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

Throughout each stage of the construction towards my finished products, I used a variety of different technologies that were either used to help construct my finished product or display my research and planning that would contribute to my short film, film poster and magazine film review. I used different media technologies during my research, planning and evaluation stages depending on the benefits it would give to my presentation or the content within my products.

PREZI:

The first media technology that I used a lot throughout all the research, planning and evaluation stages of both my main product and ancillary texts. Prezi is an online presentation software that allows you to include all of the information/ content you wish to present in a visual, eye-catching way through using different designs and templates. I used Prezi mainly throughout my research, planning and evaluation stages as it was a visual method of displaying what I had gathered in my research or presenting the planning towards my products. I used Prezi as my main format of display as it provided a lot of visual aids that would help make the information seem more appealing to read. This was because it provided unlimited space to spread out all the information gathered and also include images of what was being explained. I decided that throughout the research and planning of all three products I would use the same design templates throughout. I decided to do this as it showed consistency across my products, and also using the same template to display the conventions found for short film, film posters and magazine review made it easier for my audience to know what information is on the certain prezi. I found prezi very useful throughout each stage as it broke up the information into smaller text boxes, making it more appealing to the eye and easier to absorb all the information.

YOUTUBE:

Another media technology that I used was YouTube.com. Youtube is a video sharing site that is open to the public and allows anyone to upload their on videos or view others. Youtube was a media technology that was used during the research and production stages of my products. I used Youtube, firstly, to upload my vox pops for my primary audience research onto blogger, and also to upload my finished short film to blogger also. I used Youtube in order to change the format size of my videos so that they would upload to blogger. Youtube was mainly used as connection between Adobe Premiere-Pro and blogger as the original format size of the video were too big for blogger and so I used Youtube to make sure that my videos could be viewed on my blogger once finished.

ADOBE PREMIERE-PRO and ADOBE PHOTOSHOP:

The editing software technologies that I used throughout all three products was Adobe Premiere-Pro and Adobe Photoshop. These were the main technologies that I used mostly for constructing my products.

Firstly, I used Adobe Premiere-Pro to produce my short film; Escaped. I used premiere-pro as it was the most effective editing software available which allowed me to edit raw footage, cutting down scenes, including additional effects on top of the video and sound all in order to create a seamless short film. Using Adobe Premiere-Pro developed the skills that I already learnt through using the software before, but also allowed me to learn new skills, such as changing the lighting of a scene through using RGB Curves and placing it on top of the raw footage. These different video and audio effects which were available contributed to creating my short film and ensuring it was appealing to my target audience. Also Adobe Premiere-Pro allowed additional sound to be included on top of footage, such as sound effects to highlight moments in the film or adding non-diegetic sound like a soundtrack. This all helped to build the storyline and emotions I wanted my target audience to feel. I also used premiere-pro when editing my vox-pops as they were separate clips of my audience giving feedback which contributed to the planning of my short film, film poster and magazine film review.

The other editing software I used was Adobe Photoshop. This piece of software is similar to Adobe Premiere-Pro but only still images can be edited on this piece of software. I used Photoshop more throughout all the different stages as Photoshops purpose was more relevant during the research and planning than Premiere-Pro. I used photoshop throughout the research and planning stages to upload my textual analyses of real media products that I used to show my understanding of how the techniques and conventions are used in order to create a short film, film poster or magazine review that would appeal to an audience. I used Photoshop as it allowed the documents to stay how they were and be uploaded to blogger easily.

I also used Adobe Photoshop in the production of both my film poster and magazine review. I used this media technology specifically because both products were still products and had no moving images included, therefore using Photoshop was more effective than Premiere-Pro. Photoshop allowed me to manipulate the original images I had taken for my products, changing the lighting that appears on the image, the size of the image, or blurring the edges in order to make the image blend into the background more. Adobe Photoshop also allowed text to be written and placed on top of images. This was a major advantage to this software as it allowed titles and the main review of my short film to be placed on top of the background and around the images.

Finally, I also used hardware technologies such as Sony cameras and DSLRs throughout the planning and production stages. I used this hardware technology mainly to produce the raw material for my products, as I used the Sony camera in during the shooting of my short film and the DSLRs for the main image of my film poster. These were the main hardware technologies that were used and using both a moving image and still image camera helped on improving my framing and understanding of placement to ensure that everything I want my audience to see on screen, is in shot and in the right position. An example of this is using a Sony camera during the shooting of my short film helped improve my positioning of camera to actor as I made sure the actors eyes were in the top third of the camera.