What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Technology

During this unit, I have learnt a lot about different media mediums and technologies.

The first thing I've learnt about is blogging. Prior to this unit I have never used a blog before. I found that "Blogger" was a great site to use as it was very simple to set up and generally easy to use. I learnt how to change the appearance of my blog; creating different pages and changing the theme and style of my blog. I found out how to add labels to each of my posts in order to make my blog easy to navigate around. This is definitely a website I would used again because it is very simple to use, and it is free to use, but it allows you to adapt the site for your needs.

I also think that I have developed my skills in camera work and editing. Before starting Media Studies, I had experience in photography but not in filming. After finding out how to film on a camera, from Google, I experimented with different shots, including how to change focus when filming. I learnt that lighting is very important when filming, in order for the quality of footage to be good. I also learnt how important it is to film before and after the moment you are planning to use. This is because it allows you, when editing, to achieve a smooth transition, and if needed, you can use the footage at another point in the sequence. When filming, we tried out both handheld shots, and those filmed with a tripod. I found that when filming handheld, you have to be very careful that the footage isn't too shaking, because it can become very distracting, as well as distorting the quality of the footage.


Before the start of this unit, I had very little experience with editing, and even less with iMovie. I have learnt how to cut footage effectively in order to achieve smooth transitions, especially with match-on-action shots. I have developed my ability to contort sound on iMovie, changing the different levels of sound so that they are balanced throughout the opening sequence. I also learnt how to edit the music on iMovie in order for the music to create suspense, or other desired effects, and compliment the action on screen. Freesound is the main website we downloaded any additional sound we needed from. By using it, I learnt how to download sound, add them and then edit them on iMovie.TEXT, COLOUR BALANCE


Other things I learnt how to use were websites including dafont, Prezi, Voki and Freesound. Using dafont, I found how to download and use different fonts onto the computer so we could use them in our opening sequence. Unfortunately, the format of our desired font for our title meant it couldn't be used in iMovie. Instead, I created an image on Photoshop, of our title screen, and added it onto iMovie as a picture.



Prezi, Voki and Wix are websites which allow you to create and share interesting presentations online, which can include other medias, such as photos or videos. I found these to be great and useful websites to display my work.