1. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning (and evaluation) stages?

2. WordPress blog My Wordpress Blog displays all the work I have done over the course of the year. I have updated my blog over the year with work which I have completed and the blog has helped me to organize my completed work in a clear and concise manor. I feel my blog has been very helpful when it came to keeping my work clear and in a chronological order. Each post on my blog has the date of which is was completed, this is very helpful as it kept me up to date and I became aware when I was falling behind and it was noticeable when I needed to complete another post so I was able to keep up to date.

3. Wordpress blog - categories The work which is displayed on my blog is all organized into different categories to help the work become easily accessible and noticeable to others whilst they are looking at my blog. The different categories are listed on the right hand side of my blog as soon as it is opened, therefore others are able to find my work easily by selecting the appropriate category. Having organized categories makes my blog more efficient as pieces of work are easy to find and it is not required to search through months of posts and work. The picture opposite illustrates how easy it is to locate and access each different category, when a category is selected all work with in that category is displayed, very easy!!

4. Wordpress – photos, videos, powerpoints My blog is also a great way to display different types of work. Word documents only allow a limited amount of information to be displayed, where as my blog has enabled me to display work in a vast variety of forms such as, videos, presentations, polls and pictures. Displaying information and work in a range of different forms allows teachers, examiners and others to gain a deeper understanding about the work displayed, for example when analyzing film trailers I have been able to post the trailer itself next to the analysis which allows others to understand more about what I have written and analyzed. Embedding pictures and videos has helped me to show the stages of my trailer, poster and magazine construction! I also was able to embed power points into my blog, this adds variety to my work and is a nice change from just blocks of solid writing.

5. WordPress blog – polls and feedback When completing my research and planning for my trailer, magazine and poster I was able to use polls within my blog to gain the opinions of others regarding my ideas and work. Polls are a great way to gather feedback as people are also able to comment on the polls telling me why they made the decision. Teachers and fellow students are able to comment on my posts and work via Wordpress. This is a great way to receive feedback from others as they are able to share their ideas and thoughts and provide ways in which they feel I am able to improve.

6. Wordpress - Overall Over all Wordpress has helped me a great amount throughout the duration of the year. I have been able to easily use the program and it has helped me to display my work well and it has helped me to keep up with my work and manage my time skills. I feel that the posts are easy to publish and produce and the website on a whole is friendly and easy to use!

7. Internet – Google vs Bing The obvious search engine I used whilst conducting my research and planning was Google. Google is a very well known search engine and helped me find great amounts of information, some useful and some not! When I was stuck on finding information I decided to try and use ‘Bing’, another popular search engine. I thought that if I tried a different search engine then I may be able to find more information that was relevant to the research I was conducting, however I did not find it easier to use at all! ‘Bing’ did not seem to supply me with relevant information and there seemed to be a lot more unhelpful websites then Google! I found Google much more helpful and will be using only Google in the future!

8. Internet – Word Press My WordPress was also a part of the internet which helped me with planning! I was able to view the comments of others and receive poll results on my blog! These both helped me as I was able to gather the views and opinions of fellow class mates and teachers. My blog was also where I displayed all my research and planning which is another reason why it was very helpful 

9. Internet – Medi@chs This as another blog website set up by my media teacher. This website is great for interacting and viewing other’s blogs, as well as helping other to see yours! Each person who studies the subject is listed on the site and you are easily able to access their blog! This is great for receiving feedback on my work as well as advice! Many students also post information and sites which they feel are helpful and that they recommend you study in more depth, this helped me during my research as I was able to search and find useful links to websites and PDF files to help me a lot!

10. Internet – YouTube and Trailer Addict During my research I had to search and find different trailers in order to analyse them and understand the conventions. I found ‘YouTube’ and ‘trailer addict’ very helpful indeed when looking for trailers! I actually found ‘Trailer Addict’ more useful then ‘YouTube’ as the site only contained trailers, therefore there were not videos which didn’t relate to trailers, unlike ‘YouTube’! Although I found trailer addict more useful I still found ‘YouTube’ very useful as well! ‘YouTube’ helped me to find sound effects and noises which are common in trailers and that I could have potentially used in mine! Another thing which I liked about ‘YouTube’ is that I commonly found different versions of the same trailer, for example a full theoretical trailer as well as a teaser trailer, this helped my understanding of the difference between teaser trailers and theoretical trailers.

11. Internet – SlideShare.com I feel that presenting powerpoints on my blog is a great idea. Having powerpoints is a more interesting way to share information. I also found that when on WordPress the pictures would sometimes move to where I did not want them to, where as the pictures can be presented easily in a powerpoint!  Powerpoints also add variety to my blog instead of information being shared in the same way. SlideShare.com has helped me to insert powerpoints into my blog with ease! SlideShare is also very useful as you can view a huge variety of different slide shows which cover a vast range of subjects, this was helpful for my research and it was very easy to search on the site!

12. Planning – Location Pictures On the 30th Nov 2010 I went to the location of where I was planning to film and took some photographs. I took some photographs of the location and actors as well, this just helped me get an idea on whether or not the location was appropriate for my trailer or not. Having photographs of the location as well as the actors with in the location helped me when I returned to school, as I was able to continue research and I had the photographs to refer to. I feel it is much ‘safer’ to visit a potential location before you go to film as you are able to decide whether you like the location and whether or not it would work well in your trailer. I felt the location was perfect for my trailer as the deserted forest environment was great for a horror trailer!

13. Planning – Developing skills Before I started to use Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 I felt that it would be best to get some practice using the program before I actually started to use it for my trailer construction! I didn’t make any videos for a purpose, just simply to get used to using the program and understand the basics! I did this by going out and filming a few shots and scenes and then editing these on Adobe Premier Elements 2.0. This not only developed my skills using the program but also developed my skills when using a recorder which was also very helpful. Experimenting with the software and equipment was very helpful at first as I did struggle at the beginning and this would have delayed my trailer construction if I didn’t experiment before hand!

14. Planning – Internet pictures Whilst researching I used internet pictures to help generate ideas of what my trailer could potentially be like. I found pictures and inserted these into my blog to give people and idea of what my trailer was going to be like.