Media Evaluation 4

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

Firstly for the research of my media production, I used the Internet. Within the Internet I used a vast amount of different technologies. I will list them and explain why I used them here.
I used the virtual learning environment on my college’s website. I used it to find out all the things I had to do to create my media production. Some of the files I had to open were in a .PDF format. I therefore had to use Adobe Reader to view these. Although it had a tidy layout, this made it awfully hard to print any of the .PDFs out. The VLE system was useful though as it allowed my teacher to upload any useful research materials to the whole class.

Another media technology I used that is based on the internet is Youtube. Youtube is an extremely useful video hosting website. I used Youtube to find examples of videos/short films with a similar theme to mine. The fact a lot of these films are HTML based it meant I could upload the videos to my blog and textually analyse them.

This leads me to my next online technology: www.blogspot.com. Blogspot is a blog based online. I used it as an almost scrapbook for my media production’s research and as a diary for everything I did relating to my product. It is also what the examiner will see my coursework on. This I find is one of the most effective ways to do coursework; this is largely due to the ease of access. I could work on my blog from anywhere with internet access, I even did a post from my mobile phone.

Another online based technology I used was Twitter. This was surprisingly useful when I was originally planning to do a documentary. It allowed me to follow documentary makers and view examples of their work. It is also very effective at linking to Youtube. Twitter also allowed me to find good books (another element of media) on filming techniques.

Another way I found useful websites/files was via Google. Google is an internet search engine which is extremely good at providing accurate websites related to key words you type in your search. Google was how I got the copy-right free music for my project. It did this by linking me to a peer to peer file sharing site. This allowed me to find a some-what obscure song and download it to my USB as an MP3 file.

The final technology I used that is based on the internet was Prezi. Prezi is essentially an online presentation website. It uses certain animations to make clear cut presentations with unique styles. Also, due to it being online, you can’t lose any of the work (much like blogspot). This is another benefit to online technologies. The Prezis are also HTML enables; allowing for easy posts to Blogspot.

Next I will look in to all the software and hardware I used in the creating of my media production. Like with the Internet technologies, I will analyse their usefulness.

Firstly I used a Panasonic SDR – T50 SD video camera. This camera is very useful as it recorded digitally. I have always found digital a lot easier to use due to the editing time. This particular camera is hand-held however we did use a tripod to film. The other benefit of the camera being digital is the fact we could view all our footage on the screen. This camera is the only hardware we used in the creation of our media product.

The software we used to edit our footage was Adobe Premier Pro. Premier Pro is a very simple way to edit; it has a variety of techniques you can use to get a professional feel to your media product. This can range from video effects to audio transitions. Premier Pro was the main element in the final version of our production. I have always found Premier Pro to be simple but effective and although I prefer Final Cut, I enjoy using it to complete my films.

I used another editing software called Audacity. Audacity is very useful as it is a free software available for download online. I used audacity to edit all the audio in my media production but mainly for my copy-right free version of ‘Peter and The Wolf’. This was mainly due to the excessive white noise in the MP3. I feel Audacity is extremely good considering it is a free software, it is also very simple to use.

Another software I used was Adobe Photoshop CS3. I used Photoshop to edit the image on my ancillary task. Photoshop I feel is very good however I am not the best at using it. It has so many features that it appears complicated at first look.

Finally I used Microsoft Word. This was to create my Word documents. The publisher element on it was also used to create my ancillary tasks. I feel Microsoft office is excellent however it is fairly expensive for what it actually is.