1. HOW DIDYOU USE MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES INTHE
CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH &
PLANNING AND EVALUATION
STAGES?
Question 4
2. Introduction
■ The first steps towards producing my products were the research and planning that I
incorporated into my ideas and concepts. I mainly used software to do this however,
an iPhone 6 camera was used to record evidence that I wanted to show on my blog.
Apart from this, a Sony 858 DSLR camera was used to shoot the actual movie itself,
these were the main pieces of hardware as I mainly stuck to using software’s that I will
mention throughout.
3. Blogger
■ Prior to mentioning the individual
software’s and hardware’s that I
used in the three development
stages of my work, the most
important site to start off with is
Blogger.This was the software that
my blog was formed on, it gave me
the ability to insert and embed text,
images and videos that contributed
to the research & planning,
construction and evaluation stages.
So, it is safe to say that
Blogger.com is the most significant
new media technology that was
used throughout my project.
4. Smartphone
■ Another crucial piece of
technological hardware that is used
throughout the three stages was my
iPhone 6.This allowed me to capture
photos, make emails, communicate
with my target audience, text the
members of my group to organise
recording days, create the voiceover
for my evaluation of audience
feedback and update my blog as I
was able to connect to the internet. I
think that without my smartphone,
it would have been difficult to
arrange a lot of things.
5. Laptop
■ MyTOSHIBA laptop was another
piece of hardware which allowed
me to develop as I would not have
been able to do the vast amount
of editing and work I needed to do
for certain tasks to go on the blog.
It allowed me to use a range of
Adobe CS6 software’s with which I
could create and manipulate
images and edit my movie and
other videos. I could also connect
to the internet to find all sorts of
research, files and examples in
addition to uploading my work to
Blogger.
6. Camera
■ A Sony 858 DSLR camera was
used to shoot the footage for
my movie.This is a proficient
piece of hardware used by many
photographers and
videographers.This gave the
film a professional feel as the
shots were clear and detailed. I
found using this camera simple
and exciting as it is essentially
what makes a film.The clips
were easy to retain as I would
just remove the SD card and
upload them to my laptop where
the editing would take place.
7. Google
■ My research and planning all began
with Google.This browser was vital to
research images of posters, find
websites and learn, e.g. conventions of
horror films with abandoned houses
and horror films in general. Google
Images was crucial as I would not have
been able to access a range of movie
posters and existing reviews that
sparked my understanding of
paranormal films and their conventions.
By using this software, I have been able
to analyse, compare and annotate
existing films, posters and reviews that I
felt were relevant to my short film.
8. YouTube
■ YouTube has been played a key role in the
three stages, especially the construction and
evaluation stages.This is a powerful piece of
new media that gave me insight into what I
was doing through researching existing short
horror films and listen to influential sounds.
YouTube was used to look at other movies so
I could find out what editing techniques were
utilised to link shots together and how these
conventions should be conformed to or
challenged in my film.With this software, I
was also able to upload all the drafts of my
movie and embed them into my blog to get
feedback.This was effective as it was an easy
service to use and provided a simple
platform to showcase my film for my target
audience to respond to.
9. YouTube Converters
■ YouTube converters were used
to download sound clips, with
no copyright, fromYouTube to
My Documents.These were
edited in Premier Pro to play at
the right moments in the film,
effective in scaring the
audience. I found these
converters really simple to use
and to get clips that I couldn’t
source from anywhere else.
10. Survey Monkey
■ To produce an easily accessible
questionnaire, I decided to use Survey
Monkey; an online questionnaire
creator. I wanted my survey to be
accessible to as many people as
possible so being online only made
sense.As technology has advanced,
people would rather use their
smartphones to do everything rather
than sit down with a pen and paper. I
produced the questionnaire and
uploaded to social media as well as
sending out to friends and family.This
allowed me to access a wide
demographic making my results
effective. I found this site easy and
others who completed the survey also
spoke highly of it.
