Evaluation - Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies during the process of constructing this product?

At the beginning of the year, I was required to use Photoshop in order to create the logo of my film company. Having taken GCSE Media Studies last year, I had a brief understanding of the basic tools and functions. Despite this, there were a few areas I was unsure of so I used YouTube to search on-line tutorials. 

 

Another form of technology I used throughout this process was Prezi, an online presentation website. I had never used this website before but I found it very simple to use and it allowed me to display information in a more interesting way.

I first used Prezi when looking into the three key angles that were necessary for our preliminary task. Throughout the process of creating my media product, I found myself using Prezi a lot as a way of displaying my research. Prezi has many features that makes it an effective way of presenting my work. It allows you to embed videos and pictures as well as sound clips if necessary. My understanding grew rapidly the more I used the website. Below is a screenshot of a few of the presentations I have created with Prezi. To view these, they are embedded in their respective blog post.

When researching my audience, I used SurveyNuts. SurveyNuts is an on-line software that allows users to quickly and easily make their own on-line survey. It also collates the results into easy-to-read data which sped up my research process. Using SurveyNuts, I got an insight of what my audience both like and dislike in films. This meant that I could adapt my own film opening to appeal to a wider audience. I posted a link to my survey on various social media accounts as this allowed me to reach more people, thus making the data more representative. 

As I edited our film opening, I had to get to grips with the editing software Final Cut Express very quickly. I had never used this software before so YouTube was extremely helpful for times when I wasn't sure how to do or use something. Final Cut Express was very useful in the editing process of our film opening as it had lots of different tools that other software did not, for example: the colour correction filters. The colour correction filters were crucial as they allowed me to further the tone and atmosphere that we had sought out to create. 

Originally, we were going to use iMovie as we would have access to this at home. However if we had done so, we would not have been able to use some of the effects we used (i.e. "Blink") which would have compromised the overall look and feel of our media product.

To create the soundtrack for our film opening, we used GarageBand. I had never used this before, but it did not take long to learn the basics. This software allowed us to incorporate foley sound effects as well as backing music, which worked together to create atmosphere while still maintaining a sense of realism.

One piece of technology that was fundamental for our media product is YouTube. As previously mentioned, it was incredibly useful when searching for tutorials. Additionally, it is the platform we used to upload both our preliminary task and our final film opening. Although I do have a YouTube account, I had never gone through the process of uploading and processing a video. Doing so was very simple though as the website is easy to navigate. YouTube also allows you to embed videos, which made the process of putting the videos on to my blog fuss-free. 

Blogger also played a huge part in this process. Although it may have been easier for me to have chosen Tumblr as the platform for my blog (as I have a personal account), I didn't think it had the same sense of professionalism that Blogger does. At the beginning of the year, I was unfamiliar with Blogger as I had never used it before. Despite this, I learned very quickly as it is a very simple website that has many helpful features. Blogger allows you to easily embed pictures and videos, format your text, and give your posts 'labels' to ensure easy navigation. These features allowed me to present my work and research together, making it seamless. Setting up my blog was very easy and the range of ready made templates meant that I did not have to fuss around with lots of settings.