My evaluation for A2 media studies

1. How did you use media technologies in
the construction and research,
Construction and evaluation stages?
planning
In this stage, the main technology used was Final Cut Pro.
on Apple Macs. Here, we split, trimmed, cropped, slowed
and added in transitions and titles to the footages we shot on
Megan’s Canon GPS camera to construct our trailer. We also used
Soundtrack Pro., where we created our own music to be included
in the trailer as non-diagetic sound and also effects such as
gunshots which were meant to be a part of the diagetic sound
within the trailer.
For our ancillary tasks, we used Adobe Photoshop CS5, where we used special effects such as
‘Poster Edges’ in order to edit our images in order to give our images an ‘illustrated’ effect as we
identified from our research that it was a common convention used in other Western texts. As we
used Photoshop only to edit our images, we used Microsoft Publisher to actually construct the
whole text.
These programmes were very useful as gave us the opportunity to learn several new techniques in
the construction of texts and really allowed us to achieve a high standard of finish as these are
programmes that even professionals use.

2. How did you use media technologies in
the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Research & Evaluation
Planning In this stage, we again used Final Cut Pro
and Microsoft Publisher in order to make
For our research and planning, we used Survey minor changes in response to the
Monkey as a method of constructing and
sending out our questionnaire to the audiences.
audience feedback, which we obtained by
By doing this we got responses a lot faster than e-mailing our rough drafts of the poster,
during our AS productions where we handed magazine cover and trailer to a variety of
out physical questionnaires, so it proved to be a people who fell under our target audience
lot more efficient. and asking for their thoughts and
responses.
We also used YouTube as a platform to find
other trailers and full length films in order to Also, we used Blogger, throughout the different
carry out research and analysis into the codes stages as a means of posting updates about the
and conventions of our genre and also to progress of the project. It provided the group a
intertextualise. It was a great way of finding an great way to keep in touch and to track what
abundance of material to work with and each one of us were doing. It also helped to be
analysis so that we could clearly identify trends able to see for ourselves how the project was
and patterns. developing.
Also in the research and planning stage, Megan
made use of Windows Movie Maker as a quick
and easy method of putting together her
findings of genre research by splitting up a
trailer and inserting her analysis in between