How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation?
When planning our media text we made sure we took advantage of the media technologies which were available to us, so that we could be extra clear on our target audience and what our market want to see, before we start constructing and filming. We used a well-known survey site called Survey monkey, to enable us to ask our target audience, important and vital questions that we wanted to know about our genre and what they wanted to see. This technology meant that we could post this website link on any social networking site or send it in an e-mail and people are able to answer this anonymously, but only if they have the link. This means we were able to control who answered our survey, therefore making it more valid as we know it was going to the correct target age and gender.
We also used a new technology called Google Doc’s which is an online database, which stores word documents, or PowerPoint presentations, which are able to accessed by people who have the e-mail and password. This was particular useful when we used this to upload our script, which meant that other group members were able to access it at any computer and print off their own copy, therefore speeding up the process and meaning that people can view it whenever they need to as well. This is free and enabled us to progress with our planning faster as we were all able to access the same point and share resources to work as a team.
When starting our constructing, we had managed to borrow a very high quality camera to film our footage on. This was accompanied by a tripod which helped us achieve a steady shot, and meant that we were able to edit the focus and light exposure on the camera without having to hold it up. There was also an autofocus setting on the camera, however we turned this off when we wanted to time when we wanted a particular point focussed on. This was important when we filmed the shot of the main protagonist looking towards her father and there is a pull in the focus as it turns from the focus on her cheek to her father in the foreground of the shot. This is very effective as it automatically focuses the viewer on the object which is more visible to the eye and shows that we want them to take notice of the in-focus object or character in this case.
When it came to editing our footage, we used our school I-Mac’s which were equipped with the latest i-movie software. This software enabled us to cut, crop, edit, change, swap, zoom, slow down, speed up and manipulate our footage to the effect that we wanted. One of the importances of the i-movie software for our one was that it enabled us to download our iconic font (helveticamazing) onto the software so that it was an available option for our title at the end. This enabled continuity within our media products and without this ability; it would look dated and disconnected with our poster and website.
The i-mac’s also had an important technology of editing the sound, with particular gages and bars which we were able to see when the music or the dialogue was too loud or too quiet. With the i-movie software we were able to edit this and the volume, with options such as ‘ducking’ which meant the soundtrack beneath the clips were lowered slightly and the dialogue at that point was able to be heard better. There is also an in-built microphone in the computer, which was of a high quality. This meant that we were able to record overdubs of the dialogue which wasn’t quite loud enough and also add extra lines such as ‘Dad, please please don’t hurt me’ which added to the eerie effect of the contrapuntal sound of her doing her art and the voice being heard over the top of the footage.
We were also able to use websites such as dafont.com when constructing our trailer, poster and website as we could download a legally free font that we wanted to use, this was called helvetica amazing. This gave our branding of ‘Mania’ more of an individual touch rather then simply using the fonts which automatically come with imovie such as Times New Roman.
When looking towards our evaluation, we mainly used social media and online technologies to establish what was needed for improvement and for feedback. We uploaded our two poster options to FaceBook and asked users to ‘like’ which one they preferred and within an hour we have a total of 120 responses, which shows the extent of how fast online technology can move and how quickly people can find answers to questions.
We also used YouTube to upload our first draft as users are able to comment, and when uploading to YouTube we also received a link which we posted on our other sites we were involved with such as Facebook and Twitter. With these fast links and the ability for users of social networking websites to view a video or photo in a simple click, this meant that more people were able to respond to our ‘posts’ rather than say if we sent out a mailed questionnaire or asked questions in person.
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