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

2. Research… The main website I used was Google to get the
research that I needed to create our music video
and Ancillary Tasks. This is the most popular and
reliable search engine that I always use, so for this it
was no different. I used this to find out information
about music videos- for example different types of
transitions, and then also to get images of bands,
albums and artists for research into digipaks and
magazine adverts. Just like with youtube, I had the
problem of certain images and websites being
The other programme I used for my blocked, for one reason or another, so it was very
research was Youtube. This was very useful difficult to research into adverts and digipaks in the
for researching into music videos, as you lessons, because we could not access hem. Once
can view them, pause them and play them again this meant that I had to do a lot of this at
back as often as you like. This was very home.
beneficial when looking at different music
videos to see what types of
transitions, colours, mise-en-scene and
storylines that they use. However, this was
very difficult to get access to during my
media lessons, as the school blocks this
website, therefore I had to do quite a lot of
this at home, which wasted some time.

3. Making The Music Video…
To create our music video, we used the Canon fs406 camera, which
allowed us too not only film our music video , but to also take
photographs of what we are doing. It was not the best quality, but it
was small and very easy to use and in the end did give us a solid
music video. Along with this we had the tripod, which was
compatible with the camera and was very valuable when we
needed to film for 5 minutes straight and when we needed to stop
the camera from moving when filming.

4. Ancillary Tasks…
The main piece of technology we used to
construct our ancillary tasks was the Canon
EOS 7D camera, which was provided to us
by Sarah’s Dad. We decided to use this
camera for our photo shoots, as it provided
a very professional, clear and unpixelated
image. When using this camera I learnt
how to adjust different settings, such as
the: exposure time, sensitivity ISO and the
flash settings. Changing the flash settings
was quite complicated, as there was a
different piece of equipment you attached
to the top of the camera which could be
used from different angles along with the
camera flash to prevent shadowing on the
model. To go along with this in the
photoshoot, we had two large lights
provided by our school, which guaranteed
that the model would be clear in the
photos, and that the amount of editing we
would have to do was minimal.

5. Ancillary Tasks Continued…
To construct the Ancillary Tasks, me and my
group used photoshop, as we were very
familiar with this programme from AS
Media, so it meant we would know what
tools to use and how to use them. Both the
Digipak and the Magazine Advert was
created using this software, as we could
insert and also edit the images, then add
additional things to this, such as text,
barcodes and certain icons like “Vevo.” One
of the problems we had with this
programme was the “Layers” as we
struggled to ensure that everything was
individual, so that if we needed to change or
delete it, it would not affect any other
aspects of the product. We had to make sure
every time we inserted something new, we
made it into its own layer, which proved
quite time consuming.

6. Editing the Film…
To edit our film together, we had to use the programme that was
provided by our school- which happened to be Adobe Premiere
Elements. This programme allowed us too insert the clips we
needed, with the song we had chosen- then edit, cut and add
transitions to make it appear like a music video. It was a good
programme to use, as it made is easy for us to cut our clips up
into tiny sections repeatedly and put them all in a different
order- which we had to do regularly to get clips that went along
with the beat of the music. Nevertheless, we did encounter
problems with this programme, which stunted our video making
process. For example, due the small amount of computer space
we are provided with by our school, it was hard to get all of our
clips onto the programme, put together and then save. We had to
ask for more space on several occasions. Another problem we
had was that the programme would not open some of the files
that we had used, which resulted in a loss of a huge part of the
music video. However, with help from technicians this was soon
overcome. Lastly, we had the problem of exporting this file to
put on blogger, but it failing, We eventually worked out that this
was because blogger only allows MP4’s on it. Consequently, we
had to put the exported file on “Serif Movie Plus x3” and than
convert it into a MP4 file.

7. Presenting & Evaluating Coursework…
The most important programme for presenting my coursework was blogger. This is the programme
we had to use for AS and A2 to show all the processes we went through to create our products. On
here we presented our research, ideas, construction and final products. However, to make my blog
more interesting and attractive I used additional programmes to present my coursework and then
put them on blogger. I also used additional programmes, as blogger can be quite frustrating and
difficult to use. For example, when you want to move an image, it will never go where you want it. To
overcome this problem I inserted the images in to word, grouped them and then inserted them into
blogger- this made it much more bearable to use.
Slideshare is probably the most frequent additional programme I used to present my
coursework and evaluation. This allowed me to create PowerPoint presentations or Word
Documents and then put them on my blog. All Slideshare does is convert the PowerPoint file
so that it can go on your blog in a quick and easy way, so this was very useful. I liked this
programme a lot, as it was quick and easy to use, and was also not trouble putting onto
blogger.
Three other programmes I used for blogging and evaluation were:
• Picasion: This website is used to put a variety of images together, so that it
becomes an animation. Instead of having loads of photos underneath each
other, they all appear in the same place, which made my blog more
interesting and less busy.
• Prezi: This was another website I found which allows you to make a
different type of presentation, which has an alternative layout and is also
interactive so you can move around it.
• Glogster: The next programme I used to present my coursework was
Glogster. On here I could create posters, pinboards of videos that were
interactive. It provided different images and text to make it more interesting
and creative.

8. Presenting & Evaluating Coursework Continued…
The last programme I used to present coursework, was the website www.bubbl.us
which is a website which allows you to brainstorm and make mind maps. I used this
website once to create a mind map of idea about the genre indie/rock. It gave me an
additional way to present my information, so that I did not have to write everything out
again, which can get quite tedious.
To make the video for Evaluation 4, we did not have access to Adobe Premiere, so
we had to use the programme “Serif Movie Plus x3.” This programme was slightly
different to Adobe Premiere, but it was easy to figure out what to do. To use this
programme, we just had to insert the clips we had filmed, cut these clips down
and add some text which we hadn’t done before so we had to learnt how to do it.
Additionally, we had to use this programme to convert the exported video from
Adobe Premiere to MP4 to be able to put it onto Blogger.
For Evaluation question 4 also, me and my group used Facebook as a method of
gaining feedback from our peers. We did this, as our target audience was for our
age group, so this was a perfect way to see if we achieved what we wanted, when
concerning our target audience. So Sarah Biswell put our video on Facebook and
we left it for about a week to see what type of comments we received and also
how many likes.