Evaluation Question 4

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

Throughout the entire coursework, Blogger was the main piece of media technology that we used. This is the site on which all of our coursework is placed, including all of the research, planning, construction and evaluation we did over the work period. The reason a blog was chosen was so that we were able to show our work in a more up to date digital media related output, instead of placing everything inside of a folder. By using a blog the assessing teachers will always have access to the project as it is internet based and can be loaded up on any computer with a connection. This enabled them to easily track our progress and give us constant feedback on how we were performing throughout the coursework. Also, the bonus of using Blogger for out A2 coursework was that we had experience in doing our blog orientated work the year before. This ultimately meant we had a much better set of skills on how to use Blogger and how we could use it's features to their full potential.

In order to create our media products, we first had to carry out background research on each product. For the analysis of existing film trailers we used the video sharing website, "youtube", where thousands of film trailers are stored on it's servers. This meant that we could easily find trailers that matched the genre of film we were creating as our coursework. Youtube is also very useful in it's compatibility with many other internet websites, which meant that instead of just having a hyperlink in our post, we could customize a specific size of video and embed it into the post. This meant that the video would appear in our posts so that the video can be very easily found when the analysis is being read. Also, this came in hand when we were analyzing the videos in the first place, as it would always be at the top of the post saving time from clicking between different windows. For the print based research we used Google Images, in order to find existing film posters and magazine front covers. This was chosen because it was very quick to find what we were looking for and it was set out so that we always had a wide choice to choose from. Websites such and Wikipedia helped us with types of shots we would use and information on how to get the best possible shot, with framing and steadiness, etc... It helped us build a firm foundation on what we needed to do when we went of filming.

A lot of the planning stages were initially done on paper, where shot ideas and design layouts were draw down for the later production stages. However during the planning stages we also used the filming equipment first hand in order to find out how it worked and how we can get the best possible results from it. This included a digital camera from taking photos of the locations, the digital handheld video camera, tripod and a computer for early designs and layouts to put together.

For the construction of the media products we only used a Mac computer, but used various software programs installed onto the hard drive. The initial construction was actually capturing the footage on the digital handheld video camera with the use of the tripod when we needed steady shots. The main 'putting together' construction of the movie poster and magazine front cover took place Adobe Photoshop, because it was the best software we had for it in our institution. Every different feature was kept on a separate layer, meaning that it was easy to edit and move around. It was much easier to complete the print based sections for this A2 coursework as we have previous experience on Photoshop when we designed magazine spreads in our As media coursework. This gave us a lot more time to focus on the construction of the teaser trailer on Adobe Premiere Pro, of which I, nor my partner, had any previous experience on. After trying out some cuts and movements on spare clips, we started the construction of the teaser trailer. The induction on new software for the construction stages allowed us to learn and develop new media skills that we can take on into further education.

For the evaluation stages, Blogger was once again the piece of media technology that was being used most frequently. It was where the evaluations were being uploaded too, as well as providing us with a timeline of our previous work on which we could evaluate. By posting our final video onto our blogs, we were able to show our blogs to friends, family and fellow classmates in order to get their feedback on it. However we also used other internet related technologies like youtube - again - for uploading it on there in the first place. Apart from the filming process, most of the coursework process was based on and around the internet. This digital media representation of our coursework helped develop our skills and knowledge on the subject even further.