Digital Technology What skills did we learn? G325: Section A: Theoretical Perspectives in Media Question 1a)

Split your page into sections- which cover all aspects of Digital Technology that you have used. Software Hardware Adobe Photoshop Fujifilm Bridge Cameras

Software AS/A2 Adobe Photoshop (image manipulation) The image manipulation program allowed you to manipulate graphics necessary for the magazine. You used crop tools such as Marquee (magic wand), Lassos, and colour converters such as Red Eye Corrector, Colour Variations, Colour Dropper, Dodge and Burn.

You also used text tools and matched your fonts to act as part of the mode of address. You also used Photoshop to aid your house style through picture boxes and other shape tools (arrows, stars etc). The photographs were also manipulated through lighting effects such as brightness and contrast and shadow effects. Collaborative software The program also uses layers To organise work. This is why you were able to construct your front covers – that used a lot of images – on Photoshop.

Indesign Used as layout for your double page article

Weblogs You used to organise your planning materials in A2 and evaluations in AS. Blogger is an example of Web 2.0 technology (O’Reilly, 2004). This means that the technology is interactive – audiences can post and edit content on the blogs – it links to the idea of two-way communication, communication is no longer linear (one way). Web 2.0 software is collaborative.

In terms of your magazine it means that audience feedback could be posted along with tutor comments, and you learned how to do this for others.

Hardware AS You used the digital stills cameras) to take photographs for your preliminary college magazine mock up task. You then uploaded the photographs using a USB cable to the desktop computers. You then used the software discussed to crop these photographs. This initial task helped you learn composition and framing skills in terms of shot types.

You used Fuji cameras. You managed to frame a shot and take a realistic and believable photograph suitable for your production

Software and Hardware A2 As filmmaker and designer Mark Towse (2002) details digital video (DV) to be one of the most important advancements in motion picture technology since television. Film and video production is now not only done rich film production companies, but can be done in the home owing to cheap software and hardware. OR FINAL CUT Final Cut/Imovie is the most widely used professional software for DV editing and it can be found in ‘lite’ versions on most computers that have capture functions. You edited footage on a timeline and this enhanced your knowledge of layering various video footage and audio that was far superior to Movie Maker.

Planning and Research

To capture the digital video from a mini DV tape, a Firewire cable (IEE1394) is used. The ability to capture footage and audio is also achieved because the computer has a capture card to allow for vast amounts of filmed data to be imported to the edit suite. You did not rewind your tape as this would have wiped the eight digit timecode. This is important as the capture of footage is done by minutes, seconds, frames and can be edited using the timecode. The other main piece of hardware needed to capture footage was the mini DV cameras. The mini DV tape was inserted into the mechanism and was captured in Premiere Pro CS3 in real time, but it can be captured up to 4X speed of real time.

The non-linear editing software allowed you to edit footage, and the most popular edits you made were split edits (which split the video and audio footage at different times) and cutaways or cross cuts (which were continuity techniques used to allow audiences to experience parallel action of events or receive more information in order to construct narrative). To cut this footage you most commonly used the Razor tool in Premiere and the in/out points on the Monitor and Source windows. You also used the Jogger ‘dial’ to select footage in/out points more closely and precisely.

SOUND boom pole boom microphone Tie clip Protools Garageband Mobile Phones IDVD Much of the audio was edited in Premiere/Final Cut in the same way as the video footage using split edits and the ‘unlink’ function. However, some of you used Premiere’s Audio Mixer to cross fade audio.

you heavily utilised the Video Effects and Video Transitions bins in Premiere. Footage was converted to Black and White and you also used effects such as Paint Bucket, Dip to Black/White, Strobe, Grain found in their various bins. You should have kept a record of the exact effects you used and explained why as part of your coursework evaluation.

You used blogs throughout the planning, construction, evaluation of your A2 coursework. For your ancillary products you also used: Photoshop

How is digital technology changing? Digital Technology is electronic It can refer to technical storage or the end product- e.g. digital film, art, audio. Digital Media Alliance Florida, defines digital media as "the creative convergence of digital arts, science, technology and business for human expression, communication, social interaction and education". Analog is based on signal (opposite)

Tim O'Reilly at the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in late Although Web 2.0 suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specification, but rather to cumulative changes in the way Web pages are made and used. A Web 2.0 site may allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to Web sites where people are limited to the passive viewing of content. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, folksonomies (tagging), video sharing sites.

Write using 3 different colours Examples- real examples from AS/A2 Analyse- how effective/why it was needed/advantages/disadvantages/skills development Terminology- media specific words you have used- image, conventions, crop, manipulation Software Hardware Adobe Photoshop Fujifilm Bridge Cameras

Homework 1a) How have developments in digital technology affected your studies as a Media student?

Please think of these questions as part of your write up. What are the pros and cons of the software and hardware at AS in terms of skills development? What are the pros and cons of the software and hardware at A2 in terms of skills development? How did you use your AS SOFTWAREand graphic manipulation skills to aid the construction of your ancillary task at A2? What were the pros and cons of developing skills from AS print to A2 video production?