The Technology/ Skills

Without the use of media technologies most of my research, planning, construction, evaluation processes would have not been possible. Using a variety of these has actually helped me gain a lot of knowledge and develop more skills for e.g. softwares like Final Cut Pro.

Last year was more challenging for me because I was less skillful as a media student when it came to research, planning, construction and evaluation etc. I knew how to use different technologies but if I compare the skills I had last year to this year, I definitely would say that I am more knowledgeable of using different technology this year. This meant that I developed a lot more as I engaged myself into things I didn't know much about for example, Camtasia.

Blogger

Blogger was the main technology I have used to present my work. It is very useful because this is where I keep all track of my work and all the research, planning, evaluation I have for my real media products. This has helped me be consistent into organising my work for example, research, planning, production etc.

 Blogger was also useful because it helped me post evidence of my  I knew how to embed the work on to it by using the embeded code to it to put into the HTML section. This is good because this way I include various different technology to include.

Youtube

Youtube is something that really helped me when it came to completing my work because I involved visuals for my audience by including videos. I included a lot of vlogs and uploaded it and youtube is what I used to help do this. I wanted to connect with all my audience and youtube was something I used when I done this.

The way I done it was that I uploaded the work and then post it up on the blog with the embeded code and dispalyed it on my blogger so my audience has access to it.

What was helpful when it came to doing my work was recording the behind the scenes of our music video and audience feedback because here you have more of an idea of what is going on, so I am updating them by showing them visually. This is done well because it gives this connection between the artist and the audience which is something that is important to include. 

Examples of videos I uploaded:

Prezi, Emaze, Slide.es

For my work, the technology I also used were these three websites that helped me insert my work and my ideas on to these and these have been used throughout the whole research, planning, construction and evaluation stages as these websites are whee I saved my work on to. These are all similar because the process of how I used them was the same. I have a particular template and then I can add texts, images, videos, shapes (annotation arrows) etc to help build on my work for my audience when they see it. These three websites were easy to use because I could embed the work on each of the websites on to my blogger which makes my work look more creative and fun to look at.

My emaze presentation dashboard:

Emaze and Slid.es embedding process:

Prezi Embedding Process:

Social Media:

I have used several different social medias where I can promote my artist. I have used instagram, facebook and twitter to update my audience with information or to tell them what's going on and this was mainly in the production stages. This is because showing our audience images and pictures of what's going on gives them an insight to how they should work on it. It was important to have this because this is how your audience will be able to find out about our artist and be updated with everything that is going on.

The social media was very easy to use as what we have done was post statuses or tweets or picture posts and then screenshotted these and posted them on our blog. These social medias have everything you need when you want to post something which is essentially like the process of blogging but it's just promoting our work for example, it has the option to post images, to copy embeded links and to post on websites to show videos, shared locations (for example telling them where we are for filming) etc. This was useful because our target audience are the people that use social media so they can easily access ours and become updated with everything and see the final pieces e.g. music video, digipak and advertisements. 

Overall, social media was something that very easy to work with and I would use it more because this type of technology is needed for showing them and updating with our work.

Apps:

Using apps for my blogging was more difficult to handle because it's on a different advice i.e. my phone. It is all on a smaller screen and not many options were included in the apps. For example, I downloaded the Blogger app and the problem I had with it was that I could not upload videos which was difficult because I recorded vlogs on it therefore I had to use different technology e.g. iTunes and youtube to do this. However overall, using the apps were good because I could get the points I needed to include on them. 

The apps I used was the ABC notes app and Blogger:

How I used the ABC notes app was by including different boxes and involving text in them, the way I get the finished piece of work is that I press 'Capture screen' and go to my camera roll, post this on to my email and then download the image from my email and post it on blogger:

The way I use Blogger is that I open the app, I press 'New Post' and then write anything that I need to write to include, then I press 'Save' to publish it then it is automoattically posted on the Blogger so I don't need to transfer anything via email to get it on there as this is the app of the technology I am using:

PhotoBooth

PhotoBook is a little more compicating to work with and it is only available on iMacs. I use this to record vlogs and what I do is that I record the video, when I'm finished I drag it from the technology and put it on to the desktop. The next thing I do is that I need to convert the file ino a blogger file and I drag the file from the desktop to a piece of technology called HandBrake. I then press 'Start' to convert it which is the green button and then it downloads the file into a blogger file then it is completed. Then after, because our work is converted into a Blogger file I can automatically open up Blogger then open the video file and press the clip, then I upload this video on to the piece of technology of Blogger.

This is useful because it is a fast and very quick way to post my vlogs and this is what I have been doing throughout the whole process of research, planning, construction or evaluation stages.

Camtasia

Last year I did not really know how to use Camtasia however, now I do. I used it mainly for my evaluation stages of the production of my digipak also for my evaluation questions. The way I used it was that I would record videos on the screen to portray my work, I could gather sound from the System Audio (sound coming from the computer) or record audio (room noise, my voice) or I can do both at the same time. The way I would do it is that I would press 'Start Recording' on the camtasia tab and then I can adjust the screen size I would want, so if I would  want to record a video I would press 'Custom Region' and do it. Overall when I am finished the clip, I open the camtasia technology software and I can edit the video. Then after what I do is that I press 'Share' and 'Youtube' and upload it on to Youtube. Then I recieve an embedded code and I copy and paste that on to the HTML on the Blogger technology website.

This was extrememly useful for me to use becaude when I wanted to record the screen, I sometimes wanted to talk as well and show my face which is available as an option which helped me with my work. It is nice to have different technologies included because recording videos on a different software makes it look more engaging and interesting to watch:

Photoshop

Photoshop is what I used mainly in the costrunction stage of creating my digipak and advertisements. In the beginning I wasn't familiar with this software however, after a tutorial I got I knew exactly what to do and started creating it on to this software. This was really useful because I was able to complete my media products on this software.

The way I used it was that I first had to include a template which I did, and from then on I had to insert my chosen images for my final product. I was able to edit my images on the softwares which I then did because I wanted it to look like it follows the conventions of the music video. What I have done was that I included different images on top and fixed my record label, also I included text and adjusted the size as well as get style edits for example, include the glowly effect.

This software was extremely helpful because it enabled me to finish my media products on it and I think that the outcome of it was pretty good. It helped me do whatever I wanted to create and without this I do not think that I would be following the conventions of my music video for my audience, therefore not complete it to a good standard.

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro is a software that we used to edit our music video. We recorded a lot of base tracks and we were able to put all of the video files on to the software. We needed to organise all of the videos that we wanted to use and lip sync them all up with the words our artist is saying. It was helpful because this software helped my group and I create anything we wanted, also we have the opportunity with it to create particular edits for e.g. slow motion, strobe light effect, include transitions, brightness and contrasting affect. The programme was really helpful because we were able to do anything we want to create our music video.

A particular edit I learnt how to use was slow motion effect, you can make a movement either fast motion or slow motion. The way you do this is that you highlight the clip you want to edit, then press the slow motion effect and you have to adjust the percentage of how fast or how slow you want it to be.

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Overall

Overall for my work, I have used many different more websites to help make my work look very organised and fun to look at. It was engaging for me also because I liked how each of the videos I used had different creative templates which kept me more looking forward to reading my work.

It was a good experience because I am proud to say that through different technologies, it has really helped me grow as a media student as my knowledge of technologies have expanded compared to the first year.

-Arbrie Krasniqi