Evaluation 4
- 1. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
- 2. Technologies During the periods of research, planning, and the production stages of creating our media product, there were a variety of different technologies used. Some of these technologies were found to be more beneficial than others, and in some cases, some of the technologies used played a much bigger part than some of the others.
- 3. Research As part of my research task we were asked to watch and research a variety of trailers to get a feel for the typical conventions and ideas we could use for our own product. There were a variety of technologies used in the research, but the website Google combined with video streaming sites such as Vimeo and Youtube were the main core of my information. Google acted as an easy tool for me to find existing film posters and magazines that I could later analyze, and make a comparable to during the production of my own products. In modern day society, it is essential for many films to have their own official Youtube site for their film in order to market their product, and create a media hype upon the films release. This official Youtube site means that if a film avid hasn’t already uploaded a version of the trailer, fans do not have any worry as there will always be the official site to view trailers. This is only a recent thing within the film industry, and in previous years, fans would have found it much harder to gain access to the new films being released.
- 5. Why I used these particular technologies All of the technologies which were used by myself as well as my group within our research, planning, production, and evaluation were used for their own purposes. For example, Yola was used as a form a blog, and is a helpful tool in which I used to upload my work onto. Slideshare however, was a different tool in which enables users to upload their Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word presentations. I found that despite being reliable some of the time, I encountered some problems with this particular site when converting my files, which would frequently result in me having to re-upload my work. Other technologies such as Photoshop Elements and Premier Pro were the core for the production pieces of me and my groups work. These technologies naturally encounter issues such as corrupt files, extremely long saving times, and waiting for files to render. Despite these tools being both reliable and effective, I found they took a long time in order for a good piece to be produced.
- 6. Why I used these particular technologies continued… When researching products which were similar to mine and analyzing them, I understood that there would be a large amount of writing involved so I used an everyday computer tool such as Microsoft Word to put my images and text together. Once I completed these PowerPoint's, I would upload them onto my Slideshare account and then embed that file onto my Yolasite.
- 7. Go Animate! Go animate is another useful tool which I have used which allows its user to combine speech into a quirky, and animated way using pre-programmed voices. Shown below is a feature from my animation used for evaluation question 2. Go Animate is a fairly easy programme to use once the user is familiar with it, and can be a fun way to interact with your viewer as it enables the user to have a variety of characters, backgrounds, and voices. The character limit for each paragraph is 180 characters which can be considered as a tool for keeping the viewer interested also. This keeping of interest is vital in all presentations. The variety of voice, and animation also makes an effective presentation overall.
- 8. Prezi The use of Prezi occurred on a more frequent basis during this coursework. Prezi allows its user to make a much more professional presentation than standard presentation technologies such as Microsoft PowerPoint. It is a helpful site for placing large amounts of text as well as adding videos and images. Where Prezi is divided into sections rather than ‘slides’, it makes the whole manner of the presentation look much more stylistic and professional also. Despite Prezi being one of the more reliable and effective technologies, it should be noted that we as a group only used it occasionally to maintain a variety of different technologies within our project. Below is a screenshot of a Prezi presentation made by the group to show how we marketed and advertised our film.
- 9. Vimeo and Youtube Vimeo and Youtube were two tools which I used during the process of making my media products. These products are extremely useful when it came down to looking at existing products and looking at some of the trailers already out there. Years ago, it would have been harder for viewers to watch trailers in the market at the time because video sharing sites such as Youtube and Vimeo were not particularly well established then, and were only available to niche audiences. When it came down to the researching process of my work, these sites were pivotal in gaining an understanding of the conventions of existent products.
- 10. Other technologies used… • IMovie • Animoto • Capzules • Powtoon • Sliderocket • Poll Everywhere • Voki • Glogster • Survey Monkey • Screen Cast O Matic