Technologies used for the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages of Snowflake:Mahbubul Karim

One very important technology that we have used was WordPress, WordPress is how I’m communicating to you right now, WordPress allows me to blog as frequently and whenever I wish to keep you updated on what I’ve been doing and what I’m intending to do. During the entire creation of Snowflake, from start to end I’ve been able to thoroughly explain how and what I’ve been doing, for example when I carried out research into film magazines for example, I made sure the research I had collected and used I blogged in a post called ‘Film Magazine Research’ to ensure that even though I have gained knowledge, I made sure my readers did also.

Another very important piece of technology was Mac, also known as Macintosh. This was the computer I had used, I had used this computer primarily for the construction process of Snowflake, specifically the editing, the majority of the editing was carried out on the Mac, the Mac has a variety of software’s build in for us to make use of for our project Snowflake.

One piece of software the Mac had built in was called Final Cut Pro X, this was a great piece of software as it had many functionalities to allow us to edit our footage, the tools that the software had included were very interesting, because last year I did a lot of editing I was very familiar with the software and was aware of the tools such as transitions, text, slow-motion effects etc.

Also, another piece of software was Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop is a very popular software that is used heavily by designers to create all sorts of designs varying from film posters to artwork, it can even be used to create Gifs, I personally created gifs for my blog, the gifs that I had created were of Snowflake, capturing small clips to be shown and replayed constantly so that you, as my reader can see what I am talking about in visuals. Photoshop was also used in the creation of my Film Poster for Snowflake, I had taken advantage of the fact that Photoshop had many tools and effects that could be used to aid the film poster and make it look effective as possible, for example creating different layers and working on an overlay of ‘Gradient’ on the title of my film poster, to have it contrast between black and white.

Another piece of software as Microsoft Word, which is a text based document that can be used to make notes or type out information. I had used Microsoft Word a lot during the evaluation stages of Snowflake, like right now. I am using word to type out this documentation of which I will upload on Slideshare and then onto my blog so you can see what different technologies I have used.

Microsoft Publisher was also used for the creation of my Film Review, it allowed me to follow the structure of Little White Lies, especially because it was publishing software designed to make things such as reviews or posters. For example the guidelines that were on publisher allowed me to stay aware of not to type anything out of the lines otherwise it will not be able to be seen on the film review once it is completed.

Another piece of software was Safari, Safari is a web browser that we had used throughout the entire process of Snowflake, we mainly used it heavily to carry out research. The browser allowed us access to search engines such as Google.

Google, Google is a search engine that is most probably the main search engine being used at the moment, it has millions upon millions of information that you can have access to. Google allowed me to carry out research into things such as Fonts, I needed to know what fonts are appropriate for film posters, or research into Little White Lies film magazine because I needed to know the structure that the follow when they make their reviews.

Another technology that we have used is the HD Camera, the camera allowed us to record in high definition of the footage that we would use for Snowflake, it has a hand camera so it was easily portable so that we could take it around with us to different filming locations and take the shots that I needed to as a cameraman.

Youtube, Youtube is a huge platform of which videos can be uploaded and viewed by millions of people around the world. Without Youtube I’m not sure as to where I would be uploading all my videos, animations and not to mention Snowflake (the film). It allowed me to showcase not only my film but also the evaluation of Snowflake itself, as I aimed to evaluate Snowflake as much as possible using media technologies and not just simple text.

Voki, was another piece of software that I had used. I had used Voki to evaluate Snowflake as a project as a whole. Voki allowed me to type out information of which I wanted to be read by the animation, it’s a really interactive and intuitive way of attracting readers to be interested and not just have them read plain old text.

Powtoon, was another piece of software that I had used. Powtoon is a presentation software that allows animations alongside text and images to be viewed by the audience. I had used Powtoon for the evaluation of Snowflake to present as to how effective the combination of the main product and the ancillary texts was. It was a very good piece of software as it had a lot of features and animations that I played around with to make the presentation more Interactive.

Summary:Overall I believe technologies have allowed the production of Snowflake to be extremely easier than we had initially Imagined. Technology has saved us a lot of time that we did not have to spend, for instance Photoshop allowed us to create a film poster effectively with all the tools it provides to assist such as the magic select tool that outlines the object/ image if you wish to only crop just that item. Whereas if we had just hand drawn our final film poster, they would look nowhere near as good as the film posters that we had created on Photoshop purely because it was just look plain and basic, and very unprofessional.