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

During the first stages of research and planning we completed our tasks without using media technologies. We did a lot of work by hand, like drawn drafts and storyboards etc. After creating these however, we had to use a scanner to upload these onto the blog. I was able to use the scanners easily at home as I had used them before but I'd never used them at college before so this took some getting used to.
During our research a key media technology was the internet. We used this to research into theories of documentary making, modes of documentaries and about possible topics for our documentary. The vast amount of information on the internet allowed us to make our documentary as informative as possible. We also used the internet to research for the statistics and figures that would feature in our documentary as well as the channel that it would air on. We researched ITV, Channel 4 and BBC before deciding on BBC Three.
Also during our research stages we looked at existing products. We did this so that we could find out what codes and conventions they used. To view these we had to use YouTube to access clips. As we already knew how to use YouTube, we found this was a quick and effective way to view the clips. Also, a lot of the presenting software I used to present my research allowed you to embed YouTube videos so I could show the videos as visual examples.
All of our research was presented on Blogger. This website proved extremely useful for us as it was an easy platform for all members of our group to present our work together. It was also very easy to go back and edit posts at a later date should we have needed to. You can save posts as drafts , embed videos and presentations and import photos all really easily using blogger.
Research and planning stages included a lot of finding out information and presenting it in different ways. For this I had to use a lot of different media technologies. I tried to keep the software I was using varied so that the posts were interesting and not repetitive. I used basic presentation software such as Prezi, Scribd and SlideShare as well as some more difficult to use softwares like Emaze, Kizoa, PowToon and Wideo.They were all relatively easy to get started on; you just sign up for an account for free and follow templates and guides to create the presentations. The only one I disliked was PowToon. I found this more difficult to use than the other websites and the presentations at the end weren't that good. It often crashed and the features didn't work. The only other website that wasn't very good was Wideo. It was fine to an extent but the presentations are limited to 47 seconds unless you upgrade to a paid for account and 47 seconds often wasn't enough time for
the exteneded research tasks we were completing. Emaze was probably my favourite as it enables you to create eye- catching, colourful presentations easily and quickly. I found this website through other people in my class using it.
Throughout the construction process we relied heavily on media technologies. During filming we used a camera to record all of our footage on. These were easy to use and we could also play back footage and transfer it onto the Macs easily. They allowed us to film in high quality and I learnt skills such as adjusting the focus and zoom to manipulate the image that was taken.The Macs were another piece of hardware that we relied on. All of our footage and pictures were put on there and the software that we used to create the documentary, double page spread and radio trailer were all accessed through the Mac.
We also had to use tripods. These were a vital piece of equipment to steady the camera and create smooth panning shots which were useful for filming background footage for the documentary. At first I found it difficult to set up the tripod so that the spirit level was even, but after a while of practising every day during our filming time I found it a lot easier and I became able to set up the tripod much quicker.
In the evaluation stage I tried to present my evalutation questions in a different way to all my research and planning- I tried different techniques and using different websites. For question one I used Emaze which I had used before but I had never used it for such an extensive piece. I embeded video and audio examples on Emaze which I had never done before. I found that fairly easy to do and an effective software to use. My question 2 was a video of me. I'd never uploaded a video commentary before so this was completely new. I used my mobile phone to film the clips and then an app called iMovie on my phone to edit the video together. I found it really easy and convinent that I was able to do it all on my phone. I then uploaded the video to YouTube, again through my phone, and embedded it onto Blogger. For question three I drew on the skills I had gained during construction and we filmed a focus group. We also took our skills from planning and created questionnaires.
1. I found an infographic website called piktochart that was a really good way of presenting charts and results from this. It was perfect for showing qualitive and quantative data. This website was really easy to use and I really liked the end result. I had also never used the website I presented this question in. This website is called Exam Time and can be used to create quizzes and mindmaps. I signed up and got started really quickly and it's simple to use.
We used a voice recorder tool quite frequently during the construction stage to record our voice over. We found on a few occasions we had to re-record clips and the sound levels weren't excellent but it didn't take much time to do this. The sound quality created is clear and was effective in both our documentary and radio trailer.
To create our documentary we used Adobe Premiere Pro. I had never used this software before so had no idea how to use it. With help from the other members of my group, I found it easy to pick up the skills needed. There's a variety of tools available on this programme that allow you to add your video and audio clips and images, layer them on the screen, split audio from video and cut the clips and arrange them as you want to. You can also have text on the screen, add transitions between clips and adjust sound levels which together helped us to create a smooth, professional looking documentary featuring fast and slick editing.
To create the double page spread we used Adobe InDesign. I was already fairly confident using this as I had used it during GCSE Media and AS level Media. We used the tools available on InDesign to follow the conventions of double page spreads such as having a bold headline, a standfirst, columns for our article, a pull quote, dropcap, captions on photos. All of these conventions were easy to create in InDesign. We successfully made a professional double page spread using this software.
Throughout all stages we kept in touch with each other in our group on Facebook. We created a Facebook group with just ourselves in so that we could post messages and photos for each other to see. This was a very effective way of using social media to stay in touch with each other outside of lessons and share our ideas and work before completing tasks and publishing them on our blog.

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

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	Created by hayleysoen about 9 years ago