Evaluation Question 4

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

Technology in the world of media is extremely important and ever-changing as the world becomes seemingly obsessed with instant communications and would be almost impossible for a media industry, armature or professional to survive without utilising the media available, especially where it comes to the ever increasing power of the internet. Indeed the internet has been my main source or research in this project although in matters such as genre and character for the production of the final product itself I have also turned to the print media.

Planning

During the research stage of my work I turned to the internet regularly, using such technologies as Google, Twitter, Blogspot, Scriptfrenzy, YouTube and the BBC.

The internet was extremely useful to during the research stages, allowing me to learn and discover new things about the industry itself as well as statists, audience theories, communication, the conventions of radio drama and scriptwriting which I would otherwise have been unable to access. With access to YouTube I was able to listen to a variety of lectures and presentations concerning radio and its history, communications and audience theory. Similarly a huge number of people find Blogspot to be extremely useful in getting their opinions across as well as sharing information with the rest of the world and because of this I was able to read a variety of online blogs written about radio drama and its decline in the media especially. Twitter also proved to be very useful to me throughout my research stage as it allowed me to gauge the audience’s general feelings towards radio drama and direct them towards my online survey, for which I have also turned to such sights as Scriptfrenzy and National Writing Month. I have also studied the BBC radio sites, such as Radio 4 Extra which allowed me not only to research how radio drama is presented and promoted in the real industry as well as providing me with the change to listen to a range of radio dramas, allowing me to better understand their conventions.

I have also used BBC IPlayer to gauge the popularity of various dramas and their genres since IPlayer among other things lists the most popular of its radio dramas for its consumers to listen to. For example the screenshot below would clearly favour the idea that most listeners are looking for comedy as a large percentage those radio programs in the foreground include The Unbelievable Truth, The News Quiz, Dad’s Army and Another Case of Milton Jones.

In listening to radio drama in order to gain a better sense of the conventions of radio and to develop the ideas I wished to produce I have also used YouTube, where you can find a variety of discussions about and clips from older dramas such as ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’

Planning/Production

During the planning and production of my project I used a range of technologies to create my ancillary products and main feature, those technologies I have used include:

-Audacity

-Weebly

-Microsoft Word

-Microsoft Publisher

-Paint

-YouTube

-Blogspot

-Mobile Phone

In recording the radio drama one important factor to consider was communication between the members of my group in order to discuss ideas, arrange plans and recording times. To do this I used a mobile phone as this was the easiest way to contact everyone quickly.

To record and edit the radio drama I have used the program audacity where I have been to overlap various elements of the product and also change, among other things, the pitch, volume and speed of those elements, allowing me to alter the tone where necessary. This flexibility in editing is one of reasons I chose to use audacity in editing the product since it was vital to be able to alter the actors voice since one member of our group was playing two separate and interacting roles which needed to be distinguishable from one another. In producing the final product Google has proved to be extremely useful as it has allowed me to find and download certain sound effects I would have unable to create myself from various internet sites. These sound effects, such as factory floor and sci-fi sweep have, which I have used as background noise and the elevator doors have I feel added greatly to my drama as they work well within the scenes and against the dialogue.

After the editing was complete I uploaded my radio drama onto the internet via YouTube which has allowed me to easily add my product to Blogspot where I have recorded my progress and to Weebly.Com, a website where on which I have been able to create a website for one of my ancillary products.

As aforementioned I have used the website Weebly.Com to create my website where I have used a variety of elements such as video, contact forms and forums to create a simple, user-friendly and informative product. And using Microsoft Word I have been able to draft out the information on both the website and my blog before publishing on the internet.  And with regards to the magazine advert I have created the product using Microsoft Publisher where I have been able to easily experiment with the composition of the images and text in order to arrange them in the most effective way.

Evaluation

During the evaluation process I have used the website, Weebly.Com, social networking site Twitter, Youtube, Scriptfenzy and National Writing Month in an attempt to gain publicity and feedback for both my main product and my ancillary tasks. Despite this I have unfortunately not received as much feedback as I would have hoped.

In presenting my evaluation I have used Microsoft Word to write my evaluations before uploading them onto Blogspot. And to shown the screenshots I have used the program Paint which deals in images in order to save the shots in a JGP format to make them compatible with the blog.