HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND

RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATIONS STAGES?

Internet (Web 2.0)

Features Of The Internet Used:

Blogger YouTube Prezi Google

What is Blogger? Blogger is part of the google group and it is

where you can have an online blog. Blogger is very user friendly to use with hundreds of template styles to fit your needs. With blogger you can post text, pictures, videos, presentations and many other things that support CSS and HTML. Blogger is an international site allowing people from any part of the word to either view your blog or create one for them selves.

How Have I Used Blogger?

I have used Blogger to present all of my work on. It has work out like a dairy as you can go from my initial ideas back in September and see all of my thoughts, developments and ideas until the final product.

It has been very simple to use with the choice to personalise the web address and backgrounds making it personal to me.

Examples Of How I Have Used Blogger:

THIS IS MY OPENING PAGE FOR

BLOGGER. AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE GOT

TWO BLOGS. ONE FROM AS AND ONE FOR MY CURRENT

A2. THIS HOME SCREEN ALLOWS ME TO CHOOSE WHICH BLOG I WOULD LIKE

TO EDIT. IT ALSO TELLS ME THE

AMOUNT OF VIEWS THAT MY BLOG HAS

HAD AND HOW MANY POSTS I HAVE ON MY

BLOG SO FAR.

Examples Of How I Have Used Blogger:

THIS TELL YOU HOW MANY AND WHICH COUNTIES HAVE VIEWED

YOUR BLOG AND HOW MANY TIMES. AS YOU CAN SEE MY BLOG HAS BEEN VIEWED THE MOST BY THE

USA BUT IT ALSO INDICATES TO ME THAT MY BLOG HAS BEEN VIEWED

ALL OVER THE WORLD

IT ALLOWS YOU TO HAVE A TIME SCALE SO YOU CAN SEE HOW POPULAR YOUR

BLOG HAS BEEN IN A CERTAIN TIME SCALE

THIS PART SHOWS ME WHAT OPERATING SYSTEMS MY

BLOG HAS BEEN VIEWED ON SO I CAN SEE IF ITS MAINLY

BEEN VIEWED ON PHONES OR COMPUTERS.

IT ALSO RECORDS WHAT AND WHICH IS THE MOST

POPULAR BROWSERS USED TO VIEWED YOUR

BLOG ON

Examples Of How I Have Used Blogger:

A KEY FEATURE WITH BLOGGER IS THE

CAPABILITY TO ADD YOURS OR OTHER

PEOPLES VIDEOS ONTO YOUR BLOG. YOU HAVE

THE OPTIONS TO UPLOAD THEM FROM YOUR FILES

OR GET THEM FROM YOUTUBE. THIS FEATURE

IS VERY USEFUL FOR WHAT I NEED AS I CAN UPLOAD MY VIDEOS OF

BERNARD FOR PEOPLE TO SEE AND GIVE ME

FEEDBACK ON. OTHER FEATURES THAT YOU CAN PUT ON YOUR BLOG ARE

PICTURES, PRESENTATIONS AND

POWER POINT SLIDES.

What Is YouTube?

YouTube was founded in 2005 YouTube allows billions of people to

discover, watch and share originally-created videos. It provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertising large and small.

How Have I Used YouTube?

I have used YouTube for many different reasons over the time period that we have had.

At the start of the year I was using YouTube to watch tutorials on how to animate in Flash.

I was also using it to view already excising short films to analysis the conventions of short films.

More recently I have mainly been using YouTube to upload all the different stages of my animation. Once uploaded to YouTube I could then put it on my blog.

How I Have Used YouTube:

THIS IS A PRINT SCREEN OF MY

YOUTUBE HISTORY BACK IN

SEPTEMBER WHEN I WAS LEARNING

THE KEY FEATURES ON HOW TO

ANIMATE IN FLASH FROM A YOUTUBER

CALLED JAZZA.

