How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Blogger: 
I used blogger throughout the planning/ research, and the evaluation stages. I used it in order to plan everything to do with my video and my ancillary texts in order to make it easier for me to create my product when it came around to this point. I am also using it during the evaluation stage to look at what I have done well and what I could have done better in the creation of my product. I have created a blog for my planning and one for my evaluation in order to do this. I have found blogger easy to use as I have used it previously in my AS Level media, therefore I was familiar with it when it came to using it this year, and I have been able to use it effectively and post regular updates. I feel that during pre-production I used it effectively, as I kept on top of the work the best I could have, however during the evaluation stage I haven't been as efficient with it, and perhaps been better at posting to blogger. I did not encounter any problems with blogger and it was very easy for me to use throughout the process.


Adobe Premiere elements 13: 
I used Adobe Premiere elements in order to construct my music video. I used it to edit my video in the production stage of creating my product. I used this in the school as I did not have the software at home, which did restrict me slightly as it limited me to only being able to edit my video during lessons. I have not previously used this software, although during my media btec I did use a different version of Adobe Premiere elements, so this software wasn't completely new to me, although it did still take me a while to get used to it. I did encounter several technical problems with Adobe Premiere elements during the production stage, in that to start off with I was unable to insert any music into the video, and when I did it didn't play any sound. As well as this I had problems with not being able to actually open the software, and several other problems, such as after I had the sound working it would begin to sound 'jumpy', and miss parts of the song out. This resulted in the technicians resetting my profile a few times, and deleting my Adobe settings. All of the technical issues I had did put me behind where I wanted to be in creating my product although I still managed to complete it within the time frame. I have learnt new skills from using this product such as being able to reverse clips, and I managed to figure out how to do so fairly easily. Overall I found Adobe Premiere elements easy to work with once I had solved my technical issues.

JVC Everio Camcorder: 
I used this camera to film the clips for my video. I used my own camera to do this rather than borrowing one from the school so that I could keep on top of it myself and so that if it was necessary for me to do more filming I could do so easily. I found this camera very easy to use, and also very simple to upload clips to the school computer. I did use the camera for 2 days of filming as I had to film my band and my actress, and I only had to use 2 batteries to do so, which made the process even easier. The camera isn't of the best quality, although I didn't find this to be an issue as the clips still looked god as I was editing them. I didn't encounter any issues using this camera so I am happy with how it went.


Adobe Photoshop: 
I used Photoshop in order to edit the pictures for my digipak, I did this to get them how I wanted them to look before creating the digipak in fireworks. I used Photoshop because I could do a lot with it to edit the pictures that you can't do on much other software. It meant that I was able to give all of the pictures the same colour schemes, and edit out any marks in the pictures that I didn't want in them. I wasn't very familiar with Photoshop as I don't often use it, and as I don't have it at home I also had to use it within lesson times. I was able to use the basics of it although as I didn't know much about it I was unable to do anything particularly complicated to the photos, however I am still happy with the result as I did what I wanted to do to them. I encountered the same problems with this as I did with Adobe Premiere elements, in that I was unable to open it for a while, which did pouch me back and meant that i couldn't get work done when I wanted to. Although I did resolve this issue by going to the technicians several times until eventually I had no more problems with it. I did learn new skills through using Photoshop which I didn't have previously, such as being able to remove small marks from pictures and to sharpen parts of images that were slightly blurry. I did use photoshop briefly last year when creating my magazine, although I used it much more this year and did fin it fairly easy to use.

Adobe Fireworks:
I used Fireworks to create my digipak and my magazine advert, I put the photos in that I had edited in photoshop and then combined them with any other pictures or text that I wanted to create the final ancillary texts. I also had to use Fireworks in school as I didn't have the software at home and I did encounter the same issues as both Photoshop and Premiere elements as there were issues with Adobe in my school account for a few weeks. I have used Fireworks in school quite a bit before, therefore I thought it would be good for me to use this year as I am already familiar with the software. I didn't encounter any other problems when using this and I found it easy to use. I did learn new skills in how to merge two pictures together, as I had to do so for my front cover of my digipak due to my initial idea not working. Overall I got on with using Fireworks very well and I am happy with the end result of my digipak and magazine advert I used it to create.