Evaluation Question 4

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

Throughout each stage of our project a variety of new media technology was used, the technology we had in order to aid us with creating our product so that the final outcome was as professional and of as high a quality as we could make it.

The three categories we used this digital based media were within the research in existing media texts and planning our product, the construction of our products and the evaluation of what we have achieved and how we have performed.

Research and Planning

Within our research and planning stage we used the internet as our primary source of information with a collection of information on the history of soap operas being collected as well as research into individual soap operas being completed using wikis and other websites containing useful and relevant information. One example of such a source of information would be Youtube – before planning our soap opera trailer and how it would be constructed, sufficient research on soap opera trailers of the past was made, as well as analysis of existing student trailers have made, which were made more accessible through Youtube. Comments and views as shown on Youtube also aided us as we were able to easily determine the success of the trailer in captivating an audience. Google maps was also used in the research as planning stage as we were able to easily view areas on street view as potential locations for the trailer; enabling us to deduce the best places to select as possible locations without having to search on foot for a length of time. The website Barb.co.uk also came into much use as it contained valuable information of viewing figures of existing soap operas, which coupled with loose information gathered with obvious scrutiny to its reliability was a vital source of research information. Websites such as the on demand TV of BBC iplayer and ITV player was also very useful as i was given access to a wide variety of soaps without having to watch them all when scheduled on TV; they enabled me to timetable my own schedule according to my routine and were an easy source of information. Finally Frog mail our school emailing service was a crucially important source to access emails between my group members and to send out emails to organise filming schedules.

The research and planning stage also needed a variety of computer programmes which aided our work. The use of Microsoft Office programmes such as Word enabled us to create audience questionnaires, film scripts and schedules on a clear document. Scribd the online embedding programme enables us to embed these word documents and PowerPoint documents onto the blog, a tool that without which we would have been unable to present our work in this format. Finally we also used Prezi an exciting and creative way of creating presentations of our research and planning; for example this was used for our pitch rather than presenting through the ordinary PowerPoint presentation. It was chosen over other programme options as it was an more exciting and professional way to present an idea to the audience, to attract their attention.

Construction

Throughout the construction of our soap opera products we used new media technologies to aid with the ease, style and presentation of our work. Our trailer was created upon an iMac computer, as this enabled us access to the variety of editing programmes available on this device. Other computers could have been used, however the benefit of the modern iMac design made it simpler and more accessible to use for our needs. Final cut express was used to the edit the film upon the Mac, this programme was specifically designed for intricate high detail editing of videos, and was essential to the creation of our trailer. Another programme used to create the final cut of our trailer was garage band which contained raw music extracts able to be pieced together to create a song of our choice. This was a significant part of our trailer as we were able to create a unique style of music tailored exactly to the tone, style and theme we wished to convey.

In order to create our final poster and magazine product we used initially an iPhone camera to capture to pictures we wished to use on the products. This was a helpful technology to use as it was quick and easy to use and was therefore able to not take up too much of our actor’s time. Furthermore with the photos on our phones we were able to very easily download them onto the computer. When constructing the actual poster we used the programme Photoshop CS5 extended for editing of the poster and creating background images. The construction of both of these products used the same programmes and devices as they needed to tie together in style and design. This also made it easier when constructing them as we were able to identify problems and learn for each product whilst creating them both, rather than adapting our techniques to varying programmes.  To gain feedback on all the products blogger was a key programme as we were able to publish and receive comments on them quickly and easily for both us and our audience.

Evaluation 

Technology was also used in the final stages of the task in the evaluations. Scripts were easily and clearly able to be typed up from notes into a clear Microsoft office word document, which were then able to be presented in iMovies on the iMac as I could quickly film myself reading my scripts. Although we used Final Cut express in the editing of our soap opera trailer, within my evaluations I have decided to put the evaluations together through iMovie. Although iMovies is less detailed and the videos achieved using this programme will be possibly of less quality, I have decided to use it down to its ease of use, specifically when adding voiceovers and filming oneself using the Macs webcam. Once each evaluation has been completed on the iMac, it is then converted to a different file and uploaded via PC onto blogger via youtube.