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

In these 4 stages I used many programs and websites to complete my coursework tasks, which include Final Cut Pro, Paint, MyPaint, Picmonkey.com, Pixlr.com and Windows Live Movie Maker. My philosophy of technology is that it makes simple tasks a lot easier compared to have it would've been making films in the past, where they had to actually cut parts of film. In a lot of ways these programs helped me in my work but in other ways hindered.

Research
When I was in the research stage of my coursework I used Google and Youtube to find out conventions of music videos, digipaks and magazine adverts for music albums. I used Google to look at images of real life, professional digipaks and magazine adverts, which allowed my to learn the codes and conventions of how certain genres are promoted as well as portrayed in digipak design. I then used Youtube to look at music videos and find the typical conventions in certain genres to then decide what genre I would like to make.

Planning
Blogger was the only media technology that I used in my planning stage. I used it to note when I would film, my initial ideas and plot out the story line of my music video. I found it was good to use as I could see all of my posts and so all of my ideas together, which helped me to construct my work.

Construction
Final Cut Pro was used to create my main task as I was able to cut video clips and add on effects easily. For example, once I uploaded my footage it was easy to just brag and drop the parts that I wanted onto my video. It was also good as it had a lot of effects on it that enhance my video, such as Colour Correction which made the shots brighter. However, Final Cut Pro did hinder me in the editing process slightly. Sometimes the video would start before the sound when I was playing it and so I would think that the sound was out, edit it so that it wasn't, and then find that the music was out again when I played it a second time. I did manage to fix this issue but it made the editing process longer than it should've been.
When I used Paint it was for copying and pasting my Hearts ready for Animation. By pasting them onto Paint it meant that I could save them as a JPEG and could save the images to my computer whereas MyPaint wouldn't allow it to be saved as a JPEG. Paint also allowed me to highlight aspects of the individual image and move them into the correct position, eg the White Heart towards the other to make the illusion of the Red Heart walking to the White Heart. Paint was helpful in creating the movement in the animation but hindered me by not allowing me to flip highlighted parts of the picture properly. It would erase some of the image wanted and so I had to redraw the arms of the White Heart, after 'recycling' the legs from the Red Heart. To redraw the legs I used MyPaint, although this was annoying as I had to redraw them, MyPaint was very easy to use and allowed me to make my Hearts look as though they were hand drawn, which was an effect that I wanted to use since watching Take on Me by Aha. The tools on MyPaint also allowed me to erase any mistakes I made easily. However, as I couldn't save my images as JPEGs, it made it a lot longer to edit and make the animation because I had to copy and paste the whole screen onto Paint using Print Screen and the cut out the bits I didn't need.
A site that I used to edit my images for my ancillary tasks was Picmonkey.com. I had used this site before for my AS work and to edit my own images and so for me I found it easy to use and had good effects to add on top of my images, for example Boken Shapes which made small, faded hearts shapes on the digipak outside. I found the font that I wanted to use on Picmonkey and so downloaded it to a mac to then use on my final work. I had to download the font because the site saves the images as JPEGs and so I could not edit any aspects of the image after coming off of the site. I found Picmonkey useful in adding effects to my images but not so when I had to add writing.
Another editing site that I used was Pixlr.com. I didn't find anything about Pixlr hindering and used it mainly for editing the inside of my digipak. I used an effect to make the inside have a rainbow effect which was exactly what I'd hoped to find as it wasn't available on Picmonkey and tied in with my house style of bright colours. Overall Pixlr was very helpful in the construction on my digipak.
As well as using Youtube for my research stage, I used it to upload my music video drafts and final video. I thought it was useful in presenting my videos but when my Final Video was uploaded it lagged at certain points which I was unable to fix.

Evaluation
To make my evaluation I used Prezi, Blogger and Windows Live Media Maker. I used Prezi to make one of my evaluations as I wanted to make my blocks of writing look more interesting, I also liked the designs. I had never used Prezi before and so it did make the evaluation process a bit longer, however I do feel it enhances the visual aspect of my evaluation.
As I am right now, I used Blogger for my evaluation stage because it is easy to use and I can write as much as I need to and erase any wrong information I might have included. Whilst logged into Blogger, making my evaluation, I can also look back at my work and see what else I can include which is very helpful but not very interesting to look at.
Finally, I used Windows Live Media Maker to show specific examples of my work and to create one of my evaluations. I decided to use this to vary the forms of media technology used in my evaluation and entertain my lovely examiner with something different to look at compared to just blocks of writing.

I feel as though as I was most dependent on technology during the construction stage of my coursework as I wouldn't have been able to edit my video together or create my ancillary tasks without the use of technology, or at least not as well done, as they were all completed on a Mac using Final Cut Pro and Pages. I was least dependent on technology in my planning stage as I was writing down a filming schedule and thinking of an idea for my video. I mainly planned the post production filming and photos using pen and paper so that I could write down the best day for my talent and I to work.
I have learnt that to create a piece of media a lot of different technology has to be used, such as cameras, computer programs and online sites. All of the skills that I have learnt from making my tasks can be applied to the future, even if it's just making a poster for an event or editing a picture to look better than the orginal, I know how to use technology to make it.