How
did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and
evaluation stages?
·
Photoshop
o
I used this program for the
majority of my printed work, as it is a desktop publishing software I am
familiar with. I think using software you are comfortable with is vital to
creating a professional looking piece of work.
I found I had learnt a lot from my work last year in terms of how to use
the software and my limitations. For me the most challenging aspect of creating
the cover/advert was finding the right brightness and contrast levels for the
work after I had added the ‘posterization’ effect; an effect that adds more
block colours and more solid outlines to the shapes. I feel my skills have
developed exponentially since I started my foundation portfolio in year 12, as
I have learnt to use various filters and techniques to a degree that looks
professional.
·
Storyboard printouts
o
I printed out copies of
storyboards so I could hand draw the diagrams. I believed this would be easier
and allow for more detail than creating the images using solid shapes and lines
in a computer program.
·
Final cut
o
I did all of the editing for my
final product in final cut; which was my first experience with this product. I
quickly got to grips with the basic transitions and filters however came across
difficulties when importing video files from the camera to the apple mac, after
a couple of attempts I was told it would be easier to import the files from the
camera directly into final cut. Although it was my first time using this
software I feel I managed to create an ample piece of work however due to time
constraints was not able to use the software to its full potential.
·
PowerPoint
o
The majority of my research is
presented on Microsoft PowerPoint documents, as I found it easier to integrate images
and text on this program. As well as this it is easier to use for taking notes
and making small pieces of work than a program such as Photoshop. The only
disadvantage I found with this is that I could not upload directly to Blogger,
so instead I converted the slides into JPEG files and uploaded them as
images.
·
Blog posts
o
As our course needs to be
presented on the website Blogger all work should be presented on our own blogsites,
I wanted to make sure my work was presentable. I chose a contrasting colour scheme that
would emphasis the text. Though this is not particularly important, I do
believe presentation plays a big part in any blogsite. Due to bloggers
inability to upload slideshows I saved each slide individually as a JPEG and
uploaded each slide separately.
·
IMovie
o
I used iMovie briefly when I
began so I could work out which program would be best for me to use. I soon
realized that iMovie, whilst having a simple layout and was easy to use, did
not have the range of features I was looking for; such as grain filters, white
noise generators, colour correctors, and audio filters. I also wanted to add a zoom out and
rotate effect on an image for one of my videos. I found this much easier in
final cut than in iMovie.
