Question 1

How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction

and evaluation in your project?

By Sam Oswick

RESEARCH

Logic Pro for quality recording and editing of sound files from our focus groups. This technology enabled us to remove background noise and interference using various tools embedded in the software meaning we managed to get clean recordings of our focus groups to listen to back over.

HD Cameras to capture video footage of our focus groups as well as our target market interviews. We didn’t need to use fancy industry cameras with expensive lenses as the shots we required were simple still long shots mounted on a static tripod. Because of this, we found that the filming process was very straight forward, as we didn’t have to spend much time at all trying to work out shot types and angles.

Social networking in the form of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to broadcast our research questionnaires to a wider audience. We found that sharing a digital link online with social media websites was easy and quick to do resulting in a wider range of feedback. However, we did come across some negative uses for this technology as some of the answers we received in our questionnaires were not taken seriously meaning some of the feedback we received had to be instantly dismissed.

Premiere Pro to edit our target market and focus group footage together. We decided to use this software as the editing required wasn’t very complex at all, therefore, we didn’t need to use a more in depth editing software such as Final Cut. The technology did have some useful tools and functions on offer to us such as colour correction and video effects however; we did not need to use any of these as we just needed to create a simple video for us to refer back on.

PLANNING

Prezi to show our initial ideas for our music video. We decided to use Prezi over possible alternatives such as Powerpoint because we found that there was much more you could do with the software to present your ideas in a visual way. As we had many in depth ideas for our music videos, we needed to present them in a way that wouldn’t bore people; therefore we made use of Prezi’s “path” feature which enabled you to create different paths between different slides which resulted in a fun and interactive way of presenting the ideas. Having used the software before last year in AS media, I was able to develop my skills on the software by experimenting with new tools and functions to make the presentations even better.

Photoshop to design initial and developed ideas for our digipak and website. Although we only had to design roughs, we still thought that Photoshop would be the appropriate technology to use as its industry level meaning we would be creating professional looking products. This came in handy when designing the actual products as we could refer to our already realistic designs that meaning we didn’t have to completely start from scratch. We also used Photoshop to design our band logo instead of using a simpler program such as Publisher. The reason for creating it on Photoshop was because you can layer individual parts of the image making it easier to move certain things around. Furthermore, you can save the finished designs as

PowToon for our Final Product Choices task. We chose to use this software as we had already used Powerpoint and Prezi so we wanted to vary up our use of technologies as much as possible for two reasons. Firstly so our coursework contained a wide range of variety in terms of how we presented our work but secondly, we wanted to challenge ourselves by learning how to use unfamiliar technologies such as PowToon. Having never used the software before, it was hard to get my head round it at first but after spending a couple of hours, I was able to create an effective presentation using the software.

Infogr to present our production roles. This is a technology that I had never used before and did not know how in depth the software actually was. Looking back on it, I would have produced this task using a different piece of technology as I now understand that Infogr has much more uses than just listing words such as adding graphs and charts with annotations which would have been more fitting for one of the research tasks we did.

CONSTRUCTION

Final Cut Express and Premiere Pro CS6 to edit the music video. When we first started to edit our footage, we decided to edit on Final Cut Express as the software was available to us in our college for completely free meaning we could all work on the video when we wanted to. I found the technology to be very useful as it featured numerous amounts of tools that we used to help enhance our music video. We used the “colour correction” tool frequently to change the tone of the lighting on some of the shots that looked too bright or dark. I also found myself using the “razorblade” tool frequently to precisely split audio and video clips apart so I could use two different segments from the same clip instead of having to import the clip into the timeline again and trim it down manually. I also made use of the “video transitions” tool by inserting fades into some of the videos transitions. One of the problems we found with Final Cut Express was that it took a very long time to render a clip when it had been altered making the editing process become very tedious and time consuming. To speed up the production of our music video, we decided to transfer the files to one of our group member’s computer as he had Premiere Pro CS6 to edit the files on. This meant that we all couldn’t edit the music video when we wanted to, however, we all found the time to go round and help edit it. I found Premiere Pro CS6 a lot easier to use than Final Cut as I preferred the layout and the simplicity as the majority of the tools that I required were available on a toolbar. Furthermore, the software doesn’t take any time at all to render files when adding enhancements to video clips meaning the process was a lot quicker than we planned.

Squarespace and Moonfruit to create the website for our band. Like the music video, we changed the software midway through creating the product. We started on Squarespace and during the short period that we used it for, we learnt a lot about webpage designing. It was a very good technology as it offered lots of tools that professional webpage designer’s use, however, only the first month of use was free meaning we would have to pay a monthly subscription to use the software again. After doing some research, I found Moonfruit and I instantly fell in love with its easy to use interface. The tools were laid out clearly on the top of the page resulting in a quick website building process. One of my favourite tools that Moonfruit offered that Squarespace didn’t provide was the “Add Widget” tool. This tool enabled me to add a TwitterFeed and s YouTube Video Player to our page which gave it a social networking focus.

Photoshop for creating our Digipak. Having used the software last year in AS Media for the creation of my music magazine, I thought it would be the best way to create our digipak as the possibilities are endless with the varied amounts of tools that the program offers. I also thought it would be useful to use as it would develop and further my skills on Photoshop which it did. I found myself playing around with the “Image Adjustments” tool the most when creating the Digipak as it had to look sketchy and some of the photos we used on our digipak looked too clean.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I think I can say that I used a wide range of different technologies during the process of creating my three media products, If I’d have to pick two that were most beneficial to me, I’d have to say they were Moonfruit and Premiere Pro as they were two technologies that I had never used before. Using Moonfruit helped me learn more about web design which was a completely alien topic to me before the start of this coursework and Premiere Pro furthered my understanding of editing.