Evaluation: Technology

How did you use media technologies in the construction and

research, planning and evaluation stages?

Many different software's and types of technology were able to help me to progress in the research, planning and evaluation stages of my media project. Software's varied from things like simple search engines, such as Google and YouTube, so more advanced programmes to help me edit, such as iMovie and Photoshop. Below is a list of the varied technologies I used throughout this creative process, and how they helped me along the way.

Research:

Google was my main search engine I used; it was at the core of every single piece of research I looked into. The reason I used Google is because it's a reliable search engine and I am almost guaranteed to get what I want out of it; it helped me with lots of things, from simply searching up magazine covers, to looking in more depth into media institutions.

YouTube was a huge help right at the beginning of my project. It allowed me to search through numerous amounts of videos and look closely at all the different types of animation that can be achieved. It also helped towards the end when I wanted to upload my finished stop-motion in a higher quality than the blogger uploader would let me.

When it came to looking at stop-motion's that other people had made, it was suggested I look on the E4 website at these things called 'idents' created by the viewers. Idents are short stop-motion videos, but each is created in a different way; some were with clay, some were with Photoshopped images, and it really helped me open my eyes to the different ways in which I could achieve my final finished opening sequence.

Construction:

MovieMaker was initially what I intended to create my finished animation on, and although it wasn't what I ended up using, it was still a massive help in the beginning in creating simpler mock stop-motions and learning your way around an editing software.

iMovie was what I finally ended up using to create my finished stop-motion opening sequence; I felt that it had a lot less boundaries than MovieMaker, and although MovieMaker is a good, simplistic software and generally easier to use, I found this software made it a lot simpler to get the effect I wanted with things such as cutting down music and making it fade in and out, and cross-fading cuts between images.

Photoshop is what helped every part of my project come together; whether it be making my magazine, DVD cover or my children's television opening sequence, Photoshop just makes everything seem much slicker and more professional. Although it may seem hard to get your head around at first, I feel it really helped me develop each piece of my project individually, so that I came out with a strong, exciting piece of work, in all aspects of the task.

Planning:

Blogger was the main piece of technology I used throughout this project as it was where my entire project was based online. I felt that, although people had problems with uploading things, it is a strong piece of software to use as you know where everything is. I thought it was a good idea to base our coursework on Blogger as it made it quick and easy to be able to access your work, and especially before the entire coursework was finished, you were able to save drafts on your blogger, which really helped with the planning process as I knew where everything was, and it was all in one place.