2. Advancements in digital technology have changed the media today. The media in the
past was primarily based on analogue and print broadcast models.
New Media now relies on digital technologies as previously separate media converges.
The most prominent example of media convergence is the internet whereby the
technology for video and audio streaming is evolving rapidly.
3. • New Media is a 21st Century term used to define all that is related to the
internet and the interplay between technology, images and sound. The
definition of it changes daily, and will continue to do so, as it evolves
continuously, and what it will be tomorrow is virtually unpredictable for
most of us.
• There has been a very big change in media nowadays from print products,
radio and the first televisions compared to the way it is now, and this is
due to new media technology.
• New media is a global development, therefore it can be accessed by
everyone and anyone from all around the world, therefore this makes it
much easier to get an audience as we are able to reach people to view our
work easier than before.
4. • New media is a developing forms of media, usually electronic, regarded as
being experimental. It also means mass communication using digital
technologies such as the Internet. Therefore it is mostly driven by user
generated content which gives the audience more power then they have
had on the past, so we represent ourselves as media students but also as a
production company on our blog.
• Thanks to new media, you can view your work from anywhere whether
that is from home, work, school or on-the-go, therefore this means our
blog is easily accessed from school our at home, so our work can be
shared onto the internet for everyone to see.
6. Advantages of Search Engines
• Search engines were very useful as it was
quick and easy to use when it came to
researching elements for our trailer, poster
and magazine cover in our genre.
• We were already familiar with search engines
as we use them in our day-to-day lives and
other subjects. We have also used them for
previous projects.
• Using search engines meant that we had a
large range of sources to choose from to gain
information that is easy to find as there were
so many results.
• We were able to filter what we wanted to
search.
• Our research was specific to our genre which
made doing the research easier.
• YouTube was a great platform that was
extremely useful when researching trailers
Luke
7. Search engines are very useful when doing our
research work, but can be very frustrating as the
search space is vast. Therefore if we aren’t specific in
the search tab, it can be very time consuming trying
to find what we want, and in the end we might not
even find it.
We found this happened a few times when trying to
find transgender film trailer examples. This is because
there aren’t many films as examples therefore it was
quite hard for us to get proof of other trailers to help
in ours.
Using Search Engines can have disadvantages such as the
growth of wiki culture. Someone might give you answers
to questions you research but their replies might be all
nonsense and websites need to be validated against each
other.
8. Another downside to Search Engines is
that when researching you can often
encounter pop ups which have to be
navigated and clicked out of several
times. This can become very annoying,
I found Google the most useful out of all
the search engines, but because it is
such a large search engine, it was very
hard to find specific information quickly.
Also, blogs hosted by Google were
plentiful but it was hard to distinguish
truth from opinion.
New media does not have all
the answers instantly to hand
– sheer volume of info is a
problem at times.
9. For our trailer we had to use copyright free music. We had to search for the music in
websites such as YouTube to find the style of music we needed for the scenes and
moods in our trailer.
Through the description we were
able to see whether the owner of
the song had any T&C’s when
allowing us to use their music
Through this function we
were able to browse through
other songs of similar styles
Using this we
were able to
search for the
kind of music
we were after
10. Some disadvantages of using YouTube
were:
• Some content was blocked which
restricted research and prevented us using
some possible links.
• We had to be careful when choosing our
music as a lot of music from YouTube is
not copyright free.
12. Here we presented our
storyboard to our class mates
to receive audience feedback.
We made rough drawings of
shots on post it notes that we
wanted to include in our
trailer.
We drew a timeline using the three act
structure, so that it gave us a rough idea of how
long our trailer would be, and where we would
put each shot in each act.
Drawing the storyboard allowed
us to have more creativity, as
we felt more connected with
our paper drawings at this time.
Represents a mix of
old (drawings) and
new media (film) –
no reason why both
can’t be used.
13. An important step on from the
storyboard was putting images
taken from the original
sketches into FCE and editing it
rather as we would our actual
coursework.
