The document discusses the use of various media technologies during the research, planning, production, and evaluation stages of a coursework project. Key technologies used included YouTube for research and inspiration, Google for general research, Blogger for uploading work, Photoshop and InDesign for image editing, Premiere Pro for video editing, Word for documents, Facebook and email for communication, and Excel and Paint for data analysis and chart creation. The individual discussed gaining experience with new software like Premiere Pro while expanding skills with familiar software like Photoshop.

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

2. Research
• During my course I became aware of how lucky I am to have
access to the Web 2.0 format, as it has allowed me to use
consumer produced websites such as YouTube and Blogger.
Websites such as these allow the public to upload user-
generated content whilst being easy and simple to use.
• Research was the first stage of the coursework, I explored
many websites on the Internet using the search engine
Google. I found a good range of film posters, magazines and
trailers.
• This would have given me a major insights to all 3 and will
have also given me inspiration.
• I went to the cinema as often as I could to actually watch
trailers in the cinema to give me the full impact of how
trailers can actually affect the audience. In the cinema there
is also posters, billboards and advertisement to promote the
film. I looked how they made me feel and how they draw the
audience in.
• The internet was the biggest source that I use throughout
my coursework, it has given massive understanding with
existing media products such as posters and magazines.

3. YouTube
• I used YouTube throughout my project for
research, planning, production, post-production. I think that if it
hadn’t been for this sight, I wouldn’t have gain so much insight
on existing products. I spent hours watching trailers to hope it
would inspire me. YouTube is a site which is free and readily
available. When I decided to do a thriller I spent many hours
searching through clips and short films to come up with an idea
that was going to be suited to my genre. I feel my trailer has
worked well all thanks to YouTube. When I was doing my
planning, I was watching some trailers on YouTube to gain ideas
for the type of shots which were needed for my storyboard. I
then spent a while looking for suitable soundtracks. I looked on
all the free copyright websites, some were good but other didn’t
quite fit. I downloaded effect to make my trailer scarier and add
realism. I used YouTube 2 MP3 to download the sounds.
• I used the site YouTube to search for existing trailer, as this site is
free and readily available. There is also audience feedback on
each video so I was able to see which one were more successful.
• For example The Dark Knight trailer has over 3 million views
with a like/dislike bar at the bottom. This bar shows that 4692
liked the trailer and only 152 disliked it. This means that this
trailer was very successful with its target audience. I could also
look at the comments below to see specifically which elements
were liked and disliked.

4. Internet
• I used Google Chrome because it works
will with blogger. I do think I used
Google Chrome in all my tasks enabling
me to achieve my full potential through
the use of this browser. By using this
search engine, it has given me
everything that I could ever need for my
research, planning and production.
• Google was a really useful website, it
was a good tool for my research because
it allowed me to search for websites that
helped me gain useful information and
also find images I needed such as film
posters. Google was easy and quick to
used and it helped me find all the
information I need form y research.

5. Blogger
• I used Blogger the most throughout my project. I
uploaded all my work to which was really easy and
useful. It meant I could add videos and images to
support my written work which a clear heading
above each post. I really like how I could combine
this use of technology with my written work to
support it and make it look creative and interesting
to read. I feel by using Blogger I have thought more
about how I represent my work as well as thinking
about uploading content to the internet. Blogger
has made me more creative as I have really thought
about how to display work within a blog post.
However I did have problems with Blogger, such as
it was difficult to place images where I wanted and
sometime I was limited to a smaller size. It also took
a long time for videos to upload which wasn’t really
too much of a problem as I could still edit my post
but it would sometimes crash Blogger meaning I
would lose my work when it didn’t save. Overall, I
think Blogger was a really useful tool and I feel it
was a good way to upload my work.