How I Have Used YouTube:

THIS IS A PRINT SCREEN FORM MY OWN VIDEO

CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE. AS YOU CAN SEE THERE

ARE LOTS OF VARIATIONS OF BERNARD BECAUSE

THAT WAS MY DEVELOPMENT. I COULD HAVE JUST UPLOADED

THESE VIDEOS STRAIGHT TO BLOGGER BUT I

FOUND THAT YOU CAN GET A LOT HIGHER

QUALITY IMAGE WHEN YOU UPLOAD THEM ON HERE. ALSO I CAN GET LOTS MORE PEOPLE TO VIEW MY ANIMATION ON

YOUTUBE.

What Is Prezi? Prezi is a cloud based presentation software

and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas. Its uses a zooming user interface which means that the user can zoom in and out of the presentations and allows users to navigate there way through the presentation. It’s a fun and easy way to make your presentations more interesting as you can also have pictures and videos onto it as well.

How Have I Used Prezi?

I used Prezi very early on in my planning and research stage of this project. I used it to show the different types of animations. The capability of been able to have pictures and videos to back up my points made the software even better. You can create a path for the presentation meaning you can make sure the audience sees exactly what you want them to see.

How I Used Prezi:

TIS IS A PRINT SCREEN OF MY PRESENTATION LIST IN PREZI. I

HAVE MADE LOTS OF DIFFERENT PREZI'S ON ALL

DIFFERENT THINGS AS I LIKE

THE INTERACTIVITY

OF THE SOFTWARE

How I Used Prezi:

WHAT THIS IS, IS THE PATH THAT I HAVE CHOSEN

FOR MY PRESENTATION TO TAKE. YOU

CAN SET THIS TO DO WHAT EVER YOU WANT, YOU CAN EVEN MAKE IT FULL SCREEN

PHOTOS AND VIDEOS.

THIS IS THE AREA WHERE YOU ADD

THE CONTENT INTO. I CHOSE TO

USE THIS TEMPLATE AS IT LOOKS REALLY

GOOD, BUT THERE ARE

HUNDREDS TO CHOOSE FROM. IN

THE PRESENTATION THERE IS A LOT

OF TEXT AND THAT IS BACKED UP WITH VIDEOS AND PICTURES.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Programs Used In Adobe:

Photoshop Flash Professional After Effects Premier Pro

Why Have I Used Creative Cloud?

The most important piece out off of the equipment that I have is a new thing that Adobe has released and that 'Adobe Creative Cloud' What Adobe have done is, instead of making you buy one piece of software at a time for a lot of money, they have instead decided to give you all of the products for a monthly subscription. When I discovered this I thought it was the very good idea. Because I am a student in full time education I get the monthly subscription for less then half the price as a normal subscription. The main four software's that I use out of the package is Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash Professional, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. Photoshop is an important piece for this animation as this is were I create my backgrounds. I will create them in layers so when they are imported into aftereffects I can add effects to them to make them look better. Once the backgrounds are complete I will then import the background into flash as a template to see where things should be animated to make them match the background. Once the animation is complete in Flash I will then export the animation as a PNG Sequence. In After Effects I will then import all the background layer and the animation so I can start the editing in blurs and zooms. 

What Is Photoshop?

Photoshop is a very high tech image manipulating program with features such as the ability to crop, balance colours and tones and format pictures. Its can be used to edit photographs in a professional manor with the aid of very sophisticated tools. New modern features include 3 dimensional type and shapes, the ability to add in shadows quickly and the quick selection tool making editing and manipulating images ever easier.

How Have I Used Photoshop?

Photoshop as been a very vital piece of software throughout my project. I started using Photoshop at the start of the project as I needed to draw the backgrounds for my animation. Once all of the backgrounds were completed I then started to use Photoshop to make my ancillary pieces. With Photoshop I made my film posters and magazine film view. I personally really enjoyed using Photoshop as I love working in a digital format. Before I started creating the backgrounds I had a good range of knowledge about using Photoshop but as I used it more and more I learnt new skills and my skills developed hugely. This is very noticeable in the different scenes as skills that I had learnt from doing the previous scenes have been incorporated into the new scene.

