Erin Stephenson outlines various software and applications that could be used for her final project, including iMovie, Procreate, VSCO, and Survey Monkey. She evaluates each tool, noting what features they provide for free versus through a paid subscription. While iMovie, Procreate and VSCO offer useful free features for video editing, digital art, and photo editing respectively, their full capabilities require payment. Survey Monkey is also limited without a subscription, restricting surveys to just 10 questions. Erin concludes she will need to use multiple methods of primary research beyond Survey Monkey alone to fully understand her target audience.

1. Erin Stephenson
Vlog/Production Task: Voiceover Notes, Rough Script
By having a rough outline of what I am going to say in my voiceover segments,
this will make sure I am covering the key points I want to discuss as well as
giving my video a structure making it more planned out.
Introduction
In this video, I will be reviewing and looking into different applications and software
for me to potentially use in my final project.
iMovie
In this screen recording, we can see me changing the different transitions used when
changing clips. Even though iMovie is a free app for iOS and Apple users that
doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with a variety of features and tools used. This
application would be useful for someone who is starting out with video editing as it
has the essential tools such as trim as well as offering more advanced features such
as voiceover and so on. Even though I am focusing more on the print side for my
work, I think looking into a film software is a wise idea as it is showing variety and
also potentially giving me some ideas of what to incorporate into my work. iMovie is
a great video editing app if you don’t have access to a laptop to download software’s
such as Premier Pro and with all the features included in the app, there is potential to
create an amazing piece of work.
Procreate
Procreate is a raster graphics editor app for digital painting developed and published
by Savage Interactive and with this app you can advance and develop artistic skills.
One great technique available in Procreate is creating and defining lines. This is
something that can be quite hard to do on screens, especially without a stylus. In the
screen recording you can see me creating a variety of shapes from stars to circles to
triangles and them going from a curved rough shape to that perfect shape. I have
found this the most useful when creating circles and squares as it will even out the
edges also. One disadvantage with this tool however is that if you aren’t careful, you
will see the end of the line, where the beginning and end point connect you can see
this with some of the triangles where there is sometimes the gap, or the final line
goes beyond the connecting points. Despite that however, this is something to easily
change as you can go back in with the eraser and remove that fault.
Here I am taking a slightly different approach to this technique and instead showing
how you can go from a curved to a zig zag line. The way in which this technique is
carried out is by one you have created your rough outline, before lifting your finger or
stylus, you press down until it creates the desired look.
To put this technique to the test and see how it works on creating something more
complex than a simple circle or triangle, I have carried out tracing or what is better
described as rotoscoping. The image I have chosen to use is a simple piece of line
art I found on Pinterest which allows me to create those curved lines but also
practising the essentials for when using procreate. The app has a variety of brushes
to use which you can also change the settings for also
Procreate itself a great app available to use in my final product as it will allow me to
bring out the digital artwork to another level as I can be more precise and also show

2. Erin Stephenson
Vlog/Production Task: Voiceover Notes, Rough Script
a variety of skills, even if it is just a drawing app. There are limitless opportunities.
The one disadvantage to this app is that it doesn’t come free. It retails for £9.99 on
the app store for iOS users but they also offer a cheaper alternative called Procreate
Pocket being half the price at £4.99. Both of these apps are amazing to use, and the
tools included are also. What makes procreate a great app is that you are also able
to download and share different brushes, colour palettes and so on to the
community. This gives artists the opportunity to explore different styles of art as well
as showcasing their own.
VSCO
VSCO is a great app available to android and iOS users with photo editing tools.
This is an app I am already familiar with as I use it for my own social media, making
it an ideal app to look into as I known some of the key points in the app. In this task I
am trying to find apps that I can compare to the adobe suite pricing at a fraction of
the cost or less as due to circumstances regarding coronavirus, having access to a
variety of software can be limited working from home. If I were to compare it to a
software available in the adobe suite, I think VSCO in a lot of ways is similar to
Lightroom as it is more on the side of editing photos in a way that doesn’t change
them but enhances the key points, unlike photoshop and Picsart where you are
instead manipulating and changing the photos key conventions. But with VSCO to
access all their features, you have to have a subscription with them. If you were to
use the app as it comes, with no paid features you can change the key element such
as exposure, contrast and so on but you won’t be able to use their variety of filters,
one for every lighting and environment. One of the features that I particularly like in
VSCO is their HSL technique. This allows you to manipulate your photo by changing
one particular colour and adjusting its saturation, lightness and more. This is great
for when you are wanting to exaggerate a particular part of your photo and most
people will use this technique when wanting to change the sky, most commonly
adjusting the skyline from blue to a warmer tone such as red and orange. This is an
app I can see myself using in my project as a lot of the work I will be carrying out is
photography based. In conclusion for this app, it is great for the free features as well
as being a good alternative for Lightroom is you don’t have a subscription.
Survey Monkey
Survey monkey is very useful when it comes to gathering primary research. This
website allows me to create a survey in which I can send out to people and get their
responses. Primary research will be playing a large role in my project as it will help
me find my target audience to which I will be aiming my product towards. The
website itself has a very simple structure, making it easy to understand. Spoken by
the company themselves, they say it has everything you need to create the best
surveys. There is access to templates which can accommodate to the type of survey
you are wanting to create as well as many other features. But like a lot of the apps
and software I am reviewing in this video, in order to get more features, you’ve got to
pay into it. Survey Monkey encourages people to get a subscription with them as it
will include more features to use in your survey and also go above the 10-question
limit. When creating my own survey in my research, 10 questions might be a struggle
as when you are collecting evidence, you want as much as possible and only having

3. Erin Stephenson
Vlog/Production Task: Voiceover Notes, Rough Script
10 opportunities to do so is very limiting. This means that I will definitely have to
incorporate more forms of primary research such as questionnaires, focus groups
and so on to really get an understanding of who I am targeting my product towards.
Overall, it is great for a short survey but can’t be used as a main source of research
for audience as you are very limited, not allowing you to go into as much depth
without paying into a subscription service.