11. Prezi
■ Prezi is a great piece of software that
creates visually exciting presentations
for my blog. I used this mostly during
my research and planning stage as I
found it was an easy way to break and
analyse existing films for example. I
decided not to use Prezi for my
evaluation stage as I want to show that
I can use a range of formats to present
my findings.As well as this, I found that
Prezi is quite time consuming and the
editor must have lots of patience as the
programme can be quite slow.
12. Slideshare
■ Microsoft PowerPoint and
Slideshare are two pieces of
software that fit together well to
produce embedded presentations. I
used the two to create a more
interactive and new media aspect
to my blog, avoiding just uploading
JPEG images of a PowerPoint
presentation. Slideshare makes the
presentation visually stylish and is
very easy to use which does not
waste any time.
13. Powtoon
■ PowToon is a fun and interactive
software that makes presentations
visually entertaining.This site I found
quite difficult to use as the tools were
very limiting and the site applied
things I didn’t want to use. It was also
very time consuming, when creating a
very short presentation an individual
does not expect to use up hours of
their time. I used this only once during
my research stage but besides this, it
was a different way of using new
media technology on my blog as I was
able to embed the presentation.
14. Bubbl.us
■ Bubbl.us was a site that allowed me to
make visual aids such as diagrams that
broke down the evaluation of my first
draft. I completed a mini evaluation of
the four questions from the start of
the project to the first draft of my
movie, this made me see what needed
to change and what was working. I did
use a brainstorm template to present
my responses but, I feel that this
software was just another way of using
a diagram that can be colour coded
and easy to read.
15. Animoto
■ Animoto was another fun site to use
which created visually pleasing photo
presentations that I could embed into
my blog to present my second
evaluation question.This was a good
software to use as I saved my
PowerPoint as JPEG images and
uploaded them to the site which
created a mini video with smooth
transitions and eerie music to match
the horror theme. I liked this software
as it was easy to use and quite
interactive. Only downfall was the fact
that you would have to have a
membership to remove the big
watermark from the video.
16. Kizoa
■ Kizoa lets you create a video
from images, similar to
Animoto.This was another
way I could showcase my
presentation with just posting
it straight onto my blog. It
makes my blog look more
diverse and shows the range
of platforms I have used. I
found this easy to present the
first question of my evaluation
as it was quite self-
explanatory and did not leave
a massive watermark on the
video.
17. StoryboardThat
■ I used StoryboardThat to produce a
storyboard that showed the desired
layouts of my film ideas. I made two
storyboards, one for my initial idea
and another for the idea I went
ahead with. I found this very easy to
use due to the shortcuts of
characters and settings.This made
my ideas come to life and I was able
to see what I wanted, where.
However, I would say the site itself
had quite a lag and you could only
use a certain number of squares until
having to pay a fee.
18. Screencast-O-Matic
■ Screencast-O-Matic was used
when recording the screen of
my laptop when showing the
creation processes of my
poster and review. I found this
extremely simple to use, and
effective as all that was
required was to download a
start-up tool. Recording my
screen and doing a voiceover
seemed more creative to do
than screenshot a step-by-step
guide.This also showed that I
could use a variety of
software’s to portray my work.
19. Soundcloud
■ For my third evaluation question, I
used SoundCloud; an online audio
distribution platform. Here I
uploaded an audio clip recording I
made using my phone. I then
emailed this to myself and
uploaded it using my SoundCloud
account.This was very simple yet
effective as it shows I can use a
wide range of platforms to present
my work. I wrote out a script which
I also posted with the audio clip so
it is easier to read alongside the
voice recording.
20. FreeSoundEffects.com
■ I used a website called
FreeSoundsEffects.com to
download some sound which I
couldn’t find elsewhere. After
surfing through many
websites, I came across this
site with good quality sounds.
This was very easy to use as it
just took one click to download
the sound straight to my
laptop, ready to import into
Premier Pro.