This is a link to a video of me using Photoshop to draw a tree: http://jameswestonisthebeston.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/drawing-tree-for-second-background_18.html

Whilst making the scenes in Photoshop I saved my work at different stages so I could reflect on the development of my

scenes. As you can see from how I started off with very basic shapes with simple

shadowing and I ended up with a detailed birds house with a background all digitally

drawn in Photoshop

Film Poster Made In Photoshop!

EVERYTHING APART FROM THE BIRDS THAT YOU CAN SEE ON THIS

POSTER WERE CREATED IN PHOTOSHOP.

EACH DIFFERENT PART OF THIS IMAGE IS PART

OF A DIFFERENT LAYER AND THAT HOW IT CREATES

A DEPTH OF FIELD.

THIS POSTER WAS PUT TOGETHER IN PHOTOSHOP. THE BACKGROUNDS

WERE PREVIOUSLY DRAWN IN

PHOTOSHOP FOR THE OPENING SCENE OF BERNARD WHICH I IMPORTED IN AND

CHANGED A BIT. THE BIRDS WERE ALL PRINT SCREENED FORM THE SHORT FILM AND PLACED INTO POSITION IN

PHOTOSHOP

Magazine Film Review Made In Photoshop!

Tools Used In Photoshop: Drawing In Photoshop

THIS IS VERY SIMPLY THE BRUSH TOOL BUTTON. USING THIS ALLOWS ME TO DRAW ANYTHING I WANT AND

WITH THE WIDE RANGE OF BUSH TYPES AVAILABLE, YOU CAN DRAW PRACTICALLY ANYTHING THAT YOU

MANY WANT.

WHEN USING MY TABLET I CAN DO FAR MORE DETAILED DRAWING THEN I CAN WITH THE MOUSE. THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS PRESSURE

SENSITIVE. MEANING THAT DEPENDING ON HOW HARD I PRESS DOWN WITH THE PEN THE LESS TRANSPARENT IT IS. LOWERING THE OPACITY

LEVEL ALLOWED ME TO GET BETTER AND MORE REALISTIC SHADOWS AND BLENDS AS I COULD

GRADUALLY MAKE THEM DARKER

WHAT I HAVE HERE IS THE BRUSH PATE. WITH A CLICK OF A BUTTON I CAN OPEN UP THE MENU OF ALL THE DIFFERENT BRUSH

TYPES I CAN THINK OF. ONE OF MY FAVOURITES IS THE ONE THE ARROW IS

POINTING AT. BECAUSE IT HAS SOFT EDGES, IT MAKES BLENDING REALLY EASY AND

EFFECTIVE TO DO

THIS IS THE ERASER. JUST LIKE THE BRUSH TOOL YOU CAN CHANGE THE OPACITY OF THE BRUSH SO THAT YOU CAN DO VERY LIGHT

CORRECTIONS BUT YOU CAN ALSO CHANGE THE ERASER SHAPE JUST

LIKE THE BRUSH

What Is Flash Professional?

Flash is a 2D animation software created by Adobe. Flash is considered one of the best 2D animation software’s still out there and has been for a very long time. Due to its user friendly layout and how easy it is to use, Flash has managed to beat off it completion because they can offer the same thing. With its multi functions such as animation and web development, it makes this software even more popular. Due to the current era of animations been so advanced with the detailed 3D animation Flash does lack some things that animators may want to include in the animations. But if you want to create simple 2D cartoons then Flash provides the ideal experience for you. However it is not the cheapest with a price tag of $699 it is used for more professional use rather than just for fun however Adobe have brought out Creative Cloud which allows you to download all of their software’s for a monthly charge which makes it a lot more popular.

