5th December 2011
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used several different technologies throughout the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of my project, from basic researching of existing products on Google to editing my animation on Photoshop. This page will show you all the different types of technologies that I used throughout this process.
Research:
To research for ideas and existing media I used Google, which enabled to me to find a variety of existing children's magazine and DVD covers. Google led me to find pages such as the BBC and Disney channels websites where I found out about their target audiences, Google also led me to find the BBC’s missions statement.
For my main task I needed to research existing children's openings and possible animation techniques, there was only one site that was capable of this and that was of course YouTube. YouTube allowed me to research various different techniques that I would be able to use to create my animation sequence. It also let me view and paste a link to all the different existing children's opening sequences on my blogger.
Planning:
When planning my main task and ancillary tasks I needed to deconstruct the existing media that I had found, this was easiest don't on Microsoft Publisher as it allows you to place an image (a magazine/DVD cover) in the centre of the page and create text boxes around it with arrows linking to the item on the image. Without the use of Microsoft publisher my deconstructions of existing media would be poorly done and difficult to understand.
Construction:
The main programme used when it came to constructing my main and ancillary tasks was Photoshop. I used two different versions, Photoshop Elements that is available at school, and Photoshop CS4 Extended which I have at home. Photoshop Elements is newer and easier to use, but has less features. Whereas Photoshop CS4 Extended is slightly older and more complicated but has a variety of more features. Both of which enabled me to create my animation by editing each individual photo. Also both of which let me create my DVD and magazine covers. Photoshop doesn’t really have limitations, as it allows you to do whatever you want to manipulate an image.
With my main task I also needed to edit the clips into a video format, to do this I attempted to use the windows movie maker installed on the schools computers, however this was extremely tedious so I found some software called JellyCam on the internet, which I thought did the trick perfectly, which it did. It was solely developed to create stop motion videos to upload to internet sites like YouTube. However this was its downfall, being designed for internet sites the only output file format was an .flv file, which is only compatible with internet sites, and will not let you edit it once created. JellyCam wouldn't let me edit the file or add music to it so I had to find different software.
After the fail of JellyCam I attempted to create my stop motion animation on Windows live movie maker, which managed to create the file, however when I went to play it back half the shots were blurry and it had glitches. So I had to further continue to find software that could create my animation.
With the fail of both JellyCam and Windows live movie maker I was running out of freeware, and wasn’t planning on spending money on software. So after convincing my girlfriend that I wouldn't break her Macbook she let me borrow it to try create my animation on IMovie.
IMovie seemed up to the task and got all the pictures into a video format that could be edited. I thought I had found software that worked perfectly, but it hadn’t. IMovie couldn’t play the images back fast enough, so I saved the video file, put it back into Windows live movie maker and played it back at a faster speed. It was done, between the two different software’s, and two different operating systems, my animation was created.
All I needed to do now was edit the sound and music into the background. This is where I found a rather convenient video of a group of guys who had created a drum version of the Blue Peter opening music. So I got in touch and they sent me the original file which I cut and edited to fit my animation in Audacity - sound editing freeware. I also needed the sound of waves, so I looked around online and found a ‘relaxing waves sound’ designed for people to fall asleep to, cut it down to size and edited it in with the Blue Peter music and saved it – Again in Audacity. I then imported the music to Windows live movie maker where I just attached the music that I had tailored to the clip and uploaded the file to blogger and youtube.
I also used audacity to record my voice, when explaining the development of my DVD cover, cutting out all the bad recordings and cropping all the good recordings to size.
I also used audacity to record my voice, when explaining the development of my DVD cover, cutting out all the bad recordings and cropping all the good recordings to size.
The only technology left that I used was blogger. The site that all of my work was on, planning through to evaluation.
Blogger has been the host of all my work, as instructed by my teachers. After spending a lot of time on blogger, changing it around, editing my work, uploading photos and videos and changing the design of my blog, I have been able to discover its faults. One of these is when creating a new post, after typing it all out, and clicking ‘publish’ to send it to your blog, for it to only all be deleted. After experiencing this I’ve written all my work out in Microsoft Word and simply copied it across to blogger, which saved it from happening again. Sticking to the ‘new post’ theme, another fault when creating a post is the lack of being able to easily position your photos where you want them and the few different sizes available for them. The most irritable thing about creating a post is that how it is set out, typed and formatted is not how it is going to look due to the different size of the blogger page and the post page. A further issue with Blogger is how it seems to label my posts as being created at and around 4.00am, I can assure you I haven't been posting at these times, but Blogger doesn't allow you to set its clock just change the layout of it, I'm not sure where it is getting its times from but it doesn't match any of the computers clocks that I've been working on. this is why I have arranged my blog into pages, and placing the published dates on each post.
Negatives all out the way, Blogger has allowed me to upload all my work to a series of titled pages on the internet and be seen by the world. So blogger clearly has potential, but to host coursework? I'm not so sure, as it makes it ridiculously easy to copy other peoples work.
