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Evaluate what you have learned about media technologies through the process.

Cosmic digital tech eval

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Page 1: Cosmic digital tech eval

Evaluate what you have learned about media technologies through the process.

Page 2: Cosmic digital tech eval

Use of Technology for Research

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Internet based Research

Advantages – • There is a lot of in-depth

information available online• It’s all in one place so it’s easily

accessible• You can refine your research using

key words to help focus the results• There is practically nothing that is

not on the internet.

Disadvantages – • The information available could

be unreliable or bias.• Some websites allow users to

edit their information like Wikipedia so the info could be false.

• Vague of irrelevant knowledge.• Time-consuming finding discrete

information especially if using search browsers.

Internet-Based Research

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Search Engines

• They’re well known like Google and Firefox.• Offer a wide range of information and various sources

to choose from.• You can refine your search by using key words.• Easy to use, colourful, large text, friendly logo.• Search engines have other features like Yahoo Mail and

Google Hangouts.

Search Engines

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Availability of Information

From using search engines lots of information is available from various sources.

Wide variety of sources available like film clips, pictures, blog posts etc.

Different ways of researching with different tabs.

Easy to research as the most relevant information appears at the top of the page

Availability of Information

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However, if you research a popular topic it could be time-consuming trying to find specific information.

Websites like Wikipedia and IMBd usually have the same information. However, this can be useful for cross-checking accuracy.

Danger of Repetition

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IMDb

This is a film-specific site that has a lot of facts and statistics as well as useful plot summaries, critical and viewer reviews and trivia.

This kind of site shows the value of digital technology as it is easily available and a great collaborative online resource.

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Wikipedia

Another great collaborative site which helped to start the wiki culture that digital technology promotes. We have used this site extensively.

There are often concerns about using wikipedia. There are obviously issues with accuracy, but the whole point of a wiki culture is that these are flagged up and amended by other users.

There is often a snobbery associaed with this site which seems unfair.

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SoundBible

This was a hugely useful free sound effects site. We relied on this quite heavily because we started our film opening with a soundscape under out credits.

One of the real advantages of digital technology is that you can find so much of what you need for free and it s easily downloaded and manipulated to exactly what you want.

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Art of the Title

This was a useful site for researching credits as it is so specific. We also took the idea of creating a contact sheet to show genre from here.

This shows that the value of digital technology is that it allows similarly-minded people to share their interests.

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YouTube

YouTube is an incredible site that allowed us to research many films in our genre as well as many film openings quickly and easily.

Without this kind of technology our research would have been slow, laborious and probably expensive.

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Freeplay Music

This is an online library of copyright free music. It was rather overwhelming at times – there is so much music on here and you could not possibly listen to all the tracks that come up under your search filters. However, it has a comprehensive collection in many styles, the searches can be quite advanced and it is easy to download and then manipulate the music further.

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Use of Technology for Planning

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• A camera was used in order to take pictures of our storyboard which we could then upload to Blogger by saving them from the SD card.

• This was relatively easy to use although it did take us some time to learn how to adjust the focus.

• We also found that it was difficult to frame each shot perfectly. We did not mind this for our animatic as it is at best a rough guide, but for more professional photography this would need to be addressed.

Use of Camera for Stills Photography

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• These were used to film our presentation of our general ideas for the final coursework, as well as being used for filming our final piece.

• They were a useful tool throughout the coursework, especially due to their high quality film.

• Part of our planning time was spent learning to use the cameras efficiently.

• We did find that we could not achieve everything we hoped for. For example, we found it difficult to focus at the end of a whip pan and were not able to pull focus successfully in a key shot at the end.

Use of Camera for Video Filming

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• Blogger was used throughout the coursework and was helpful as it gave us a platform to put our planning ideas on.

• We were able to post all of the stages of our planning onto Blogger as well as explain our ideas and how we got to them

Use of Blogger for Storing Planning and Research

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Use of Blogger for Organising Work

Blogger is a great organisational tool. Work can be titles so that it can be searched for, labelled by name and is stored chronologically so it is easy to find.

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Use of Blogger for Comment and Review

We were able to look back over work and comment on what we had presented – these comments apply to our first presentation of our ideas to the class, for example, and this gave us a good chance to share our ideas of how this went with each other and with the class teacher without having to wait for the next lesson.

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Use of Blogger for Reaching an Audience

Our stats page suggests that we have had views from round the globe. This is an audience that would not have been possible if we were not using a digital hosting site such as Blogger. While there may not be large audiences tracking our work, it still has a reach we would not have estimated before the start of the project.

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Use of Technology for Construction

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Advantages• Easy to create simple ideas such as logos and

different effects.• We created our initial logo idea on Photoshop and

also the CCTV effects• Huge number of features e.g. able to create 3D

images and graphic designs.• Has a lot of community support as you are able to

find tutorials online and able find help/support when encountering an issue.

Disadvantages• Can be time consuming if you are new to the

software as learning numerous effects/tools can take a lot of time.

• Does not have a user friendly interface unless you know what you are doing.

• It has compatibility issues on anything other than other Adobe products.

• Images can become very pixelated when enlarged.

