Evaluation Question 4 (J.H)

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

For the research, planning and production of my media work I used a variety of technologies. The main one being the Apple Mac, which I used for everything including Imovie and Blogger. I have used the Macs for many years now so I know how to use them properly, but due to the Macs being from Apple there is always a blocked plug in when trying to watch videos or make Prezi's as these things are not compatible. There is also a downside about using the schools accounts due to a lot of the websites and images being blocked, this was the problem for us at the beginning of the year as Blogger was blocked for about 3 weeks.

The second main technology that I used during my media course was my digital camera. I already knew how to use this to take photographs, and I also had experience with filming but filming the scenes for my music video was the first time that I had filmed on my camera. Doing this was easy, although I had to experiment with different angles due to the bad lighting in the toilets scenes and I also had to learn how to transfer the footage from my camera to the Mac computer, as at first I wasn't sure whether they would be compatible. 

Another main piece of media technology that I used was Blogger, as I had to use it to post all of my planning and research that led up to making the music video. I found that blogger was easy to use as I used it last year in my AS course, although I did have some difficulties while using it as the website was blocked. One thing I don't like about blogger in school is that when you are editing a post, the images that you upload to that post are never visible, this makes it hard to rearrange the images so has to be all done at home.

I also used my iPhone throughout this course to install the blogger app which came in handy when I needed to quickly edit a post on my blog or quickly add a picture, this app was useful to me as I could do it on the go. I also used my phone to look at music videos on the YouTube app and to find pictures that could be included on my blog. YouTube was also useful for us to be able to advertise our music video and then embed it onto our blogs.

Another form of advertising was for me to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote my music video, this was successful as it reached our target audience of 12-18 year olds as these networking sites are popular for that age group. Jodie also used Twitter to request for Katy Perry's permission to use her song for our music video.

One of the main apps I used for our music video was Imovie, and since we made an opening sequence to a horror movie last year we knew how to use it, so we didn't have to waste time trying to learn new things. As I was the one who edited the music video, it did take up a lot of my time trying to get it all to a good standard and how we wanted it, all edited in time with the beat and lyrics. While using Imovie this year I have learnt new ways to edit, from other class mates, which we couldn't find out ourselves. This was mostly the edit of the flashbacks in the toilet while the bully had his head in his hands, where we had to edit the clip on top of another clip.

The second main app I used for my blog work was Photoshop, which I had only used once a couple of years ago. I had to use this to produce my digipak, magazine advert, and my media showcase poster. I got the hang of Photoshop quite fast just by messing around with different tools and now find it quite easy to use.

Whilst writing up my evaluation I decided to include more technologies to make my work more interesting. To do this I used a Prezi for my question 2 just to make it more appealing and interesting to read. I used Prezi quite a lot last year for my horror movie so I knew how to use it so it didn't take me to long.

Also for my evaluation and throughout the rest of my blog I have used gifs, which come in handy as you can include more than one picture or a piece of film you want. I have made these on Makeagif.com which has come in very handy and makes my blog look less boring.