What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
There are several different forms of technology which I have learnt about and how to use when producing my media product, one of these being Blogger. This is the website which all of the students in my class used to present their work to our teacher and also to the people who will be assessing this work for an official grading. It is a very easy and adjustable blogging website which almost makes the blog seem as if it is your own design. As a result of this, you can really express what you wish to include in your piece of media by using this website to produce your blog. When I first went onto the website and created and designed the blog page itself, I found it ridiculously easy to achieve what I wanted to in the design aspect of the page. There were several preset options to choose from which were actually relevant to what people would make a blog about and not just random images. I didn't even know that creating something which looked so complex was so easy and this made me feel more confident in exploring the websites features some more. Eventually I managed to insert my custom designed masthead to the blog page and this meant that the blog really began to look as if it were an official website. I also managed to work out how to insert games and logos onto my blogs page to give it an even more realistic feel and therefore increase the chances of achieving the highest marks possible. 
Another form of technology I used and learnt about was Survey Monkey. This website was what I used when producing my audience research statistics and it was an easy to use website which was laid out very well and easy to use. It took me roughly 15 minutes to design my 10 question survey and produce a URL which I then sent out to my media class and friends who also attend my school of different ages so that the results I got were not biased to a singular age group. Once I had received some responses to the survey and people were beginning to complete the survey, I was notified by the website vie notifications on my smart phone and also emails and text messages. This was useful because it meant that regardless of what form of technology/media I was using I would know that people were responding to my survey. Once the notifications died down and they were coming through less regularly I decided that it was time to analyse my results and this was a lot easier than I thought it would be. This is due to the fact that the Survey Monkey website put the results from the survey into percentages between the different categories and also put them into bar graphs meaning that there several different ways of analysing the results and minimizing the likelihood of confusion and incapability to read the data. 
I also used Outlook during the process of creating my media product. This was to contact the people who I wanted to take part in my survey. As a result of this I discovered how to compose a formal email which can be used in future and is therefore a useful skill which I have acquired from this course. I also used Outlook to contact my model and my teachers. I made enquiries about my work to my teachers and told my model where and when the photo shoot was taking place in order to ensure they were aware how things would take place. In order to get equipment out like cameras and green screens, I had to fill out a form for hire and send it off to them so that they knew what it was that I required, when I would require it and how long I would require it for. This meant that I had to regularly check my emails and compose emails which were suitable in a formal situation so that I could get the photos taken in time and return the equipment undamaged and in the same condition that I received them in. 
Another form of technology I used was the equipment which I used for my photo shoot. These forms of technology consisted of a green screen, lighting, foldable reflector and the camera I used which was a Canon DSLR camera. The green screen was a very easy to use piece of equipment, this is because it unfolded itself and all you had to do was get two people to hold it behind your model whilst you are taking the photos of them. The other convenient thing about the use of a green screen is that they made the editing aspect of producing a large amount easier. This will be discussed in more depth when I get to the Photoshop analysis.The next item I am going to look at is the lighting used, these were LED lights which gave the model and their clothing a smoother finish in the cameras lens and as a result of this I placed three different ones down. One of the lights was used as a key light, the next one was a fill light which I learnt about in the research process of my media production. The final light was a back light which meant that there was artificial lighting coming from three angles which is what most photos taken use. The three lights were placed on tripods so that they didn't move once set in a certain position meaning my model could stay in the same position and wouldn't be required to move in aid of the lights. I also used a foldable reflector which meant that the light was directed onto the subject of the photo and wasn't straying off in a different direction. The final piece of equipment which I used on the photo shoot was the camera itself. I used a Canon DSLR which is a camera the DSLR stands for Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera and it has this name due to the fact that it combines the optics and mechanisms or a dingle-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor (as opposed to the used of photographic film). This camera was extremely easy to use due to the fact that it almost focused on the subject automatically and the zoom was a manual operation. This is because you had to twist the lense in order to zoom in or out meaning that there was no possibility of technical malfunction with this process. Overall the equipment I used for the photo shoot was very easy and effective to use which meant I could could get the shoot done fast and efficiently without having to go into overtime with my model who had a football match soon after the shoot. 
The final thing I learnt about technology during the process of producing my media product was how to use the software Photoshop for editing images. This process was made a lot easier through the use of a green screen in my photo shoot and I knew this because for my preliminary I didn't use one and I still had to edit the images which was not possible with the magic wand tool and instead I had to use the eraser tool and hold a very steady hand (which I found very difficult). When I used the green screen, I was able to use a tool on the software called the magic wand tool, this was a tool which selected all the areas which were green surrounding the model (subject) and therefore all I needed to do was press the backspace button to clear the green screen from the image leaving the subject there with nothing surrounding him. After this I needed to insert the text and boxes which would contain the text. This was also made very simple due to the fact that the Photoshop software held a plethora of fonts which respectively matched different genres and after searching for just a few minutes I managed to find a font suitable for the genre of my music magazine. The software also contained a shape creating tool which allowed you to create shapes from circles to rectangles to squares to stars etc. This also became very useful because it meant I could insert the text at the size which I wanted it to be and then make the shape around it. There was a function which was 'CTRL + T' which allowed you to edit the shape and size of any object on your work with ease and then press the 'ENTER' button once you had made it into the shape which you required it to be. The software on a whole was very easy to use and this is because it was set out in a basic layout meaning all functions had icons which represented what they were and there were tutorial and walk-through videos on YouTube and Adobe websites which made all things I didn't know how to do very easy. 
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