How did you use new media technologies in the construction and

research, planning and evaluation stages?

Planning & Research

There are various technologies that I have used throughout the whole of the project. These different technologies have further developed my knowledge and I could use them to make my work more interesting and better presented. It makes it all the more clear.

In terms of research and planning the technology was used more for presenting ideas and creating a plan of what will happen. This has therefore involved a lot of the technologies which have specific layouts or forms of technology that can be shared (particularly for the group work). The technology had to be suitable for going back and checking quickly, so that the group can know what the initial idea was.

Blogger is an online programme where you can post blogs continuously for as long as necessary. This is good for a project in general because it means that it can be continued through the whole thing.In this blog you can have different admins. This helped particularly with our group because we could all get credit for the work that we did (as well as when we signed our own name). This basically meant we could post different things and share our work load, as well as having a continuous flow of work.In Blogger you can upload a load of different things, this is beginning with the simple text on the blog post. This isn’t the only thing though, because also images can be uploaded, alongside video clips and more. This was great for the group and individual work because it meant that we could incorporate all of our work and present the different technologies as they should have been.In terms of the research and planning side of the project, we used blogger more for the uploading of ideas- so we could all share them. We also kept it as a plan and uploaded our feedback on there (with our weekly updates).

Prezi is a website which is basically like a giant mind map. This in itself is really good for the entire project because it can be added to all of the time and the layout is simple to follow that it can be looked back onto, if necessary. Prezi was used more for our alone work, to which we could present all of our ideas onto one format- which we could then share amongst each other. This was a good thing when it came to different ideas (which we changed) to then add to after discussing with the group- so we all knew what we were looking for.In Prezi you can upload the video clips and images again with the text. The layout here though is in a mind map and when the path is created it is good to follow so that you can see everything and it is one continuous idea getting more and more detail. The ability to add images and clips helped so that we could get professional pieces.In terms of the research and planning, Prezi was vital for us to get all of our ideas together and we used it mainly for that. This allowed us to look into professional products and then present then onto this online mind map.

The msn website helped the group a lot. This website allows the hotmail service, which allows the ability to email to each other. This could be continuous and we could even send them out to groups, as opposed to only being one on one.This was great for our group work so that we could get in touch with each other and then also forward on ideas or pieces of work if it was on one person’s desktop. In this email you can send anything, in terms of video clips, images, word documents- which was helpful because it meant that we all knew what was going on. The layout is also fairly simple and the website is something we were all used to, so knew how to use well and we could therefore get to know things quickly. This was used a lot for the research and planning in terms of organising ourselves with meet ups (alongside when we texted). We also sent over some of our footage when we were researching if one member had a software to edit it that the other two did not.

YouTube is a broadcasting website for making watching videos. These videos are usually home made ones, however there are other types of videos- such as music videos, promotions (such as trailers), which helped our group greatly.As a group, and individually, we could find all different kinds of videos that could help us in the project. We also could upload our group work onto here to then embed into our blog.On YouTube you can upload your own videos and also watch others. You can also get little comments and therefore other feedback- which is good for our group to help us edit our trailer usually.In terms of the research and planning we mainly used it for finding different trailers to use for our own product so that we could replicate it. We also uploaded any videos that we made so that we could upload them to our blog.

Final cut is a video editing software. On this software you upload clips and can edit them together or cut certain bits of one clip. You can also edit different sounds too- which both have helped us to have professional products and well structured work.As a group we used final cut together mainly so that we all knew what was going on and then shared it amongst the different YouTube channels. On Final Cut we could edit our videos, adding special effects onto them and little inter-titles onto each. This is helpful to get a good presentation of the work and make it look professional and easy to follow.In terms of the research and planning we used final cut to edit our videos together of us when we were giving our feedback of what we found and things of that nature. This allowed us to be clear and concise with our final choices and we could use it as evidence of our group work.

Photobooth is a programme to which you can use a webcam and record short videos/ clips. On here you can click record or take little snapshots- which is helpful in terms of quick videos.As a group we used photobooth to record our little feedback bits and pieces after discussing our ideas and what we had individually found. We also used it for giving a few reflections.On photobooth you can also add special effects to certain things. We decided this wasn’t really relevant for our project and therefore decided not to do that.In terms of the research and planning, we mainly used photobooth to give our research feedback from our individual research and then when we joined together we made it work and fit together, so we knew more about different sections. This was good because it gave us chance to just discuss all of our ideas.

Cybercam is similar to photobooth in the way you can record short video clips using a webcam again. This was good again because it could vary the technology used.As this programme was on my laptop, the group didn’t actually use it together. However I used it to give brief summaries of what I’d found and then also I used it for certain bits of feedback or videos of me using software.On the cybercam you can add certain special effects, but again I avoided these because what I was using it for wasn’t particularly relevant for what I was using it for. However, these effects could be used if it was for other projects and it was relevant which would make things interesting.In terms of the research and planning, I used the cybercam mainly to talk about what I’d done and the research. I also used it to talk about certain intentions for the future production.

Microsoft word is a programme to which you can create word documents. This is good for any of the detailed longer pieces of work.As a group we didn’t really use Microsoft Word together, it was mainly used for us to make forms and things like that, which we needed to get a lot of information for our cast.On Microsoft Word you can use different layouts and patterns for different things that you are looking to make. This is in the way you can vary different fonts, use different colours, specific layouts and such else. This was good for our presentational devices that we needed to make things more interesting.In terms of the research and planning we mainly used Microsoft Word for the preparation sheets for things such as the risk assessments, call sheets and model release forms. This was just a quick and simple way to use it, which therefore was a positive for us.

All in all, we tried to vary our technologies amongst the research and planning stages, in order for the rest of our project to run a little bit smoother. This is because for a few of the technologies in the production- knowing what we did from the research and planning made it much easier.