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

Below are screen grabs of the programmes and technology I have used during this project whilst constructing, researching, planning and evaluating my products:

1. First is a screen grab from the website http://freeplaymusic.com/. This is a website that provides public domain music. I had never used this website before but it was fairly user friendly with music categorised through CD volume, style and feel. Sorting music by 'feel' was very helpful because we used music from this website for our trailer and therefore being able to find music by looking under 'Building Tension' or 'Sinister' etc saved a lot of time and enabled us to find exactly what we were looking for.

2. Next is a screen grab from Final Cut Pro. This is the programme we used to edit the footage for our trailer and add inter-titles and effects. I used this programme in the summer term when we made a couple of short films. However that only involved a small amount of editing whereas this time we used the programme very extensively to make sure every element of our trailer was how we wanted it. For example we used this programme to put a grade over  the footage to make it darker which was complex compared to what we had done in the summer term. This programme was helpful because otherwise our trailer would have been very basic and it would have been difficult to put the footage in the right order.

3. Then there is a screen grab from Blogger. This is the same website we used to present our work last year so I already knew the basics of using it. However this time I posted different things like slideshows, added links and embedded videos. I used Blogger to post all my work and it gave me a chance to present things in a way conventional essays don't. Since using Blogger for media I have also used it in other lessons. To the right is a screen grab from my language coursework in which I had to make a media text. I decided to do this in the form of a blog and since I had already learnt how to use Blogger in media I decided this was the best website to use. I made the entire blog using the tools on Blogger so knowing how to use it saved a lot of time and made the final product look more like a real blog. In this instance I feel the skills I had learnt in media influenced my work in other lessons because if I hadn't learnt to use Blogger I probably wouldn't have done a blog for my media text, I would have done something more traditional like a newspaper article.

4. Next to this is a picture of the camcorder we used; a Sony VX2100. We used this for almost all of our filming, there is only one shot that was filmed using a different one. We chose to use this camcorder because it was high quality and we decided it would look more authentic and consistent to only use one camera.

5. Next is screen grab from Flickr. This website allowed me to present annotation in a more interesting manner so the blog posts didn't just look like essays. I also used this website last year so I knew how to add notes to pictures as displayed in the screen grab. I used this website mostly for research into real media products, such as posters and magazine covers, because it made it easier to point out specific elements of the products. This then enabled me to consider which ideas I would like to build on in my own work.

6. Next is a screen grab from Photoshop, which I used to make my poster and magazine cover. I also used in it the research stages of the project to make a mood board. My mood board was research for my trailer and contained images, themes and ideas I would like to use. Photoshop was very useful for this as it allowed me to combine the separate images into one montage, which gave a better impression of what I wanted to achieve in my trailer than presenting them separately would have done. I used this programme last year so again I basically knew how to use it. However it is a complex programme and whilst using it this time I have learnt how to use more of the tools. For example I learnt how to blend different layers together like for the film title on my poster which I blended so it had a bark texture. Furthermore I have also used this programme in other lessons since learning how to use it in media. For example, like Blogger, I have also used it to aid me with my media text for my language coursework. In this instance I used Photoshop to paste in different sections of my blog and combine them together. I did this because I wanted my blog to print with the coloured background and without the web address at the top. I did this because I wanted my blog to look like an original and not like it had been printed off the Internet. Photoshop was very useful for this because I wouldn't have known how to do it using any other programme, and without media I wouldn't have known I could do it on Photoshop either so again this is an example of how media has improved my work in other subjects.

7. On the bottom layer is a screen grab from Slide Boom. I used Slide Boom to host Powerpoint presentations I had made. This website was helpful because it allowed me to present information in an interesting way. For example I made a presentation in the research stages of the project which I uploaded onto the website. This presentation contained data on audience research in relation to horror, which we gathered through the website Survey Monkey. Using Slide Boom allowed me to present this data in the form of a slideshow, which I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. I wanted to present this information in the form of a powerpoint because there was a lot of data and had it just been written out in paragraphs it may have became very tedious to read whereas having it as part of a slideshow breaks it up a little. Initially I was going to use Slide Share for the slideshow I made for my evaluation question, however I had put animation on the slideshow and Slide Share doesn't keep the animation. It also doesn't allow transition times between slides which was a problem as there wasn't enough time to read the information on the slides. However Slide Boom keeps the presentation exactly the same so this seemed like the better option.

