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

I used a wide variety of technology during this course, some new to me and others that I was used to. The main piece of equipment we used was our camera, a standard Sony DV. Now as good as this was back in it’s prime with what would have been amazing quality, it really doesn’t hold a candle to the many other cameras that have such a better video, and sound quality. As cameras were limited and we didn’t have the funds personally to buy a new camera we stuck with it. At the end of the day it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it, we used the tripod that came with it, which helped to do some scenes. Editing it was difficult as we had to use a select cable that the college had, and unfortunately we couldn't’t take it home, but if we had a newer camera which took SD cards, we would have been able to the card home to continue editing at home.

Cameras

I used Adobe Photoshop and InDesign to help me create my Digipacks and print adverts. I had some difficulties with these programs as I wasn’t used to them as I’ve done As and A2 side by side. So while I didn't have the experience as everyone else I did try hard to get to grips with the programs. After using them I discovered their potential and was able to fully use my capabilities to get as much as needed out of them. I feel that if I had more time on the project I could of explored more effects and tools which were available in the programs to make my final products even better.

Photoshop and InDesign

The main program I used throughout this course was blogger. This was an easy program or me to get used and be able to work all the kinks in it. I found it easy embedding and putting, other programs on it, like SlideRocket. I barely had any problems with this, apart from trying to embed as the codes wouldn’t show. It’s also was an easy and simple way of presenting our work and findings.

Blogger

We used Final Cut Express, as our editing program, as it s easier to use then some others, and was more professional then others too. Being new to the whole editing side and using Final Cut, it provided some challenges for us to overcome. Using effects was the most difficult one, trying to place them at the right time, and making sure that it didn’t look awful. We only used the effects when needed, but the most difficult one and also the best effect we used, was at the end with the crash sequence, and with the final version of our video came off looking beautiful. In the end it was the best choice to go with, but no program is without its fault, and it is tricky to get it to do what you want, but the options it gives us in editing gave us a much wider choice.

Final Cut Express

Using the Apple Macs made life a lot easier. Being only used to Windows then using a Mac, you could definitely see the difference. The Macs worked so much faster and ran more smoothly, and crashed barely ever. They also included all the programs we needed like Photoshop and Final Cut, already preloaded on them. The Macs were incredibly useful all the way through, as it just didn’t take ages to load up programs and pages.

Apple Macs

I used Slideshare and Sliderocket to my PowerPoint presnetations on my blog. These were a God send that made life a lot easier, and meant that I didn’t have to write posts which don’t look as nice as PowerPoints. They were really easy, straight forward programs to use, and just do what you need.

Sliderocket and Slideshare

I used YouTube a lot throughout this course, referring back to other music videos and other amateur music videos, taking inspiration and ideas from them. Being a frequent user of YouTube for many years, I was used to it and had no problems using it in this course. We also used YouTube to help us with our editing, as we weren’t sure how to speed things up on it, but we were able to find a video that explained how to do it. YouTube was such a big help in this, because of Web 2.0 allowing people to share their ideas and creations from all around the world.

YouTube

I used dafont to browse a wide selection of Fonts that would be appropriate for the use of my media products. There were thousands to choose from, and it was difficult to pick one that would suit, and go well with all the media products. The site was easy to navigate through, and offered a lot of small thing that would help pick e.g. able to see what your text would look like in that font.

Dafont

I was able to download the Blogger App on my phone, this proved useful as I could access my blog anywhere as long as I had a connection to the internet, and able to keep updated on my blog.

During this course I could see a lot Technological determinism. Most noticeable is YouTube and Blogger, and that they are purely sociable, and with Web 2.0 they are successful. These websites reflect us, and what we want. I feel as that they was limits with the technology we used, either not being a state of the art piece of equipment or something that I wasn’t used to. Some aspects I was able to do exactly what I wanted. So I think I was in between of letting technology having a say, and myself, but I feel that the balance has been good, and I’ve been able to achieve what my target has been.