Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
By eungless
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Blogger
Website Link - https://www.blogger.com/
I used Google's Blogger website to post all of my A2 Media Coursework to. It was quite easy to use, and worked as a good way to present the process of creating my promotional package. The website allowed me to use a lot of cross-media convergence, as I was able to easily embed things that I created in other websites, such as YouTube and Prezi. -
External Hard Drive
At the start of the year I bought an external hard drive with 1 terabyte of storage. This was important during my coursework to store all of my documents on, like my Final Artefacts. I was able to store all file formats on the hard drive and it was very portable so I could transfer documents between computers I used. -
SD Cards
I bought two SD Cards of different sizes, 32gb and 64gb, at the beginning of the year and used them every time I filmed. The only issue I had with them was that they would sometimes require reformatting when I used them on different cameras, meaning the clips stored on it would have to be backed up onto my hard drive then deleted from the SD Card. -
Google
The search engine Google was essential throughout my portfolio process, helping me from the start to the end of the year. I used it for research, finding stock images, looking for tutorials and more. -
YouTube
Website Link - https://www.youtube.com/
YouTube is a video sharing website that I used to upload my own work to, like all of the edits of my music video, and also to watch existing music videos of the hip-hop genre to evaluate and draw inspiration from. It was very easy to use and allowed me to embed my own uploaded videos and existing videos to my blog. This cross-media convergence was very useful as it let me easily put my videos on my blog on Blogger. -
Wikipedia
Website Link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
This website was useful when doing research, particularly for my Director Study. Wikipedia is often named untrustworthy due to the fact that anyone can write information on it, but most of the pages are checked for legitimacy and I double checked some of the important facts using other sources. -
TubeChop
Website Link - https://www.tubechop.com/
TubeChop is a website that allows users to cut out specific sections from YouTube videos and easily place them on blogs or websites using a HTML embed code. I used this website when I was writing my Music Video Analyses so I could place relevant sections of the music videos I was analysing and intertextual references in as examples. I first used it when writing my Director Study. -
Adobe Premiere Pro
This program was essential throughout the process of making my music video as I used it to edit any practical research, starting with the '20 Questions' Task, and my music video. The program was difficult to grasp at first, but it got easier as I used it. I had to look at tutorials on YouTube or other websites so I could do specific effects I wanted. I was able to export high quality 1080p videos from the program in an MP4 format which I could then upload to YouTube. -
Camera (Canon 600D, 70D and JVC GY-HM150E)
I used a few varieties of camera to film during my coursework, for my music video and practical research. I used the Canon 600D for my Practical Research, the JVC GY-HM150E for all the filming for my music video and the 70D for any pictures I took. I encountered one problem with the JVC, being that the footage was automatically saved as .mov files, meaning I couldn't view them on my PC. I was able to use and view the clips when editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, however. -
Microsoft OneDrive
Website Link - https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-gb/
OneDrive is a cloud service created my Microsoft which, when signed up for, can be used to upload documents to the cloud as a way of backing them up. The service was useful when switching between computers because I could just sign in and have access to all my saved documents. I also used OneDrive to upload PowerPoints to my blog, because I could easily embed documents on Blogger, like my Music Video Treatment. -
Microsoft PowerPoint
I used this program a few times as a way of presenting my research or planning, the first time being for my Music Video Treatment. The program was very simple and easy to use and there were multiple ways to upload documents created in it, like Microsoft's own OneDrive, or Slideshare. One disadvantage was that there was an extent to how interesting you could make the slides so I used other presentation technology too. -
Prezi
Website Link - https://prezi.com/
I used this website to present some of the research and planning for my promotional package, like my Audience Profile/Research. I found it to be an interesting way of presenting my work, but at times it would glitch and be difficult to use. I was able to easily embed my presentations to Blogger which was an advantage. -
Microsoft Word
I used this program in convergence with OneDrive for some of the work I uploaded to my blog, including my Casting. The program is very simple to use but was not easy to make very visually interesting. -
Scribd
Website Link - https://www.scribd.com/
I used Scribd as a way of presenting my work. It was a useful way of uploading documents from Microsoft Word. One inconvenience that came with using it, however, was that Word documents would not come out in the way I saved them so I had to convert the documents into PDFs before uploading them to preserve the original layout. I used the website first to upload my Equipment List. It was easy to embed from Scribd onto Blogger. -
Pinterest
Website Link - https://uk.pinterest.com/
I used Pinterest to gather images during my research for the promotional package, including moodboards, like my Costume/Styling Moodboard. It was very easy to use in synergy with Google Images. -
Piktochart
Website Link - https://piktochart.com/
I found Piktochart to be a great way to present my work. There was a great collection of icons which could be placed in to make the documents look more interesting and it was easy to layout great designs and import pictures found online. I used it first to present my Final Costume Concept. It was easy to embed pages I had made onto my blog using HTML. -
Google Maps
Website Link - https://www.google.co.uk/maps
I used Google Maps when presenting my Location Recce. I was able to embed a route directly from the website onto Blogger, a very helpful use of cross-media convergence. -
ThingLink
Website Link - https://www.thinglink.com/
I used ThingLink to present my Digipak and Advert analyses, for example, the Digipak for Atrocity Exhibition. It worked well as a way of pointing out and writing about specific elements of the products. The only problem with using it was that I couldn't customise the style of the text or text boxes without paying for a subscription. -
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop was essential in the design of my print products and other work I did leading up to it, such as laying out the scans of the different panels for my Digipak Analysis. The program was fairly easy to use, but I encountered some problems with it, for example cropping individual layers, that I had to deal with by reading or watching in depth tutorials online. It was easy to export things I had created in a suitable cross-compatible format, for example PNG or JPEG. -
Scanner
I found scanners to be very helpful when I was analysing existing digipaks and posters because I was able to get good quality images of the products to present with my analyses. One disadvantage of the scanners was that they were not big enough to scan entire sides of digipaks or entire posters so I had to use photoshop to put together the partial scans I was able to take. -
Adobe InDesign
InDesign was essential in the construction of my print products, from the Digipak and Advert flatplans to the final artefacts. The program was quite difficult to use in general, with a number of strange settings that I had to get used to or find tutorials on how to deal with them. I think it was very useful in the end, however, helping me construct my print products. It was easy to export my work as high quality PNG images. -
Snipping Tool
This was a very useful tool when it came to showing my skills development as I was able to easily take screen grabs of particular areas of the screen and save them as PNGs. -
Slideshare
Website Link - https://www.slideshare.net/
Slideshare was another method for uploading presentations I made in PowerPoint to Blogger. I used it to present my Audience Feedback from the class viewing of my music video second edit. -
Soundcloud
Website Link - https://soundcloud.com/
I used Soundcloud to present Evaluation Question 2. I found it to be a very effective way of uploading a voice recording and it was easy to embed onto my blog. -
Timetoast
Website Link - http://www.timetoast.com/
I used this website to help me present Evaluation Question 4. I found it to be an interesting way to show the different technologies I used and document the times I used the, however, the 500 character word limit was quite restricting so I couldn't go in to full detail.
