The student used various media technologies for the construction, research, planning, and evaluation of their media project. Apple Macs/MacBooks were used to create the film poster, magazine, and trailer outside of school with software like Photoshop and Final Cut Express. Blogger was used to document research and planning. YouTube assisted with researching film trailers and conventions. Wix, Prezi, and eMaze presented the evaluation answers in a professional manner. A Nikon camera was used to film scenes and take images. Final Cut Express, while initially challenging, was used to create the film trailer. Photoshop, with previous experience, was used to create the poster and magazine.

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

2. APPLE MACS/MACBOOK'S
As I took Media at GCSE, I have increasingly grown more familiar with apple
technology over time. As I am familiar with these already, I didn’t really learn any
thing new during this course. I wasn’t faced with any majors problems during the
period of the course, everything went to plan and ran smoothly, this meant that I
was able to efficiently create my film poster, film magazine and film trailer with
ease. The MacBook's were used to take home as they has the software required pre
installed on them, software such as Photoshop and Final cut express meant that I
was able to work from home, giving me an opportunity to work on my products
when I wasn’t in school.

3. BLOGGER
Blogger is a free website which allows you to create your own personal blog. In this
case I used blogger for my media studies, I posted all my research and planning on
blogger and used it as a timeline to show how potential ideas developed into
something better. The benefits of blogger are that it is easy to use and free, it is a
great tool for keeping track of your research and planning and referring to it when
you need ideas. Research such as existing product research meant you could go
back and reflect upon your own work to see what kind of things you liked and
disliked about the product.

4. YOUTUBE
YouTube was useful website for me to use, it assisted me when researching existing
movie trailers to identify the typical codes and conventions. Not only this, but the
suggestion bar down the side meant that I was able to quickly exchange between
different movie trailers to help give me thoughts and ideas for my own products.
Not only this but YouTube is where my movie trailer was uploaded too, personally I
feel as if the only disadvantage for YouTube is the fact it negatively affects the
quality of my trailer, as it was presented much better in final cut express.

5. WIX, PREZI & EMAZE
I used this technology when presenting my evaluation questions. During my
evaluation questions at AS I didn’t use a variety of different ways to produce my
work and therefore this is something I strived to do for my A2. Wix enables users to
be able to create professional looking websites with ease, it is simple to use and
looks like a professional website, this was perfect for presenting my evaluation
answers. Prezi again was simple and easy to use yet gave my answers a look of
professionalism, with little experience with these tools I was a little anxious to begin
with, but my confidence soon grew as I continued to use them. Similar to
PowerPoint, emaze was good way to present my work, the fact that it plays like a
video is a nice touch and makes it easy to sit back and watch my answers present
themselves.

6. CAMERA
This is the most important piece of technology used throughout the project, as it
enabled me to film the scenes used throughout my film trailer and to take the
images used in both of my ancillary products. The camera used was a Nikon DLS,
this was provided from my schools media department, it was provided with extra
equipment to help our footage look as professional as possible, this includes
Steadicams, tripods etc. The camera was easy to use and everything was produced
to a high standard of quality.

7. FINAL CUT EXPRESS
This was the software which was used to create my film trailer, being completely
new to this software I was anxious prior to starting my project. At the start I
struggled to get to grips with the software, however over a period of time after
continuously using it I soon started to improve and increasingly become more
confident. An area in which I feel I could improve is the editing side to final cut
express, I feel as if I used too many fade to blacks in my production as I felt this is
the only effect which worked and made my work look professional, If I was to do
this project again I would try to use a range of different effects in order to offer a
variety.

8. PHOTOSHOP
Last but not least, Photoshop was the software used to create my film poster and
magazine. As I have had previous experience with photoshop during my AS levels in
the production of my music magazine it’s fair to say I was confident when coming
into this task. I feel like my ancillaries could have been improved if I had spent more
time with them, as what I produced wasn’t that complex or amazing, as I spent most
of my time focused on my film trailer. Photoshop is a useful tool for creating
anything of this nature, text and images are easily added and the effects function
helps to make things look better. Effects within photoshop include things such as
gradients, which were used on my film poster to help empathise the good vs Evil, I
feel as if the use of the gradient helped me to achieve the affect I was aiming for.