How Have I Used Flash? Flash has been the most important piece of software that I have used. As flash is an

animation software, I decide to create my animation on it. Flash was a completely new pieces of software to me and I had to teach my self how to use it from trial and error and watching tutorials. The first things that I started to do in flash was to make a man walk as that was my first idea. I drew the person and backgrounds in Photoshop and then imported them in to flash were I started to animate them. I abandoned that idea as it was far to complex to do. So I came up with the bird idea. I started off by drawing the main bird in Flash (link to a video of me do it: http://jameswestonisthebeston.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/blog-post.html ) All the birds used in my animations were all drawn in Flash. As Flash is an animation software not a drawing software, the drawing features are very basic, that's why the birds a very basic shapes and colours. I did learn a few tricks from the tutorials that I watched on how to rig the birds to have all the expressions and different body parts fluently. Then of course the next thing I did was use the software to create the animation. That was a very tedious task as if I made any changes to the time line then I would have to change lots of different parts. But overall I got the hang of the software and I got some good results form it.

Link to a video of me animating in Flash: http://jameswestonisthebeston.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/animating-girly-girl-scene.html

How I Used Flash:THIS IS THE TIME LINE. THIS IS WHERE YOU DECIDE ON YOUR TIMINGS FOR

EVERYTHING ON THE STAGE. THE DIFFERENT COLOURS REPRESENT THE

DIFFERENT TWEENS THAT THE OBJECTS WILL DO.

THIS IS THE TOOL BAR FOR FLASH. AS YOU CAN SEE FOR A HIGH SPEC 2D ANIMATION SOFTWARE

PACKAGE, THERE AREN'T THAT MANY TOOLS. MOST OF THESE TOOLS ARE TO DO WITH

ACTUALLY DRAWING THE ANIMATIONS. TO MOVE THE CHARACTERS AROUND ON THE STAGE YOU

DRAG THEM AROUND WITH THE MOUSE.

THIS IS THE STAGE AREA WHEN ANIMATING. ANYTHING INSIDE THIS ARE WILL BE IN THE

ANIMATION. AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE THE BIRDS THAT I HAVE DRAWN IN FLASH AND THE BACKGROUND THAT I HAVE DRAWN IN

PHOTOSHOP.

THIS WAS A PLUG-IN THAT I DOWNLOADED FORM THE INTERNET. FURTHER ON IN THE PRESENTATION I SHALL EXPLAIN THIS IN

MORE DIGITAL, BUT WHAT THIS D9OES IS IT ALLOWS ME TO PICK ALL THE DIFFERENT

BODY PARTS FOR EACH CHARACTERS THAT I WANT AT THAT TIME.

Different Tools In Flash!

THIS IS THE GENERAL TOOL THAT IS USED FOR MOUSE CLICKS

AND MOVING THE CHARACTERS AROUND WITH

WHAT THIS TOOL DOES IS IT

ALLOWS ME TO MOVE WHERE THE

GRADIENT CENTRE POINT IS

THIS IS AN OVAL TOOL. MOST OF THE BIRDS

BODY SHAPES STARTED OFF WITH

THIS SHAPE AND THEN I MANIPULATED THE

SHAPE

THIS IS THE PAINT BRUSH TOOL.

WITH THIS TOOL I DREW THE WINGS

AND THE BODY FEATURES

THIS IS THE PAINT BUCKET. ONCE I HAVE

DRAWN THE DIFFERENT SHAPES I THEN CHOOSE THE COLOUR AND USE

THIS TOOL TO FILL IT WITH COLOUR

THIS IS THE ERASER. WHEN I WANTED TO RUB SOMETHING OUT

THAT I DREW WRONG I WOULD USE THIS TOOL

WHAT YOU DO HERE IS YOU CHOOSE WHAT

COLOUR YOU WANT. THE PEN SYMBOL IS WHAT

COLOUR PAINT BRUSH/BEN YOU WANT

AND THE BUCKET IS WHAT COULD PAINT BUCKET YOU WANT.

How I Have Used Flash:

All these images of Bernard above are things that I have drawn in Flash. I drew the main out line for Bernard (the bell shape) and then to get all of his different expressions across with out

the use of speak I have drawn different eye shapes and wing shapes that can all change. I drew these with the paint brush tool in Flash . I found it a lot harder to do then it would have

been if I could do it in Photoshop but the results are still good.

KeyframeCaddy In Flash

KeyfameCaddy is a plug-in for Flash. I learnt about this plug-in form a tutorial I watched online.

