How did you use media technologies in the

construction and research, planning and evaluation

stages?

Media Evaluation Question 4

Ryan Williams

ConstructionFilmingFor this coursework me and my group used a Canon 1100D to get our footage. This filmed in 720p at 25 frames per second (fps). This wasn’t the best quality camera as the Canon 550D was available to film with. This films in 1080p at 30fps. The reason we didn’t use this is because of how much memory it would take up and how that could be inconvenient when importing the footage. When filming with the 1100D we were happy with the quality and were using Giotti MTL 9361b tripod when film as well. Although when the camera was on the tripod and the tripod was on a very uneven service, it blew over and the lens on the camera broke. We had to replace the camera lens which was a Canon EF-S 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens. It could have been avoided if we had someone attending the camera and this is a mistake that is not likely to happen again with any of us. We also used a Sony Digital Voice Recorder from the ICD-PX333 series to record narration and an ambience track.

ConstructionEditing When it came to the editing stages, like last year, we were using Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5 and Adobe After Effects CS5.5. Last year there were some problems with rendering and the exporting time, but this year there were bigger problems. There were several memory problems with the college network so it was an inconvenience to edit and create the logo’s on After Effects for our trailer. The main problem was the college network as we were still able to use Premier Pro, for the colour correction and fades and dissolves, and After Effects for the titles and credit block. If I were to do this project again I would still use Premier Pro and After Effects but maybe avoid working on the college network to edit if like this year there is problems.

ConstructionAncillariesFor my ancillaries I needed pictures of the main character. I got these by using the Canon 1100D. I used this camera again for convenience and the quality wasn’t to much of an issue for me as I was planning on editing these pictures anyway. Once I had the pictures I needed I wanted to edit them. I did this on Adobe Photoshop CS5.1. Again there were problems with the college network but overall I was pleased with the results as. Once the picture was edited on Photoshop I made the layout for my poster and magazine on Adobe InDesign CS5.5. On this I was able to add the titles and the general conventions for posters (credit block, actor names and tagline) and magazines (advertisements, price and QR and bar codes).

Here is the finished ancillary tasks, poster and the magazine pictures.

Research and Planning During the research and planning stages there were several pieces of online media that I used. I used:• Tumblr- for my blog to document my progress through this

coursework. I posted YouTube and other website links, pictures Prezi’s, video’s and all kinds of digital media.

• YouTube- to look at help video’s and to research into movie trailers.• Prezi- to neatly and clearly present my research and to pitch ideas.• Microsoft Word- to make preproduction such as the shot list, prop list

and actor character sheet.• Plotbot- to write the script during the preproduction stages(although it

wasn’t very good and later moved on to Celtx).• Celtx- to write the script during the preproduction stages.• Google/Google Images- to research for magazine and poster of other

A2 students and real media productsDuring the research and planning these technologies were the same as I used last year.

Research and Planning Using Tumblr to do my blog was ok but his year I had a problem with posting a Prezi on Tumblr as I wouldn’t embed properly. This was frustrating during the research and planning stages of his project however he problem was solved by he time I got to my evaluation questions. Also using Plobot to write the script was a big hassel. Me and my group originally wanted to use Celtx but he college had deleted of their computers and we had to find an alternative which was Plotbot. Plobot was an online service and was slow, difficult to edit and was also difficult to navagate. However during the later stages of research and planning the college got Celtx back, and we switch to that. This was good because Celtx was a much better scriptwriting software and he problems with Plotbot didn’t occur with Celtx.

EvaluationFor the evaluation questions I used different technologies to present each question. For question 1 I did a Prezi to present my answer. This was fairly easy to use and I didn’t occur too many problems with it. Even when I tried to post it on Tumblr the like embedded properly as opposed to previous times when I had tried post a Prezi on Tumblr. For evaluation question 2 I did a Glogster. This was really difficult to use to start of with as the college computers weren't accepting he website and so I could only see half of my Glog. Although all ihad to do was change my internet setting and the problem was solved and in the end Glogster wasn’t to bad to use. For evaluation question 3 I me and my group decided to do a group evaluation where we would film people giving audience feedback and then filming our response to this feedback. Doing this we had the problems of finding people available and willing to give feedback that we could use. But after doing it separately with about 5 people we did get I done but it could have been a lot more convenient than we made it, maybe if we ha planned it more it would have been quicker to do this evaluation. And finally for media evaluation question 4 I did this Microsoft Power Point and posted it on Slide Share, which was probably the easiest and most straight forward of he evaluation questions.