EVALUATION: In what ways did you use media technologies in the constuction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the development of my project, I used many media technologies. To create the Ancillary tasks I used Photoshop CS5. I have had previous experience with this programme as I used it last year, however this time my skills will appear more advanced as I used tools that I didn’t use last year. One example of this was the use of ‘refine edge’. After using the magic wand tool to select everything that I needed for my image, I then refined the edge so I could select the hair of my model (which was curly). This is one way in which my skills have progressed as I hadn’t come across this before. To take these images I used a stills camera and a tripod.

I also used many media technologies during my research and planning stages. To start, I set up my own blog (www.blogspot.com). This allowed for me to become the prosumer, displaying my progress in a multimedia way. The first programme I used was YouTube. This allowed for me to research the style models that I needed for the typical documentary. I later used some of the techniques that I gathered in my own project.

I mainly used two programmes to display my work during this stage. The first of which was slide share. This way I was able to post my presentations online and later onto my blog, which I had created on Microsoft PowerPoint. Another programme that I used which is similar to this is Prezi. I used this programme to present the information which I wanted to convey in a more interactive way for the audience to read.

During the construction, I used a HD film camera. I used this camera to gain all the footage that I needed for my final project. I found it quite simple to use these cameras, and I sued a tripod throughout to make sure that I gained a stable shot. When it came to editing these clips together I used the iMovie on an Apple Mac computer. Through this programme I was able to use transitions such as fade to allow for the clips to flow better. I also used text on my project, as I was able to create headings when a new person appeared to talk. This allowed for the audience to keep up with what was going on throughout. The main issue that I had with this programme was the sound. There was a lot of background noise in some of my shots which I struggled to eliminate completely. Therefore, if I had the opportunity to complete this task again I would fix this error through the filming process.

Throughout the editing process, I also used a voice recorder. This allowed for me to drop my voice overs on top of the footage that I had already gained, thus adding additional information in which the audience might be interested to hear.

Through the evaluation, as well as using the same methods I used in the research and planning, such as Prezi, I also used the HD Camera to talk into. This was important as it meant that my audience wouldn’t just be reading through my blog and that it is a lot more interactive.