What this allows me to do is when I have created the graphic symbols for the individual parts

such as the eyes, within that symbol I can draw lots of

different variations of eyes for example sad, happy or what

ever expression you want. So all I have to do is click on the graphic symbol and all the

different options for the parts show up to just click on allowing

me to easily change there expressions

Graphic Symbols In Flash

Above is an example of a graphic symbol. What you can see is a picture of Bernard. Bernard is actually made up of around 12 different layers. There is a layer for each main body part such as the beak, pupils,

eyes, wings and many more. Within these layers there are lots of different versions of that layer for example I have around 10 different eye shapes for Bernard alone. This is good because it makes it very easy to give Bernard expressions. Another bonus of using graphic symbols is that if you don’t click into

Bernard to open up to the different layer, you can move him as one unit but when you do click inside him you can move his wings and other layers away from his body making it a lot easier to animate with.

What Is After Effects?

After Effects is a digital motion graphics visual effects and compositing program. It is used in the post production process of film making and television production. It can also be used as a basic non-linear editor and media transcoder. The reason why After Effects is so popular is because its allows users to animate, alter and composite media in 2D and 3D space with a variety of built in tools and third part plug-ins.

How Have I Used After Effects?

After Effects was used in my project to do all of my cinematography with. When creating the animation in Flash, the way that I did it would have made it almost impossible to add in all of the close ups and the different camera shots. So what I did was I made the animation in Flash on the full background with no camera shots in it. I then imported just the animated bits separately and I imported the different background layers separately as well. I imported them all in separately so that I could add blurs in the further away parts of the backgrounds to give my animation depth of field. If you look closely at the backgrounds you will find that they get blurrier the further back the layer is. Another key feature that I could do with After Effects was to be able to add in zooms and camera tracks with the use of key frames. All the features allowed me to get all the interesting effects that you can see in the animation now, including the wide range of camera shots

This is a link to a video of me using After Effects: http://jameswestonisthebeston.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/editing-girls-scene-in-adobe-after.html

Key Frames In After Effects

EACH ONE OF THE LITTLE STARS THAT YOU CAN SEE ON THIS TIME LINE REPRESENTS A KEYFRAME. A

KEYFRAME WILL HOLD THE INFORMATION AND KEEP IT AT THAT POINT. HOWEVER IF THE KEYFRAME AFTER THAT IS DIFFERENT THEN TO THE ONE

BEFORE THE STAGE WILL CHANGE ACCORDINGLY. THIS IS HOW I GOT THE ZOOMS AND CLOSE UPS. FOR EXAMPLE IF I WANTED A CLOSE UP, I WOULD SET THE KEYFRAME TO WERE I WANTED THE CLOSE UP. THEN

YOU DECIDE WERE YOU WANT IT TO END UP SO AFTER THAT THE COMPUTER WILL MOVE IT BACK TO

THE POINT YOU SET IT TO

What you can see in this box are 2 lines out of 54 I had to work with. Each line is represents something within the animation. Whether that be one of the hills I

the background of the animated bird.

THESE ARE THE COORDINATES FOR THE

POSITION OF THE KEYFRAME. THEY

CHANGE ACCORDING TO WHERE THE KEYFRAME

IS SET AT.

What Is Premier Pro? Premier Pro is a timeline based video editing

software application. This software is very high tech and is used by large media industries such as the ‘BBC’ and ‘The Tonight Show’. It is a very high resolution video and audio editing program and can support 3D editing with 3D material using 2D monitors. Even though this is very high tech software, it is still very user friendly meaning armatures can quickly pick up the skills to be able to edit there videos.

How Have I Used Premier Pro?