This helped us to work out if
our dialogue timed well, if our
music choices worked, if we
needed transitions and so on
and above all helped us keep
our trailer running to time.
15. Presenting the Planning on Blogger
Shows the
number of
views we per
day, month
and overall
time.
This shows us where the views of
our blog are coming from. It
shows that we are getting views
from all around the world due to
how accessible our blog is.
16. We were able to view the
other blogs from various
groups in our school. We were
able to give feedback and they
were able to give us feedback
which allowed us to improve
and move forward
17. On Blogger we were able to combine text,
images and videos on each post therefore
it produced a creative range of work and
our formats looked much more eye
catching and we could always use a various
of range of formats.
By having images and text together
our work becomes more visually
appealing to the audience
Audiences don’t expect to read large
amounts of text online which is more
associated with ‘snacking’ behaviour.
This kind of technological
convergence is another
feature associated with new
media.
18. Using Blogger allows us to view each other’s progress.
After each change we made to our work, we took a screenshot of it.
This gave us a before and after image to compare the progress we were making.
The value of being able to see the progress we were making allowed
us to see how much more work we needed to do. This meant that we
could then focus on what need to be done.
It was extremely valuable as it helped with our time management skills
and focus on what was needed to be done, which allowed us to have
everything completed on time.
It also helped as we could evaluate each others’ work and provide
constructive criticism to help each other improve. This motivated the
group to keep working and pushing harder to make each product look
better. It was also another way of seeing what we could do to improve
and what needed to be done.
19. We planned on using new media such as social network sites as a way for the
audience to get in touch with the main actor but also be able to talk about their own
experience based on the main issues in our film which is transexuality.
It also would have been used as a form of communication between the audience
themselves. This way they could discuss what they thought of the film as a whole but
could also talk about whether the trailer made the film seem better or worse than it
really was etc.
This would have been valuable because having an outside opinion on our work
could help us see if there is anything that may need tweaking or changing. It would
have also meant that we could learn from things we were doing wrong if they are
pointed out. This would be extremely useful as future products we produce would
be better as we would learn from our previous errors and mistakes but would also
then have knowledge of what our audience likes in our products.
21. Photoshop
A lot of new media technology revolves around commercially available
digital packages and sites. Photoshop is not cheap and is therefore not a
good example of new media increasing democracy.
22. Manipulation of Images
This use of tools with new media is referred to by Manovich as a new kind
of creativity – a “creativity of selection”.
Tool bar gives
access to a
range of tools
for extracting,
moving,
resizing,
blurring, adding
colour, adding
shapes and text
etc.
Layers window
allows us to
name, move,
link, blend and
merge layers and
use different
channels
23. Magazine Cover
New media is creating new ways of thinking
– thinking in layers is one of them.
We extracted the image and the
shadow separately so they could go
behind and in front of the masthead
and add depth.
The smaller images were manipulated
individually then placed on a white
frame layer then positioned together
on a black frame layer.
24. The main manipulation here
was extracting two different
images (the back view and
the reflection) and editing
them together so they
appear to be a single image.
We needed the lasso, blur
and eraser tools to achieve
this.
25. Manipulating Images
On our magazine cover we decided to manipulate the original image in preview
by increasing the brightness, decreasing the contrast and adding a warmer
temperature of the whole image. There are a lot of manipulations that can be
carried out with software that comes as standard before moving to expensive
products like Photoshop.
26. Does the reliance on pre-packaged tools provided by new media
products reduce creativity? Or allow a wider range of people to be
creative?
We were able to add many
layers onto our original image –
text, further images, shapes and
so on. This allowed us to create
a professional looking product
despite the fact none of us are
particularly artistic.
27. Final Cut Express
• Final Cut Express is the software we used to
edit our trailer
• Problems we faced with it is that we did not
have it outside of school as the package costs
a lot of money, so we were limited with the
amount of time we could spend on our trailer
28. Trimming, Layering, Ordering
Key functions of digital editing
packages are to allow us to select
clips from our footage, trim them to
exactly what is needed, order them
in the desired sequence on the
timeline and layer them with other
images, audio, titles, other text etc.