6. Excel and Paint
• Microsoft Office is a software package used
globally and we can see why because of the
range of programmes it consists. Advantage of
using Excel is that I found was that it enabled me
to create charts with ease; it was useful for my
audience results analysis. On Excel I was able to
easily tally up and count up out results with
minimal errors and maximum speed. We also
made out results look more interesting by being
more creative and using different ranges of bar
charts. Once I created the charts, I copied it onto
paint and saved it as a JPEG.
• I used Paint to save image as JPEGs. I print
screens the charts from excel and cropped then
down to size and saved them as JPEG on paint. I
did this because I could upload them on my
blog. It was very time consuming but it was
worth it. Paint is a simple but useful programme
that I feel I made good use of in my work.

7. Planning
• In my planning stage, I created a storyboard using
Post-It notes which showed the story of my
trailer. I used Post-It notes because I could
change around the scenes if I wished too which
was much easily and convenient. I did change it
around often and also added more scenes in. for
each Post-It note I’ve drawn diagrams to illustrate
the scenes, giving a brief description of what's
happening and how long it is shot for. Also the
diagram is drawn as what camera I am going to
use. Images were taken on a Blackberry then
transferred onto the computer.
• To organise my filming, I used Google calendar to
show this. Google calendar is free and very easy
to us. It also shows it in a very simple way and is
available to print and be shown online (Internet).
• Any planning and research that I completed was
then transferred onto Blogger, an online blog
storage that allowed me to enter my work
chronologically.

8. Facebook and Email
• I felt that Facebook is a
great way to communicate
with others. I use this social
network to organise
shooting day with my
actress by using Facebook
chat and mail.
• Email was used to contact
my artist but I also used
mobile because it quicker
to communicate and any
complication I can also ring.

9. Word
• Work was very important
during my research, planning
and evaluation stage. Firstly it
enabled me to create my
audience research
questionnaire. An advantage
of using Word was that any
text could be easily changed
and it detects spelling errors
and grammatically errors. This
helps because it makes my
written work professional
because it won’t have any
errors.

10. Production
• During my production I used a range of different media
technologies. Firstly to capture my images, I used a digital SLR
Nikon D3200 camera for high quality and professional looking
production. When taking my photos for my poster, I want to
emphasise dark/light so I used an iPhone flash on the camera to
enhance my artist features.
• To film my trailer used a video camera which was very fun to
use and actually going out to film help me improve my camera
skills.
• I used Photoshop to edit my images for poster and front cover
magazine. Using the crop
tool, brightness, contrast, lightness, hue, saturation etc. I have
used Photoshop briefly in AS Level so now using it again has
given more depth into how to use Photoshop.
• InDesign was used for my poster and magazine, yet again I have
used this before so I am familiar with the tools on the
programme.
• Premiere Pro was completely new to me and I had to use this to
edit my footage. This programmed allowed me to edit various
aspects of my trailer.
• For example, I was able to input ‘scream sound effect ‘ to
convey what happening in the trailer without having to show
scenes of the scream. It also allowed me to add in transition and
shorten scenes to make it more scary and jumpy. This has given
me a new skill on working on another Adobe programme.

11. Premiere Pro
• Premiere Pro was one of the most important
pieces of software I used to enable me to create
my ‘The Watcher’ trailer. Without the editing
techniques available I wouldn’t have been able
to import my captured footage from my film
camera and add several of effects to fit into
conventions of a thriller. You can see for each
scene I need a transition effect called ‘Dissolve’.
The ability of adding this transition helped me
be creative as it connotes different times of day.
Furthermore, Premiere Pro allowed me to cut
and chop footage and increase the pace of the
trailer.
• Another aspect which helped me was the
editing of sound. It let me take out sounds away
from my footage and add different sound on top
of my footage. It also let me increase the pace
of the sound or even slow it down.
• A possible disadvantage is that I would have to
regularly save my work because sometimes it
would crash which would lead to losing my
work.

12. Photoshop
• I used Photoshop to edit
all my images that I
have used. Photoshop
came easy to me this
year because I gain
practise from last year
project (AS Media), yet
again it has helped me
create fantastic images.