I have used Premier Pro in my final stages of my animation. What I have used it for is to add in the music and sound effects for my animation. Another thing that I have used it for is to add in the credits at the end

How I Used Premier Pro:

THIS IS THE TIME LINE. FROM HERE I HAVE ADDED IN THE ANIMATION WITH ALL THE

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND I HAVE ALSO ADDED IN THE MUSIC. THEN I HAVE TIMED THEM AND

ADJUSTED THEM SO THAT THEY BOTH WORK WITH EACH OTHER

THIS IS ALL OF MY IMPORTED MEDIA. WHAT YOU CAN SEE THERE ARE THE SOUNDS THAT I HAVE

IMPORTED FROM YOUTUBE TO PUT ONTO MY ANIMATION

WHAT WE HAVE HERE ARE THE SOUND CONTROLS. FROM HERE I CAN DECIDED THE VOLUME LEVELS THAT THE

MUSIC WILL GET TO ON EACH CLIP. THIS IS VERY USEFUL BECAUSE IF I WANT SOME MUSIC TO BE LOUD TO GET THE AUDIENCES ATTENTION I CAN TURN IT UP BUT IF I WANTED

TO MAKE IT VERY QUITE TO BECOMES BACKGROUND MUSIC I CAN SIMPLY TURN IT DOWN AT THE POINT.

THIS IS THE STAGE AREA. FROM HERE I CAN SEE THE ANIMATION SO I CAN TIME IT UP WITH THE MUSIC. I NORMAL HAVE IT ON A DUE SCREEN BUT FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS I HAVE PUT

INTO ALL INTO THE ONE.

Microsoft

Microsoft Programs Used: Word Power Point

What Is Word? Word is a word possessing program that

enables you to write up documents. It is a very basic program to use with special and helpful features such as spell check many different templates for letters and other things you may require. It is considered the most popular word

possessing program to usebecause of its user

friendliness.

How Have I Used Word?Throughout this project I have used word countless times. What the main things I have done in word is write either what I want to put on my blog or in Photoshop. I do this because Blogger is American so the spell check is set for American spellings not English. Photoshop doesn’t have spell checker at all so when I want to add text into my work, such as the magazine film review, I can check all my spellings and punctuation in word to limit my mistakes. I have more recently used word to create my questionnaire for my audience feedback

How I Have Used Word:

What Is Power Point? Microsoft Power Point is mainly used as a

presentation software. It is a very useful tool at making presentations as it offers a range of styling features such as colourful text and photographs, illustrations, drawings, tables, graphs and movies. You can also make it even more personal by adding in creative transitions in-between different slide to make it more interesting. Another key feature is that you can print off the power point in hand out form so you can also have hard copies to hand out as

well as the presentation

How Have I Used Power Point?

I have only used Power Point in these evaluations and in my planning a research part of my project. I have used this software there because its is a really fun way to present your work rather then just having a page full of writing which looks boring. What I like to do is put my work into sections so that I doesn’t look to over whelming. Were appropriate I also put pictures to reinforce my points to add a visual aid

How I Used Power Point:

This is a Power Point presentation on the

conventions of magazine film

reviews

Hardware Used

Graphics Tablet

One of the first things that I bought to help me out was a Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet. What this is as a tablet were you get a pen and

you draw on the tablet like you would with pen and paper. However when the pen is touching the tablet the pen then turns into a mouse.

This means that I am able to do more fluid lined drawings and shade faster and more realistically then I would have been able to do with just the

mouse. In my animation, everything you see in the scenes has been drawn and coloured in was all done by me, and to aid me to do this I used

my Graphics Tablet. 

All-in-one Pinter

The next thing that I have to aid me with my animation was my all-in-one Epson printer. This printer doesn't just print but it also as the

functions of a photocopier and a scanner. It was the scanning capability that has really helped me out with

this piece of equipment. This is because when I have sketched out one of my designs it means I can scan it into the computer and post it on my

blog. It also means that I can use the drawn images as a template when I starting to draw my images in Photoshop. 

Computer

Just because you have the equipment doesn't mean that its good enough for the job. For example you may have a computer to make an animation one, however if it has very low specification then it wont work

very well compared to a high specification computer. This is the computer that I use to make my animation. Its a Lenovo H530s. This computer has an 8GB RAM meaning that it can handle big tasks and

work with high end software such as Abode After Effects and is able to render the videos without freezing or crashing.