How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.
Web 2.0 has transformed the way we use the internet. It
allows for user-generated content which I have heavily exploiting in the
creation of my Blog. YouTube, Blogger, IMDB, Wikipedia and many other websites
allow the user to become the creator. The internet has become increasingly
interactional with many sites encouraging users to contribute in some way. This
has allowed me to present my coursework in a far more engaging manner; the
reader can watch video clips and watch power point presentations. It is crucial
to be able to exploit the many opportunities that Web 2.0 offers when creating
and advertising any media text. I enjoyed using the Web 2.0 technology of
Blogger.com to produce my coursework as it enabled me to use various formats to
present my ideas. It also meant that all my work was in one easily accessible
location compared to other essay based subjects where notes and ideas are
easily lost on paper. However I found that one disadvantage of the Blog was
that uploading images was sometimes problematic as it was difficult to position
them correctly. I also find that the tactile of an essay can give satisfaction
that a Blog cannot. I believe this is one reason as to why Web 2.0 technologies
will not completely take over from paper based products such as magazines as
they do not have the tactile or collectable qualities of a print product. I
also feel ideas can be explored, developed and articulated further in essay
format as they allow for more dense text; however an essay may be appropriate
for my other subjects such as English Language but for this project a blog was
a far more appropriate format. A Blog is very useful when trying to
self-generate a career as you can publish and market your Blog entirely on your
own through the use of other Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and Twitter.
To start my project i created my own blog on blogger. This enables me to post all my coursework and final products in a presentable manner. it is also easy to keep all my work in one place. another advantage of blogger is that it is compatible with other websites such as youtube and slideshare. This allows my work to be a lot more visual and effective. the vast technologies developments in the in the media means that a multimedia stage is vital when planning and displaying a media product. my blog had other advantages such being visable to the public as my teachers.
Youtube is essential to my product at every stage. i used youtube in the planning stages of my project to gain ideas about horror and trailer conventions from existing products. this gave me many ideas that influenced the production of our trailer. i also used youtube in the production stages as online tutorialshelped me to understand the new software such as final cut pro. i used youtube again in the evaluation stages to gain screen grabs from existing trailers which i could then evaluate my product against. youtube makes a wide change to videos available to everyone and is an ideal way to see what audiences approved of and what they didnt through reading the comments.
final cut pro was the main software we used for the production of our product. this professional software is often used in the film industry. i had never used this software before, therefore i used online tutorials to help me grasp the basic. members of my group also helped me with understanding the software.
Adobe Photoshop CS6 allowed me to produce high quality products for my magazine cover and poster for my film "Surprise." Photoshop is the software that would be used by magazine and poster companies, therefore it gave me the scope to create a product of the same specification. the editing options such as filters and distortion works well to create a horror product. i also used photoshop in the planning stages as it allowed me to create montages and mood boards in order to visualy display my ideas. 
IMDB and wikipedia have been very helpful websites to use whilst in the stages of planning my projecet. it has given me incite in to different plots of movies which helped with analysing films and also gave me ideas for my own trailer. Producing a piece of work in media is very different to how this would be done in a more essay based subject such as English. However the research stages may be quite similar, as both make extensive use of the Internet. However whereas media uses websites such as Flickr to then present that research and a blog to host it, a subject such as English would not need presentations of this kind and therefore any useful information found on the Internet would ultimately end up as part of an essay. The actual piece of work would again be different. An essay for English would just be page after page of continuous prose, however, in media; products can be a variety of things such as a video or Photoshop products. Finally evaluation would also be very different. In English you may annotate an essay or write an evaluation paragraph as part of an investigation. However in media there are many means of evaluating ranging from a voice over to a slideshow to some paragraphs of text accompanied by pictures. Both of these approaches have strengths and weaknesses. The traditional approach is simpler and easier for people who are not visually creative. Also it only really needs a pen and paper which can be more reliable than the technology used in media. However the essay approach doesn't allow for any individualism or visual creativity and therefore can be tedious to do.
The media approach allows for this creativity as a blog can be personalised in many ways and lots of different mediums can be used like video and images. Also the making of the products in media allows for practical work, like making the trailer, and more artistic work, like the poster and magazine cover. Furthermore in English there is a word count of say 3000 words for an essay, however on a blog there are no word counts and it’s easy to write 3 or 4 times this amount over the whole blog because each post is its own section and has its own topic, so writing a large amount doesn't become as tedious. Also because there are separate posts the piece of coursework becomes easier to edit because the blog doesn't have to work as fluently as a whole as an essay does. Finally media gives you the opportunity a learn a lot of new skills that traditional subjects don't, such as how to make a blog, edit images on Photoshop and make surveys online. However the media approach does also have weaknesses. It relies very heavily on technology which can go wrong and hinder work. There is also a lot to learn to be able to use programmes like Photoshop to their potential. Finally things can become complicated to someone who is not particularly computer fluent and very difficult for someone who is not particularly visually creative or innovative.
Personally, I prefer the media approach because I find it more interesting. Doing research through a website like YouTube instead of out of a book is not only more engaging but also easier because you can find what you're looking for in seconds by typing in a key word whereas it may take hours to find the right bit of information in a book. Furthermore I enjoy the freedom with pieces of work like the poster and the opportunity to do something practical like the trailer. However I do feel the media approach can be more complicated than the traditional one because some of the programmes we used are quite complex and this can cause problems. Overall I feel I used a lot of new media this year, with the programmes I had used, like Photoshop and Blogger, I was able to develop my skills further and even carry those skills across into my other lessons.
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