Illistrated Question 6 Essay

What have you learnt about technologies from constructing this product?

When creating my product I used many different technologies so that I had used before and others that I had not used before. The technologies I have used can be divided into 3 groups, Hardware, Software and Online. In the hardware section comes the camera, the tripod and the Mac. In Software falls Premier Pro, Photoshop, Powerpoint, Word and After Effects. Finally in Online comes YouTube, IMDb, Prezi, Slideshare and Blogger. 

The camera I used was a Samsung HMX-Q10 full HD compact camera. 

This camera was my own so I already had experience with using the camera so I already understood who it worked, this made filming my product easier because I already understood how to work the camera and how to get it to film the way I wanted it to, however I had never filmed a project like this before and the camera had only really used to shot home videos at times like Christmas and Birthdays. Filming this made a nice change and it meant that I got to use the camera and got to understand how to work it better. I feel that by using my own camera it made it easier for me to film my project as I wasn't waiting for other people to film their projects before I could use the camera, by using this camera it mean't I could film my project

at whenever my location was available and it didn't limit me on when I could film. 

The tripod I used was from the Manfrotto compact collection 

  

This Tripod is also my own, I hadn't really used it before I began filming my media project however I did understand how it worked. It was very useful to have my own tripod which could do pans and tilts because I needed to do a pan within my project. Having my own tripod benefited me because it meant that when I was able to go on location I didn't have to worry about whether or not there was a panning and tilting tripod available at college. Having my own tripod and camera meant that I could go on location without having to sign things out from college before hand. 

Throughout my project I used a Mac Computer 

Before my project I had never used a Mac before. I found the Mac hard to get to grips with at first however after a few weeks it became easier to use. I liked using the Mac because it was fast and easier to use. I thought at the start of the project that the Mac was difficult to use but know it is like second nature and I find it just as easy as easy as using my windows laptop at home. Using the Mac made creating different parts of my project quicker because the Mac worked a lot faster than my laptop at home. 

The three pieces of software that I mainly used to create my product were Premier Pro, Photoshop and After Effects. 

 All of these software's linked well together as they are all created by Adobe. They all look very similar and it is easy to understand one of them if you have mastered another one. The hardest one to get to grips with was After Effects as it does so many different things. I used Premier Pro to create my film opening it was very different to Imovie which is what I used to create my preliminary project. Premier Pro allowed me to edit shots that weren't quite right and make them fit well within the film where as in Imovie I was unable to do this. I used Photoshop to create my still logo which was used on all my documents such as location release forms and talent release forms. By using Photoshop I was also able to edit my logo so that it went from a rectangle shape to a square shape which was then used on the Facebook page. I used After Effects to create the moving logo that features at the beginning of my opening. I found this hard to use because there were so many different features and I was unsure of how to use some of them, however I watch some online tutorials and soon understood  the features of after effects that I wanted to used to create my production companies moving logo.  

Other pieces of software that I used were Word and PowerPoint

I have used both of these pieces of software multiple times  and have a good knowledge of how to use them. I used Word to created documents such as Release Forms and Risk Assessment forms. I mainly used PowerPoint in my research stage as a way to present information that I had found out that was related to the same topic. Powerpoint made presenting information easier as it is easy to include pictures and text that are based on the same thing. it also allowed the information to be seen all at one go on the same screen rather than having to scroll through different pages. Words was useful when creating my document because I was able to use templates to make them look professional and it helped me know how to lay it out and where to put specific features of the document. 

I used quite a few new websites thought the production of my film opening. 

I used both Prezi  and Slideshare as a way to present my research and planning. 

 Both of these sites gave me different ways with which to present my work. The benefit of using sildeshare was that it allowed me to include YouTube videos with my slides shows which was particularly useful for my codal analysis because it meant that I could include the video from which I was referring. Prezi was useful when I was deciding on my story ideas because it allowed me to easily show my target audience the kinds of things I had come up with and it also allowed me to show them all in a way which looks smart and professional. I found Prezi hard to work with in the beginning but after a while I got the hang of it and was able to understand how to use Prezi to its full extent. 

I also used IMDb (international movie database) to research into existing films and to find out audience demographics. 

 Using IMDb made research easier as I was able to see the kind of audience watch certain films, what kinds of films already exist and the sorts of themes that are most popular with people watch romance films.This made deciding the kind of film I wanted to make easier and it helped with working out different title ideas and helped me work out the kinds of characters that I wanted to feature with in my film openings. IMDb was also useful because it allowed me to see what kinds of film that were out there and see what kinds of hybrids I could create before I decide which to make. 



I used YouTube to get my project out there. 

I used YouTube as a way to share the progress of my film and I uploaded Logo Movement Ideas and Shot type practices and the my final project. I had never uploaded to YouTube before however it wasn't hard and it didn't take logo to grasp it. YouTube was extremely useful in sharing my progress with others who were watching the progress of my film opening. 

The main website I used throughout making my final project was Blogger 

Blogger was extreamly useful because it allowed me to view all the work I had done at the same time in the same place. I had never used Blogger before I started my project, I found it easy to use and I got the hang of it rather quickly. I found that Blogger was extremely useful especially when I was trying to find work that I had already done to looks at the choices I had made within them. Blogger was easy to work with and useful because I could upload text, images and videos to the same place and it was relatively easy to use. The fact that I could use this all at the same time meant that everything was stored in the same place rather than all over the computer.