8. The next screen grab is from YouTube. This was an extremely helpful website because, first of all, we were able to upload our trailer to it. This enabled it to be viewed by anyone so we could gain feedback and was the best way to put it on my blog. YouTube was also useful for research as I used it right from the beginning of the project, to find out what horror teaser trailers were, to the planning stages of our trailer when I was looking for ideas to build on.

9. The final screen grab is from SurveyMonkey. We used this website in the research stage of our project and it was very useful. It enabled us to make a survey, with both open and closed questions, and then it hosted it on the Internet. We used this website to make a survey which would gather audience responses to horror. When we had made the survey we linked it to our Facebook pages and 30 people responded. This gave us access to primary data which we were able to analyse and use to our advantage when making our trailer. I had never used this website before but it was fairly user friendly and easy to navigate and therefore I feel I have gained a skill I didn't have before this project.

Producing a piece of work in media is very different to how this would be done in a more essay based subject such as English. However the research stages may be quite similar, as both make extensive use of the Internet. However whereas media uses websites such as Flickr and SlideBoom to then present that research and a blog to host it, a subject such as English would not need presentations of this kind and therefore any useful information found on the Internet would ultimately end up as part of an essay. The actual piece of work would again be different. An essay for English would just be page after page of continuous prose, however, in media, products can be a variety of things such as a video or Photoshop products. Finally evaluation would also be very different. In English you may annotate an essay or write an evaluation paragraph as part of an investigation. However in media there are many means of evaluating ranging from a voice over to a slideshow to some paragraphs of text accompanied by pictures. Both of these approaches have strengths and weaknesses. The traditional approach is simpler and easier for people who are not visually creative. Also it only really needs a pen and paper which can be more reliable than the technology used in media. However the essay approach doesn't allow for any individualism or visual creativity and therefore can be tedious to do. The media approach allows for this creativity as a blog can be personalised in many ways and lots of different mediums can be used like video and images. Also the making of the products in media allows for practical work, like making the trailer, and more artistic work, like the poster and magazine cover. Furthermore in English there is a word count of say 3000 words for an essay, however on a blog there are no word counts and its easy to write 3 or 4 times this amount over the whole blog because each post is its own section and has its own topic, so writing a large amount doesn't become as tedious. Also because there are separate posts the piece of coursework becomes easier to edit because the blog doesn't have to work as fluently as a whole as an essay does. Finally media gives you the opportunity a learn a lot of new skills that traditional subjects don't, such as how to make a blog, edit images on Phototshop and make surveys online. However the media approach does also have weaknesses. It relies very heavily on technology which can go wrong and hinder work. There is also a lot to learn to be able to use programmes like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro to their potential. Finally things can become complicated to someone who is not particularly computer fluent and very difficult for someone who is not particularly visually creative or innovative. Personally, I prefer the media approach because I find it more interesting. Doing research through a website like YouTube instead of out of a book is not only more engaging but also easier because you can find what you're looking for in seconds by typing in a key word whereas it may take hours to find the right bit of information in a book. Furthermore I enjoy the freedom with pieces of work like the poster and the opportunity to do something practical like the trailer. However I do feel the media approach can be more complicated than the traditional one because some of the programmes we used are quite complex and this can cause problems.  

Overall I feel I used a lot of new media this year. Most of the technology I used, like Final Cut Pro, I hadn't ever been on much before so it took a while to learn how to use it. However once I had spent some time on it it became much easier and I was able to use it more to its potential. Also even with the programmes I had used, like Photoshop and Blogger, I was able to develop my skills further and even carry those skills across into my other lessons.