21. MicrosoftWord
■ Within MicrosoftWord 2013, I made
annotations of existing posters and
reviews during the research and
planning stage. I created text boxes
around the image and inserted
arrows pointing towards what I was
talking about and highlight key
conventions.This added to the visual
effect on my blog as I didn’t just post
blocks and blocks of analysis, it can
also be quite tedious to read.
22. Adobe Photoshop
■ A vital editing software I used throughout my coursework Adobe Photoshop CS6.
This allowed me to create images I posted onto my blog and create my poster and
review. I had used this software during my AS Media studies when I was still quite and
amateur, now I feel I have a competent understanding of the software and can use it
affectively. During the research and planning, my analysis was written up on
Microsoft Word 2013, screenshotted and pasted into Photoshop. Here I saved to file
as a JPEG image which was the file type needed to post onto the blog.Also,
Photoshop allowed me to edit all three products and make sure my work had synergy
and linked in some way so audience would recognise the work was mine.TheTimes
New Roman font was the same on my poster, in my movie and on my review. As I
wanted my poster to have a different element, I added an outer glow effect and some
noise to the title to make it stand out further. Moreover, I found my main image to be
boring and similar to others within my group. Photoshop was the perfect software
which allowed me to differentiate my product.The image was a screenshot from the
film as I wanted it to be more real, as it was from the scene after the possession has
taken place it was quite blurry. I decided to manipulate the image my adjusting the
brightness and exposure where I found the option to ‘gamma correct’ the image.The
background in my penultimate draft didn’t correspond to the colour scheme of my
work so I added a red filter on the image to relate to the blood theme in the film.This
is what gave my poster its added value as the image provided a scary, ominous effect.
As well as this, I created my review on this software and used the ruler tool to assure
everything was aligned properly. I created the prediction curve using the line tool and
used the box tool to form the mini film profile.This software provides the opportunity
to be as creative as possible thus, it was an excellent choice due to its professional
tools. I was also able use basic features of adjusting images, positioning’s and blend
brush strokes.
23. Adobe Premier Pro
■ Adobe Premier Pro CS6 was my favourite piece of editing
software I used, once I got the hang of it. I was able to make
all my behind the scenes videos such as; the make-up
tutorial alongside making my short film come to life.After
practising and watchingYouTube tutorials on how to use
the software, I became a competent editor and am pleased
with what I have produced being an 18 year old student. I
was also became able to insert my own music which I got
from various sites and aYouTube to MP3 converter. I used
this throughout the planning and construction stages the
most. I chose to use Premier Pro as it is a professional
software used by many film makers meaning the quality
and standard is high. I used the software to cut and edit my
final movie and used many elements. Some of these
include; changing the speed of some clips, adding filters
onto certain scenes, using video/audio effects and
transitions, adding text to the introduction scene and
adding images from Photoshop.Overall, creating a sleek
and polished look to my movie.
24. Social Media
■ WhatsApp was one of the main forms of social media I used during the
three stages of the project. I used this application on my phone to
communicate with my target audience and gain feedback on products to
see if they deemed it appealing. I also used it to form a group chat with the
members of my group to discuss ideas and arrangements of when and
where filming would take place.This was an effective way of getting direct
feedback so changes could be made as soon as possible. I sent a draft of
the film to a friend usingWhatsApp and screenshotted their response.
■ Snapchat was another effective way of getting direct feedback as you can
send images and videos to people and begin a conversation.With this
application, I sent around my film poster to individuals who gave me their
responses with which I developed my product.This was another platform I
could showcase my feedback on to show a diverse range on my blog. I
found this more time consuming thanWhatsApp as it is more of a
photography application than a chatting one.
■ I also usedTwitter to send my review out to my followers who are also from
different countries.This broadened my feedback as I not only
communicated with friends and family but people who do not live in the UK
as well.This influenced the final draft of the review and I found that my
product appealed to a much wider audience.
