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

Construction & Evaluation

Research & Planning

I used both my own windows Laptop and the school’s Apple Mac computers when constructing my products in order to have maximum flexibility over where I could work. I transferred the files via File Share and USB so I could edit them both at school and at home. Although some work such as the Short Film had to be edited in School due to the software used such as Final Cut Pro which only works on apple platforms.

 The primary camera I used was the Canon EOS 100D, which provided me with fairly high quality videos and good focus quality. A second camera that I used was the Canon 550D which I felt was much easier to use and gave me much more sharp and focused images.  This was the camera we used the most when filming for the short film as it gave us a much higher quality of footage. It was also the camera I used for the photography of my Ancillary products which were both of high quality. Along with the use of these cameras I used the Rode Stereo Videomic, however, the quality of audio from this was fairly low and the battery life was limited, so I ended up recording small parts of it with sound recorded on an Iphone and my Samsung Phone.

Hardwear

When editing my film I used Final Cut Pro X, which was setup onto the MAC computers at school. After completing my AS coursework Portfolio I was already fairly familiar with the basic navigation and tools that I needed, however my skills did develop as I explored using the "Ken Burns" tool to zoom in footage taken at a wider frame and to colour correct the shots in order to create continuity with shots filmed over several days of filming. I also used this tool to make the shots taken at Brighton Pride look more vibrant with all of the colours.  

Final cut was a vital platform on which myself and my group carried out the core edding for our short film. it enabled us to fix shots, detach and replace sound and most importantly save the changes we had made easily and quickly.

Editing Software

Original

Colour Corrected

The use of Final  Cut was particularly useful when it came to positioning the shots we had taken and placing them in order and seeing what transitions worked best for our short film.

I was able to select the shots I intended to place in and only place in the sections of the clips I wanted so they fitted perfectly. it also helped us to develop the clips we had filmed via swapping some of the shots from the original planned order if we decided that this didn't work.

Editing Software

The sound in our short film was mainly sourced from Youtube when we completed a search for Royalty free music, although I did alter the pitch and some small parts of the music on Garageband in order to make it fit with the final production. 

The recording of the spoken word I wrote was recorded in a sound booth which me and my group learnt to use in order to increase the quality of our short film. The sound booth recorded on garageband which helped us to fit piano based backing track used to fit with the timings.

Sound Software

When editing my Ancillary Products I used a few different forms of software. At school I had access to Photoshop CC which helped me to complete basic tasks such as altering the saturation of an Image and changing the definition of it although I found it too complex and and Hard to use. It was a software which needed too much in depth knowledge for the small editing tasks I needed to complete. This is why I used  two online editing tools, Befunky.com and Picmonkey.com which had much more simple yet vital tools for the editing of my Poster and Magazine Imagery.

I was able to easily layer images and then increase the Opacity of the image and therefore create the theme of poster which allowed me to fade the images of Zara in from sad to happy.

Editing Software

Editing Software

When producing my film poster I used free text websites and google to help me get the right texts and features on my film poster and my Double page spread.

One website I used was 101 Text which was how I came across the text I used for my movie poster, double page spread and short film title.

I tried to link all of the texts I used for my products in order to increase the visibility of links between them and being able to download texts from this website was of great use to me.

Youtube & Google

Google and Youtube were invaluable in the editing process and the construction of my ancillary tasks. Whenever I encountered issues with programmes such as Final Cut or Photoshop I used online tutorials and advice sites in order to teach myself the skills to fix them. I felt that these tools allowed me independence for the duration of the project as it gave me the freedom at explore new techniques and methods that made my products feel more professional.

Microsoft Office

Excel is a professional business software, was used for audience feedback as a way to create visual graphs to represent my data. It was very useful as I could keep all my quantitative results  in tables in a workbook, where Excel would calculate percentages and averages, and create automatic graphs which were easy to access and revise at a later date.

Word,  a  document processing format enabled me to create the template of an audience feedback questionnaire for my ancillaries which I was able to distribute to collect data on my products which enable me to understand what my audience thought about them.

Using various Media technologies to gather audience feedback was an extremely effective technique as it allowed me to access a range of different opinions, both online and in person, and collect both qualitative and quantitative responses