What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing your product
- 1. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING YOUR PRODUCT?
- 2. BRIEF OVERVIEW • Since the preliminary task, I have learnt some new skills and developed a few that I already had. The range of technology that I am now able to use has grown so quickly. I have been introduced to new technologies which both helped me to produce and present my work on online platforms in a much more professional way than I knew previously. For example, I have learnt how to use a DSLR camera on the manual settings. I have also expanded upon my knowledge of how to use Photoshop in order to produce work to a professional standard. • The online websites that help me present my work in more interesting way were something I had never came across before so when it came to creating my blog, I had no experience in how to use them. Now, I have created a whole blog and used multiple platforms to help me build an appealing set of research, production and analysis work. Some of these sites include; Prezi, Slideshare and Emaze.
- 3. BLOGGER I have created a blogger account in order to publish my work in an organised manner. To set my account up I had to sign in with my email and I named my Blog HANNAH BROWN AS MEDIA MAGAZINE. To create a new post you simply click the “new post” button when you have created a blog. You can then, either type straight tonto your new blog or use the HTML page to embed a link for your power point or word document. If you want to upload a PowerPoint for example, you have to do so through Slide share. HOW TO EMBED A POST ONTO BLOGGER First I clicked on the upload button. The next thing I did was select a file to upload from my computer.
- 4. After selecting a powerpoint from my documents, I wrote the title and copied this for the description. Then you choose a category to put your post under. After this, I clicked publish.
- 5. Then you click the share option which gives you a selection of links. I copy the embed code. I then paste the embed code into the HTML page on a new blog post. After this, I add a name to the post and click publish.
- 6. To complete a post, you click the publish button and your post has been uploaded onto your blog. Here, you can edit, view, share or delete you blog post. I used this process for most of my blog posts but others I typed straight onto blog or inserted documents from Scirbd or added imaged from the insert image icon on the new post page.
- 7. PREZI Prezi is an online site which gives you templates in order to create interesting presentations for different situations. To create a prezi you follow these steps: Click the “create a new prezi” button. Choose a template to work on. Click use template when you have chosen.
- 8. The first time you use prezi, it takes you through the steps of how to insert text and all the tools you need for a basic prezi. First you click add title. Insert title and continue to insert text. To add a text box, you click in a space and choose if you want it to be a title, subtitle or main body.
- 9. Along the side, you can click on the slide that you want to zoom in on. Then you can work on each slide.
- 10. To insert an image, you click insert and choose a document. Now, you can resize the image ect.
- 11. Save the prezi then press exit. Choose the embed option to get the code. Copy the code and from here you do the same as you did for the slide share. Simply past the code onto blogger and publish the post with a title. Emaze uses the same formats as prezi when it comes to inserting text but it is jus a more formal layout overall.
- 12. PHOTOGRAPHY My ability to use more technological equipment has improved considerably since the preliminary task. The style of shot and lighting was something I experimented more with during my photoshoots for my final magazine. This gave me more to work with and helped me analyse what worked better. I became more confident adjusting the focus manually on the DLSR camera and set up my photoshoots to get images that suited my indie theme the best. Looking at the images, I can see a clear improvement in that I have taken lighting into consideration more on my final cover than in my preliminary task. The image in the preliminary task has a harsh shadow around it and this makes it look unprofessional because it doesn’t look right on the background. I framed them both quite well apart from the fact that you cant see what the boy is holding and you can see what the girl is holding because I made sure it was in view. This was important because without it, she would relate less to the theme of music. I think that in the preliminary task, I included too much dead space around the subject which meant that the cover lines had to spread out more to fill the gaps but I didn’t have this problem with my final magazine image because I took this into consideration before taking the shot.
- 13. PHOTOGRAPHYCompared to the preliminary task, I took a lot more photos for each image I wanted to include on my magazine. This was because I learnt that you will need multiple options to choose from if the shot wasn’t to turn out how you expected when viewing it on a computer. When taking these multiple shots, I considered different body positions, camera tilts, facial expressions. This was so I had a broader range of photos to choose from and some duplicates in case one was out of focus. I would not have considered this for my preliminary task as I thought that if the shot looked in focus then it would be okay. I learnt from this mistake and improved greatly in my final task. Here I tried tilting the camera to capture more of the body but ended up with too much dead space. In this image, I got Louise to hold the guitar more vertically to see if it fitted in the shot better but then I ended up with too much focus on the guitar rather than Louise. I got Louise to try different facial expressions and focus on the camera but the facial expression didn’t look how I envisioned it. This shows how many photos of Louise I took in one location. It paid off as I got a photo which suits my magazine very well and I wouldn’t change.
- 14. PHOTOGRAPHY Images on my contents page improved also as I was able to capture images which were in focus and the lighting wasn’t so dull that it created shadows on the faces of the subjects in the image. I experimented more with angles, lighting and type of shots on the contents pages images than the front cover because I had a set idea of what the cover star needed to be doing. These images show an artistic range in body positioning also where as my preliminary task photos are boring because the people are just stood with hardly any attitude. This is a low angle shot which I tried out but found there wasn’t enough going on for it to make an interesting image.
- 15. PHOTOSHOP Through repetitiveness, I gathered confidence with Photoshop rather quickly and because of my knowledge on this, I was able to create my product to a professional standard and make it look exactly how I wanted it to. I learnt some new techniques but the one technique that I had never tried before was something I pride myself on because of the amount attention I had to put in to making it work well. PROCESS This is the process I went through to make my masthead look like it tucked behind the cover stars head. 1. I made a copy layer 1 which was the image layer. 2. I then moved the masthead onto a new layer and placed this layer in between the two image layers
- 16. 3. Then I chose the erase tool from the left hand panel on Photoshop and adjusted the size of the eraser to make it easier to rub away. 4. I then rubbed out Layer 1 copy to reveal the masthead from underneath. Clicking on the ASM masthead layer, I rubbed out any black areas that showed up on Louise's head. To ensure that I could see exactly where to erase, I used the zoom tool to make the image larger while I erased. I also made my rubber smaller so I got a more accurate line around her head.
- 17. QUARK I had never used this software before the preliminary task so this was like a test run for me to learn the basics of how to insert images, boxes and text. I didn’t improve my skills on quark from the preliminary task, I just learnt more about layout from extensive analysis of professional magazines so I knew what made a more professional looking product. The only point that I could say that I improved slightly would be that I found out how to overlap mages. This meant I was able to make some images stand out on top of others by right clicking and using the send back or bring forward options.