EVALUATION 6: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM

THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT? 

From constructing Exposure, I have developed upon my technological skills; not only digitally, but also upon the use of camerawork and technological equipment in order to produce the final product. On top of the creation of my media blog (which in itself was a whole new setting for me), I, and as a group, have progressed our skills in the following technologies which all were highly useful in the creation of our final piece:

• iMovie/ Moviemaker,

• Prezi,

• Social Medias (such as Facebook),

• YouTube,

• MixCraft6,

• And Audacity.

In the beginning…

Previous to this AS media studies course, I had never really had much use with Blogger, for this reason I was unsure as to how good my quality of work would be, however, I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating my blog page as it allows you to be creative in the way you present your work, and I have likewise learnt a lot along the way!

From the use of Blogger I have learnt to embed YouTube video’s and Power point's, as well as Prezi’s; something of which I had not have expected to have been able to do previously.

As a result of the creation of my blog, I have come to realize the effectiveness of developing a blog to share my work and so for this reason feel I am highly likely to go on using blogger to share my work with friends and family in the future.

Blogger:

Once again, previous to this media course I had had little previous experience of using iMovie and Moviemaker. Moviemaker especially was particularly effective in creating my video whereby I filmed myself speaking to the camera. In order to aid in the creation of this I used Audacity as I applied a voice over at various times. Through the use of the Audacity software I was able to change the volume, pitch and tone of my voice, as well as overlap the soundtracks- this was predominantly very helpful in the creation of my voiceover for my audience profile evaluation.

Whilst I specifically used Moviemaker to produce my evaluations, which is produced by Microsoft, as a group we alternately used iMovie, an Apple production, to edit and create our preliminary and final piece. We were able to order, trim and change the speed of the footage we recorded, which for me especially was a new experience. On top of this, I feel that through the use of iMovie it allowed us to apply the optimum non-diegetic sound track- this is especially reflected in the antagonists realization that his corruption has been uncovered by the protagonist. This non-diegetic sound was also made possible as a result of theMixcraft6 software.

iMovie/ Moviemaker and Audacity:

Lastly, on both iMovie and Moviemaker I have learnt how to import and export images and YouTube Videos (as well as the process of exporting the movie itself to YouTube) and also how to create overlapping text on top of the film as shown in Evaluation Question 7.

DSLR CAMERA

Throughout the filming of our final piece we used a DSLR High Definition Camera. Being the cameraman for the majority of the filming process, I feel that I have especially progressed my quality of filming considering that previous to this I had not really had much experience at filming using a HD camera and I likewise feel I have learnt a lot about different techniques we can use whilst using the camera. Perhaps the best example of this was in filming the focus pull shot of the protagonist (Dom) and the door in the background. In order to film this shot I had to twist the front of the camera in order to put the foreground in and out of focus- hence creating the focus pull; this is something I had never done before so I therefore strongly feel I have developed my camera skills.

POWERPOINT/ PREZI

At multiple times throughout the research attributed to this media project I have used a PowerPoint or Prezi to present my work. In my opinion this (especially Prezi) is a creative way of presenting my findings in an appealing manner. Moreover, on the process of creating these presentations I actually learnt a few useful tips on how to use them more effectively.

Firstly, I learnt how to embed a soundtrack (or voiceover) on top of a Prezi presentation- this takes away the tediousness of having to simply read slides of information when presenting. On top of this, I have learnt more sophisticated ways in which to crop an image on Microsoft’s PowerPoint; this will undoubtedly be very handy in presentations to come!

SOCIAL MEDIA

Throughout the production and planning process of Exposure, our group continually used social media, predominantly Facebook Messenger, to communicate and share ideas with one another regards our media work. This allowed us to give feedback on music we made and send photos/ images to one another for our evaluations. Evidently, this form of technology allowed us to become more efficient regards the production process and effective when it came to the final filming on Exposure. I therefore came to learn how useful social media can be when working in team projects.

YouTube became vital throughout the media course, not only to search for videos as research to thriller conventions, but also to upload our evaluations and final piece to make it accessible. For me this was a whole new experience, I had never, previous to this, uploaded anything to YouTube. Once uploaded to YouTube I continued to learn how to embed this video into Blogger, or to export it into software's such as iMovie.

A SUMMARY…

Overall, it is clear that technology played a major role in creating our final piece. But, in more detail, it is important to note the role of technology in creating a more effective and efficient process of making the final piece- for instance the already mentioned usage of a focus pull. So, not only have I learnt about the mechanics of how to use various software’s such as iMovie and Audacity, but I have also learnt about the large impact technology can have in making team projects more controllable and creating a way in which to appeal to different audiences through using various technological techniques (such as a fitting non-diegetic soundtrack).