Evaluation Question 4

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

Planning & Research

Internet – Blog:

At the beginning of the year, I and the rest of the class were asked to create a blog to hold all of our of our media coursework excluding the production part (planning and research, and evaluation). It proved to be an extremely effective way of showing creativeness in our work, as we could share information from other websites onto our blog and say how we have used this i.e. writing how we took inspiration from specific YouTube videos and images. We could also place our own documents in the blog including written work that has been scanned i.e. storyboards and flat plans. In addition to this, our teacher also had a blog website which was kept up to date with newsfeeds and deadline days, so that we could therefore time-manage ourselves appropriately.

Construction

Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5 – Teaser Trailer

The Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5 software helped me edit the shots I created for my teaser trailer. I used the system the previous year for my AS coursework, so it wasn’t too difficult to become accustomed with the software and its content. Because of this knowledge, I felt my video editing was extremely well done, as I had the capability to include numerous visual effects and audio effects to my trailer i.e. Solarise ins and outs, Colour Emboss, Exponential Fades and Constant Powers etc. I also included a number of sounds which I downloaded from www.freesound.org to use in my trailer i.e. slow booms, eerie sounds, screams etc, along with the main theme song, James Newton Howard’s ‘The Hand of Fate’. I did however have other difficulties, as the college only possessed Adobe CS4 (an older instalment) which meant I could only work on my teaser trailer from my laptop and not on the college computers.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended – Movie Poster and Magazine Front Cover

For both my movie poster and magazine front cover, I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended via a 30-day trial, as it included all of the essentials I needed to create my products. This included using the Magnetic Lasso Tool to cut and merge pictures for the split-screen effect I was looking to do, as well as using a variety of brushes that were made available to tidy up the images. In addition, I also utilized the brushes to create a cloud effect for my magazine front cover. The software also possessed many customary options which I used to change the colour and style of each layer by using layer effects i.e. having the focal image as luminosity and the title as linear light, and dropping inner and outer shadows to certain texts etc.

Equipment

Panasonic HD Camera

The camera I used helped in terms of the quality of the picture, as it was HD. It was also extremely easy to use, as it was touch-screen and allowed myself to replay footage to check if certain shots were done correctly.

Tripod

I used the tripod regularly throughout my filming, as well for the still shots for my magazine front cover and the movie poster. The height was adjustable, however there was some difficulties with this, as it did not reach high enough at times i.e. for over-the-shoulder shots.

Evaluation

Prezi

Despite using an internet blog to show my evaluation, I still included other sources which made it look more creative. One of these included the internet website http://prezi.com/ which allowed me to construct a presentation and apply specific effects to it i.e. adding images and zooms to give it a ‘professional’ look.

Facebook

I used Facebook to present my production work to others and gather audience feedback. This proved to be easy and useful, as I gathered feedback from the audience in their spare-time, so there was no pressure in terms of time constraints. This therefore allowed me to receive back qualitative data and personal opinions on my coursework.