evaluation question 4

1. EVALUATION
QUESTION 4
HOW DID YOU
USE MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN
THE
CONSTRUCTION
AND RESEARCH,
PLANNING AND
EVALUATION
STAGES?

2. BLOGGER
• The first technology I used was one I have relied on since starting the A-level
course. This useful website allows me to store and map my learning
journey by making regular posts showing each stage of my progression
when making my products.
• I uploaded multimedia posts including audience feedback questionnaires,
links to websites I has used so I could refer back to them and embed videos
showing my progression when making my documentary.
• Blogger helped with planning as the dated posts in a chronological order
makes it easy to refer back to previous posts.
• When documenting my own progress blogger made this easy as it allowed
me to write my thoughts behind creative decisions and how I did certain
things showing how my skills have developed. Because you don’t need an
account to view it meant that I could send a link to my focus group so they
could see my products so far and give their opinions on it.

3. IPHOTO
• Iphoto was useful as it allowed me to look at all
my videos and images together and the heart
tool allowed me to pick out the videos I
wanted.
• For photos iphoto also has basic editing options
that would otherwise be complex in photoshop.
• I utilized this to brighten or colour correct any
images or if they needed cropping.
• Having liked the images it made it easier to
send them to my target audience and focus
group to see which they preferred.

4. IMOVIE
• My whole documentary was edited on iMovie apart from some special
effects added on with after effects.
• Imovie allowed me to break down my documentary into sections, I had
one "project" for the opening scene and another for the interview and later
simply copied and pasted them together to make my whole documentary.
• I found watching youtube tutorials, video here helpful as they gave me a
basic understanding of what everything did allowing me to get my head
round it all and progress in making a professional looking documentary.
• I utilized the image fades as I needed a lot of cutaways and found that you
could play with the transparency of an image.
• Also as I filmed outside on a busy street I used the background noise
cancelling tool which helped me greatly. After some audience feedback I
got that my presenters voice sounded a bit too edited and warped.
• I went back and reduced the amount the background noise was decreased
and found once I had done this my presenters voice sounded much better.

5. SAVEFROMM.NET
• I used this to download youtube videos for archive
footage so I could put them into my documentary.
• The first one I did was of Jeremy Corbyn and JME. This
site worked quite well as the videos were of good
quality but the only issue was when I wanted to
download a longer video of a debate the site wouldn't
let me download it but the issue was solved as I found
a shorter version of the clip I wanted.
• Once the videos had downloaded I opened them on
my desktop and dragged and dropped them into
iMovie and cut it down to the length I wanted.
• Adding these outsourced clips abided to the
conventions of political documentaries and also
added context to the words being said.

6. AFTER EFFECTS
• After effects is a more sophisticated
editing tool and allowed me to create
special effects and add multiple layered
cutaways.
• As it was a new software that I had never
used before I used youtube tutorials to
help me.
• I also had to learn how render the video so
that it could be exported and put back into
my documentary.
• This made my documentary look
professional and I added an rgb sequence
to the opening scene for aesthetic
purposes only but I feel it added to the
genre of the documentary as it made it
more modern.
• This helped the production part of my
project and although it is quite a complex
piece of software, after using the youtube
videos I feel I got my head around it.

7. INDESIGN
• InDesign is a software used for publishing as it
makes adding text easy and look professional.
• I used this to make my double page spread for
my TV listings magazine.
• As I had used InDesign before in my
foundation portfolio I was more familiar with it.
I used this software in the construction phase
of my product.
• I utilized the columns tool as I knew that I
needed 6 across the A3 page.
• I also looked to the internet for tutorials as I
wanted a rounded edged rectangle- here is the
blog post.
• I used drop shadows on my images as this is a
convention I found in other examples. I also
added other channels programs on the side and
used the eyedrop tool to get the correct colour
for each channel.

8. GOOGLE FORMS
• I used google forms which is part of the google drive
software for my research and evaluation.
• This was very helpful as it allowed me to make my
own structured questionnaires that anyone can
access with a link.
• I had questions about how I could improve my
products and if they seemed to be targeting the right
target audience.
• Part of this software that was very useful was once
you had your responses it would gather them all
together to give you an overview of your results; these
included pie charts and long answer questions.
• This meant that is was clear to see what needed to be
improved or what was working well.
• I could also embed the survey into my blog so I can
refer back to it throughout the process

9. TWITTER
• As my product was targeted at a younger audience I felt it would be
appropriate to use twitter and hashtags to get them involved and as my
documentary was based around the power of social media. I used the
#youngdumb&voting and encouraged viewers to tweet their opinion.
This helped to maintain a strong brand identity and to get audiences
involved.

10. CONCLUSION
• I used a wide range of media technologies throughout my advanced
portfolio. Some I had used before and was confident in whereas other
were completely new to me but after some research and watching
tutorials I managed to do everything I wanted with them. Some of these
technologies were ones used by the professional institutions such as
Adobe Aftereffects and this provided me with expert looking effects
despite the challenges. Other technologies were not of the same level as
the large institutions as they have huge budgets but these still provided
me with a professional looking final product. I have gained much
knowledge about all of these technologies and enjoyed facing up to the
challenge of understanding them.