A2 Media Blog: 2016

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

Camcorder (Panasonic HD camera) – My groups used this camcorder from college to film our music video. It was useful as it was easy to transfer the files from the camcorder to the computer. However, sometimes we couldn’t find the files that we had filmed and we had to re-film those shots again. Another disadvantage we had was we struggled to get clear shots when it was dark. Because of the time of year (autumn/winter), the weather was cold and dull and we didn't have many daylight hours to film. To overcome this for one scene, we tried to use the flash off our phones to help the camera pick up the actors faces. In future, I would find a more advanced camera to film a video so the image quality is better and we would have more options of when in the day we could film.

Canon EOS 700D Camera- For the photoshoots for my print products I used my Canon camera. At the time this camera was new to me so this meant I was still learning how to use the settings of the camera. However, the camera was simple enough to use and allowed me to receive clear photographs for my work. In addition to this it was easy to get access to the photographs on the computer as I only had to remove the SD card from the camera and transfer it into the computer.

Adobe Premier Pro – There were advantages and disadvantages to using this software. A disadvantage was the software kept crashing so unsaved work would be lost. To overcome this we had to save our work every couple of minutes. However this meant that we lost valuable time during the editing period as we had to wait for the software to work. Furthermore, the college decided to update all the adobe software half way through our project. This meant we lost even more time as we had to convert the files to work on the new software and had to relearn how to use the new software. As none of the members of our group had experience with this software we had to teach ourselves how to use it through a lot of trial and error. An advantage from the update was that the software worked faster and crashed less. We also had access to the software on the college computers at all times during college hours. Another advantage would be the wide variety of choice of filters to edit our video with. This was helpful as it allowed us to choose filters with colours that link in with our genre.

Adobe Photoshop - To create my print work products I used Adobe Photoshop for my editing software. As I also take photography classes at college I already had some knowledge of how to use this programme. The programme worked really well for me as it wasn't too difficult to use and had many options to choose from when editing your work. Also this programme rarely lagged or crashed compared to Adobe Premier Pro. The only problems that I experienced with this programme is that when I tried to work on my products at home, elements such as fonts would be missing so I would have to start over on some parts. This meant I got behind on work as I could only edit my work properly during college hours. Another problem I found was that not all the computers at college at the same version of photoshop. This meant that when I worked on an older version of Photoshop, I was unable to edit some parts of the programme which meant I lost out on time.

Blogger – Blogger was useful to use at it helped keep a record of the research I had done in one place. Blogger is also simple to use. It was helpful when working with a group during research as it allowed us to see what each of us had researched and how much work each of us had done collectively. As blogger was is an online site, it meant that my work was safe and wouldn't get lost. It also let me present my work neatly and keep it all in one place.

YouTube - I used YouTube quite regularly during this product. I used it at the start to find and research existing videos that are the same genre as ours. I did this to get an idea of what conventions are important to use and what reoccurring storylines there are. As a group we also used YouTube to upload our videos of feedback, test shots, animatic and the music video itself so we could easily put our videos onto our blogs. YouTube was easy enough to use to upload videos and it didn't take long to do so either.

Prezi - Prezi is a presentation website which allows you to create presentations. This was useful as it allowed us to neatly organize my research and planning for my products. In addition to this, Prezi allows more than one persona time to edit a Prezi meaning as a group we could all work together on some pieces such as our pitch idea. The only negative which I experience with Prezi was that occasionally the programme would crash and if my work hadn't automatically saved then the work which I had done would be lost.

Powtoon - Powtoon is a presentation software which is similar to the likes of Powerpoint but it's animated and the end product is a video. Once you have mastered how to use the basics of Powtoon then the programme is easy to use. however I found that I was writing big blocks of text on this website making my presentation for evaluations, research etc seem boring and unreadable.

Smartphones (Samsung Galaxy S4) - During the creation of our products, we kept in contact via our phones. This was helpful as we could keep in touch with each other and organise when and where to film, finding out when actors where available, and to carry on planning and organising our work even when we were at home. To do this we used the internet (Web 2.0) and used social media such as Facebook. Our group created a group chat on Facebook which was easy. In addition to this, I used Facebook to get some audience feedback for my print work. I did this by creating a page and asking questions for members to answer. This was effective as everyone could answer the questions in their own time. A disadvantage to this was that not everyone answered the questions in time.

(This question was originally filmed and edited. Unfortunately the file has gone weird and I have ran out of time to start over).