Use of Photoshop for Logo and Video Effects

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After Effects

Advantages• It integrates well with adobe Photoshop as both are from the same company• Easy to import Photoshop single layers onto After Effects• Made the making of our Ident easier since we made it on Photoshop• You are able to work with 3D images and convert 2D images to 3D

Disadvantages• Takes time to learn all the features and be familiar with the interface• Rendering time takes a while if your Ident is a higher resolution• Expensive so we had to use the trial version, could only do the work at home• Complex effects will need a lot more RAM to render

Use of After Effects for Ident

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Manipulating Images

Here we are trimming and ordering our clips on the timeline and then adding credits over the top using images imported from LiveType (the black boxes).

Final Cut is useful because it allows you to build up your piece in layers, importing separate sections until you have the whole image you want.

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Manipulating Sound

This shows two separate sections where we have worked hard on sound. The first is a sound scape under the opening credits where we have layered different sounds together for an overall effect.

The second shows a key moment of dialogue where the main character is hearing voices from the past in his head. Again, this needed to be built up in layers as we added different levels of a reverb effect to the sound clip we looped.

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Sound and Image Together

This view of our overall timeline is a good image to show the value of Final Cut – building up separate components of sound and image until you have the sequence you are happy with.

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Advantages• There are Multiple ways to approach the editing in Final Cut Express• Has a user friendly interface, simple layout with direct effects• Has a variety of effects for sound and video e.g. filters and blurs• Motion tool helped place credits from Live type.• Easy to Import files to Interface e.g. Mp3 files and Video clips

Disadvantages• Editing both ways is time consuming • Learning how to start using Final Cut Express for the first time is difficult• Easy to lose work as the timeline is important to the whole work.

Use of Final Cut for Video and Sound

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Advantages• The easiest way to make credits as it is

especially made for the job• You are able to add a variety of effects (e.g.

fades and entries) suited to our film• Easy to export and then import to Final Cut

Express• Has an extremely friendly interface, able to

use as a beginner

Disadvantages• Some fonts were not available to use on

Final Cut Express• So the amount of changes we could do to

each text were kept at a minimal• Text and effects where sometimes too

simple and not complex enough for what we wanted

Use of LiveType for Credits and Title

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Use of Technology for Evaluation

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• In order to present our evaluation we have been using Blogger, a website that allows users to post articles and blog posts online.

• We have already been using Blogger when collecting research and planning for our final piece, which made it easier for us to link our evaluation posts to our research and planning. Most of the comments made about Blogger in that section are valid here too.

Use of Blogger for Evaluation

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• This also helped us make it clear that some of the things we had gone over in the evaluation posts had already been researched previously, for example we had done some research into our chosen genre before writing out the evaluation of whether or not we successfully portrayed our genre in our final piece.

Use of Blogger for Linking Research and Planning

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• Blogger also adds a comment section to each post, which helped us in our evaluation as we were given the unbiased feedback of others as to how we were progressing with our work. We were able to make useful contact with other media students we have never even met through Blogger.

• This in turn helped us in our evaluation as we knew more about where we went wrong and what went well, which gave us more to write about.

Use of Blogger for Feedback

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• Using Blogger allowed us to present our evaluations in a variety of formats.

• This made for a more interesting and reader-friendly evaluation.

• It also allowed us to work together and as individuals.

• It encouraged us to be more creative in our ideas.

• Some of the formats are explored below.

Blogger and Technological Convergence

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Multimedia Format - Slideshow

This evaluation has been presented in this format because:- There is a lot of

supporting visual evidence and we needed a format that would work well with this

- We could all contribute equally without repeating ourselves.

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Multimedia Format – Edited Presentation

Here we decided our discussion around distribution needed a longer format because there were many options to consider and we did not all share the same opinions. Therefore we recorded this as a debate and also edited it with LiveType annotations as rough ‘chapter headings’ and images so that the debate could be watched on fast forward and paused at pints the viewer might wish to know more about.

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Multimedia Format – Mind Map

We returned to our definition of our target audience and evaluated our intial ideas a a mind map. This allowed us to cover the initial ideas briefly without repeating them and to explain changes in our opinions. It also allowed us to include diagrams and charts of key statistics to support our views.

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Multimedia Format – Contact Sheet

This contact sheet was created using Photoshop. It allowed us to give a sense of our piece overall without having to embed the whole video. It also allowed us to describe key moments to show our use of genre conventions and share these moments with the reader.

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• Easy to use and a good online database for storing our work.

• The fact that all of our work is in one place makes it easier to link Researching, Planning and Evaluation together.

• Having a comment section on each article provides unbiased feedback which can help improve our work.

Blogger – Advantages for Evaluation

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Summary

We could not have completed this coursework without digital technology. The skills of using pre-digital formats are slowly being lost, and we certainly don’t have them.

We needed technology at every stage, not just on the more obvious construction stage.

We are aware that digital technology has made some of the stages so much easier than it must have been in the past e.g. research.

However, we did find ourself using non-technological approaches – debates, discussions, handwritten notes, drawn storyboards, sketches – these were all very useful too and at times seemed the more appropriate format.