29. A key benefit of digital editing over
older methods is the ability to
reverse decisions and return to the
source material which is unchanged.
This encourages more
experimentation and creativity
because changes made are not
permanent and can easily be
reversed.
30. Final Cut allows audio to be balanced by being able to layer, merge, adjust length,
speed tone of sound and also add various effects and filters to improve or change the
quality of the sound.
31. The help section was used to solve
any problems that we had and
was user friendly
There were lots of tutorials online
on websites such as YouTube to
help with some of our concerns or
to help us to become more
experienced
Collaborative digital editing was
able occur as our individual pieces
could be transferred from
different computers
The software had a large variety of
editing techniques that we could
experiment with
The software was very expensive
so it could only be accessed at
home and we only use it at school
Becoming familiar with the
software was time consuming
because there were a wide range
of tools
Remembering to use the tick tool
when editing our pieces was
frustrating
The software sometimes crashed
and work was lost
32. The new media technologies and their benefits allowed for
the evaluation of work to be made much easier
33. • Comments can be seen
and made by anyone
• Allowed us to receive
feedback on our
coursework products
through the comments
made on our blog
• Example of feedback come
from comments posted by
a professional trailer
producer.
• Comments were used as
an evaluative tool and for
collaborative creativity.
34. Label Function
As we were able to construct our own
reality / persona through the use of these
technologies, the labels then helped to
identify exactly what was our own to be
able to show this off.New media allows us to create
online identities
Labels allowed us to easily search for work on our blog. You can set the search
for the authors name and any key words through the search bar.
This was a great integration Blogger has as it
allows us to see what posts we have done and we
can compare our work to those in our group.
35. Allows choice of format:
Edited Presentation
Having edited presentations allowed us
to discuss the value of audience feed
back while putting forward some
differing opinions. Being able to edit it
means we could edit in screenshots and
references if we wanted to, with
additional images illustrating our points.
Having these images and quotes makes our presentations easier to watch as if the
audience is looking for one piece in particular they can fast forward to the relevant
image.
36. Allows choice of Format:
Power Point Presentation
Not all new media technologies
work efficiently 100% of time
• The use of PowerPoint
meant we could all
collaborate as a group
at the same time,
specialising in certain
topics that we were
more knowledgeable on
so that the quality was
at a higher standard and
it was less time
consuming
37. • Presenting ideas around new media technology as a court room drama
allowed us to really challenge ourselves on how we used this technology – we
had to think of every angle and come up with our defence if we could. This
also encouraged us to focus more closely around the key concepts associated
with new media such as collaboration, interaction, democracy etc. rather
than focussing solely in the practical uses we made of the technology.
Allows choice of Format:
Court Room Drama
38. Allows choice of Format:
Contact Sheet
The use of contact sheets
meant that we could gather a
range of images and show
things such as our thought
process, inspirations and also
key elements of our products
whilst commenting on them in
a post.
Without this it would be harder
to present quite sophisticated
concepts in a visual form.
39. Allows choice of Format:
YouTube Tutorial
This was a useful way of presenting our
ideas around how our products
complemented each other and were
able to achieve a distinctive brand for
the film. By giving a tutorial, we were
basically explaining what worked for us.
We were also able to give the ideas a
wider context as most promo
campaigns have more products involved
than we could actually make.
40. Summary
New media is invaluable for producing media projects. The key benefits are:
- Collaborative work
- Sharing with a remote community
- Digital technology’s ability to make us all producers
- Availability of information.
Our question marks would be:
- Availability – how available is it really from a global perspective?
- Use – how many of us are really taking advantage of it?
- Creativity – can both enhance and limit this – you have to be careful to stay
creative
- In development – old technology still has a place and at times we found we
preferred making old-fashioned lists and sketching on paper.
