Evaluation- How did you use new media technologies in the research and planning stages?

When I was planning my project I didn't use any particularly new media technologies when conducting my research. First of all I used Google Chrome and Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows computers or Safari on Apple MAC computers to conduct the majority of my research. If I needed a small piece of information quickly I also used the internet browser on my Blackberry Torch mobile phone. I used the internet to get access to search engines like Google so I could research information. I often used YouTube to look at film trailers and Photoshop tutorials. I also looked at many other different websites which had Photoshop tutorials on them if I wanted to learn how to do a specific task (for example, I had to use Google to find a tutorial on how to get rid of the golden tinge in the photos we took for our posters/magazine covers which is how I discovered how to use adjustment layers). I also looked out for cinema/DVD film trailers when I was watching television or DVDs so that I could analyse conventions of different trailers more to deepen my understanding of what makes a professional, successful film trailer. I also used Microsoft Word on many occasions to write up my research then I printed it off using my small printer at home or the more professional and complex printers available at my college so that I could transport my research around with me and refer to it when it is needed. 

When planning and doing our written pre-production I did experience using some new media technologies. The three technologies I experienced using for the first time were scanners, photocopiers and the Apple programme Celtx. I used the scanners to upload our storyboards and our risk assessment sheets from a sheet of paper to a file on my college user space and my personal USB pen drive. I used a photocopier to photocopy our storyboard templates and to photocopy our call sheets (so we had enough call sheets to give out during our filming). These two technologies were very simple to use. Celtx was a bit more complex to use as none of us had used it before but we received tutorials from our teacher and then we used this to create our scripts. Celtx allowed our scripts to look more professional and we were able to make our scripts clear ready for when we filmed. 

Other technologies I used which I had already had previous experience with were Google Maps and the BBC weather websites. I used Google maps to get directions from the closest train station to our filming location. This was useful because we could print this information straight from the website and give it out to our group and our other actor with the call sheets. The information was also very clear stating how far away it is, how long it takes to walk and exactly what directions to take. We used BBC weather to check on the weather conditions for our filming as the weather affects how hazardous our environment is, how easy it is to get to filming locations and how our effective our lighting would be. Although British weather and weather websites can be unreliable, this still gave us an idea of whether the weather would be appropriate for whatever we were filming that day.