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

Adobe Premier Pro• An essential piece of my post production process, I used Premier

Pro as the main editing tool for my music video. I have had previous experiences on Premier Pro when creating my preliminary lip syncing task and storyboard animatic, in which I discovered a variety of tools and effects that I could use, enhancing the quality of the video. Using Premier Pro definitely had an influence on the final outcome of my video as discovering certain tools allowed me to adapt the video from my originally planned storyboard. For example, I had originally planned to film my performance in full colour. However when experimenting with tools and effects I found that using black and white gave a more professional and slicker look to the performance. I am aware that there are more advanced pieces of software when editing a video than Premier Pro but as this program was the most accessible to me it was a more logical choice of software. However, if I were to create this video again I would consider using other software such as Sony Vegas.

Wordpress• I used Wordpress as a way of presenting and sharing all of my

research and projects. I have found that over the last two years Wordpress is a simple and effective way of blogging and takes little time to adapt to it. Wordpress has been a very useful blogging tool as it allows you to upload a number of different multimedia content i.e. videos, pictures and documents

Flickr• This was my first time using Flickr and found it a very simple but useful way

of uploading photos. To upload a photo, a user must simply upload an image to their photostream and it would be available to use. Flickr also allows you to make notes on the image, making it useful when giving feedback or annotating. However, I was unable to find a way of uploading my image from Flickr to my blog, meaning I had to simply copy the weblink on Flickr and paste it onto my blog.

Prezi

• Having used Prezi before I was comfortable with the tools available and experienced no problems when presenting my work. I chose to use Prezi to give a more diverse way of presenting my work, keeping my blog fresh interesting. The number of different themes and tools available on Prezi makes it a more favourable presenting software compared to, for example, Powerpoint. However, Prezi does have some drawbacks, the first being that on multiple occasions the site would crash, impacting my work as it had not saved. Spellcheck is also not available when writing up research, making the writing process more time consuming as I would have to stop to check if all my spelling, punctuation and grammar was correct. Uploading my Prezis onto my blog was fairly simple; however to an inexperienced user they may find it difficult as it requires you to copy the web link into a properly coded format on the blog.

Photoshop

• I used Photoshop to edit my ancillary tasks, including the album digipak and album magazine cover. Photoshop allowed me to edit my images in a way that made them looked more professional and clean cut. A very useful tool within Photoshop that I used consistently throughout my projects was the drop shadow tool which enabled me to create a darker and eerier feel to the images. Having used Photoshop before these tasks I was aware of the vast range of tools available, allowing me to take advantage of the software. Overall I found Photoshop to be a very useful and effective programme as it allowed me to make my images look more professional. However, if a user had never used Photoshop before, they may struggle to use certain tools and know what effects do what.

Slideshare

• I used Slideshare to upload my PowerPoint's onto a blog which could then be transferred to my wordpress blog. I found Slideshare to be very simple and effective, needing only to click upload and search for the appropriate PowerPoint in your files. However, when attempting to upload a PowerPoint to Slideshare, it would sometimes freeze on the loading page and fail to upload the file. Uploading the PowerPoint to my wordpress blog was very simple as all you had to do was copy the embedded link on the Slideshare post and paste it into your blog.

Emaze

• Emaze is a presenting software, similar to Prezi, which allows the user to choose from a variety of different themes, keeping the presentation interesting. The look and style of Emaze makes the presentation look more slick and professional, compared programmes such as PowerPoint. However, a problem I encountered whilst using Emaze was that the programme would sometimes take a long time to load or not load at all.c