat function on Facebook to communicate with my actors, letting them know the time I needed them for filming and the clothes and props they needed to bring with them. Instagram was very similar, it allowed me to post a picture of my production and add a link to my production, again potentially increasing the size of the audience, thus meaning that I would get more audience feedback about my product.

GO CONQRI used ‘Goconqr’ as just a different way to show my audience my findings during the research part of my coursework.

Goconqr allowed me to create flashcards and mind maps to display work. I liked using the flash cards as they were easy to make and a very different way to display information.

I did use the mind map function on Goconqr in my AS media but decided to not use it this year as I felt that navigation around the maps would be too challenging and time consuming for the audience, as I found it hard myself to navigate through the work.

DAFONTAlthough ‘DaFont’ wasn’t a crucial website to my production, I still used it in the planning of my work. Default fonts on all programs are not what I was looking for when creating my production. All the default fonts are boring and have a character to them. I was looking for a font that had a spooky character to itself, one that was kind of conventionally seen for horror films but had something, unique about it.

Using ‘DaFont’ allowed me to search for a font using certain categories, horror was one of them. The website doesn’t then give you one or two to choose from but hundreds, maybe thousands.

LAPTOPWhen doing all of the work towards my project I used my own Acer laptop. This played a key role in my media coursework. Firstly, it allowed me to access the websites I needed too (Blogger, Prezi, IMDB), therefore allowing me to complete tasks outside of the college, meaning that I could get the tasks all done in my own time. I also have many different types of software on my laptop, including Photoshop, premiere pro and all of the basic Microsoft programs.As I used my own laptop, I didn’t have to worry about someone accidently deleting my work.

HD VIDEO CAMERA & CANON CAMERA

I also used one of the cameras to film a small focus group contain a couple of people form my target audience group. Just like the survey, this helped me to decide what some people would like to see in my production and some of the things that I could change which would make my production different compare to real media productions. I did this during the planning and evaluation stages of my project as I filmed two focus groups. When planning my production, I decided to firstly take pictures of the location that I am planning to film at. I actually decided to use one of the cameras from the media department at college. I used this because it would mean that the pictures that I would take would be of higher quality. I also meant that I could use a bright flash.

Whilst using the camera to take location shots I also used a tripod, this was because I wanted to pictures I took of the location to not be blurry and be straight and not tilted.

I also used a HD video camera for the recording of the actual production. I used this because I had used them before and to me, they made good quality productions.

IPHONEI used my own iPhone 5s a lot during each stage of the project, this was mainly in the planning stage. I used the application ‘Notes’ a lot as any ideas I had on the go, I could write down so I would remember them. I also used the camera on my phone for some of the location shots, this was after the original location shots were taken and I thought that I could film in a new/different room in the house, instead of bringing the camera home from college again, I would just snap the picture with my iPhone.On my phone, I have a lot of the different social media sites, which meant that I could use the social media sites and I’d have knowledge whenever someone would like, comment or share a post.

I used the messaging feature on my phone so that I could message my actors and see what day we were all available, so that I could create the shooting schedule.

BLOGGERThis is a secure website on the internet which allowed me to keep all of my findings in the in the same place. Blogger also allowed me to use many different formats in which to display my findings in different ways so that I can keep the audience to my blog interested and wanting to continue to read my work. This is because I used blogger to look at the research that I did so that I could make my production as realistic as possible. All the research information was in the same place so it was so easy for me to go to the specific information that I needed. I was also able to use blogger so that I could all of my planning in the same place, but on a different tab.