Evaluation; Question 4

Ghost Nutters; Steph Bowen

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

A new media technology is for example the internet, this is new media as it allows for interaction other than the before more linear type of media for example a newspaper.
We used many new technologies throughout the whole project ranging from digital camera’s to the world wide web.
In the construction stages we used more new media software, the main piece of software that we used was Adobe Premiere Pro, this allowed us after the video footage had being captured onto the computer using another new media technology of a USB cable, we could then edit it. During the editing process we were able to ‘cut’ out bits we didn’t need, replace the sound and also add our own music, I.e the theme tune. We had to make sure that we created Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of a vertical montage. We did this very effectively with the sound FX, especially when the scenes cut we had an effect, for example a bang that would sound in tune with the cut. We also had a very good montage in the title sequence with the beat of the theme working very well with the footage behind it. Also in constructing our ancillary tasks new technologies played a massive role as we used software’s such as Photoshop elements 5.0 for our poster allowing for the image coloration to be changed to make the desired image look of a more stereotypically scary design, for example black and white or green. We also used QuarkXpress 7 for our double page spread. We used more linear media technologies however for the research of this but we also looked on the internet for ideas of what to include in our article. Quark allows big chunks of text called the body text to be placed on around a set border and images making any project look professional. For the research stages we relied very heavily on the use of new media technologies especially the internet. We used very mainstream ways of researching for our ideas including Youtube and Sky+. We used Youtube a lot for looking at clips of the documentary we wanted to base ours upon ‘Most Haunted’. Using this new media allowed us to look at comments under the video of what people thought to it and so therefore these could perhaps help us with our ideas, we were able to pause the clip and discuss what we could use thought worked and what we needed to film for our own documentary. We also used television features such as Sky+, this is a fairly new media technology and is hugely popular as it allows for live television to be paused, rewound and recorded all at the push of a button. This was a very useful resource during our research process as we were able to record all ‘ghostly’ documentaries that we saw and thought we be appropriate, record them and then watch them with the ability to pause and again discuss the ideas we had. New media technologies allow for a lot more audience feedback apposed to the conventional medias of newspapers and radio. For our planning we used lots of Web 2.0 technologies, (O’Reilly said that Web 2.0 means the technology is no longer linear but more interactive, 2004) for example a website called Blogger, where we stored all our ideas in a quick and easy assessable manner. In doing this allowed us again for more audience feedback and we could communicate and share ideas internally within the group when we weren’t actually together, before new media technologies were developed we would have found this more difficult to do. To create videos that we could also put onto our blogs that contained our ideas we used Windows Movie Maker, this is a simpler movie editor compared to Adobe Premiere and allows for basic transitions to be done and also cuts, this was ideal to contain lots of information in a quick and easy way to create that was interactive and interesting for the audience viewing it. After we created the videos we could upload them onto our blog or other Web 2.0 type sites such as Youtube. For our evaluation we wanted to get as much outside audience feedback as possible and so posted the video onto social networking sites such as Facebook for our friends to see and comment on and then again for a wider audience range I posted it on Youtube where the world would be able to comment and rate our video and possibly give us some constructive feedback which would help us evaluate and discuss if we were to do it again what we would do differently. Also we used software such as Microsoft word to write up our evaluation quickly and again making it very easy to change, we also recorded some with microphones making it more interactive for the audience.
New media technologies made it easier for us to complete the project, make the audience more engaged in the final projects as they have the ability to suggest their own ideas and improvements, new media technologies are more interactive than linear media products and so find themselves growing in popularity everyday and making the products that companies etc come up with bigger and better than before simply because there is more communication.