The student used various media technologies throughout their media project, including Blogger and Prezi for research and planning, YouTube to research music videos and present findings, and the internet to research their genre and target audience. During construction, they used a camera to film footage and Movie Studio Platinum to edit videos. For evaluations, they used Prezi, Movie Studio Platinum, Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint. Overall, they felt they improved most at editing skills by working independently this year.

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

2. RESEARCH AND PLANNING
How did you use them? What did you find easy? What problems did
you face? Did you learn anything new?

3. BLOGGER AND PREZI
• Throughout the research and planning
stage I have used blogger in order to keep
my work structured and easy to review.
This has helped me through my research
as it has allowed me to showcase the
development of my ideas, both for my video
and target audience as I learnt more about
these through my research. I believe that
this year I was able to use the site much
more easily than last year, as I knew how
everything worked. This made it much
easier for me to include more things within
my blog, for example, I found it easy to
edit my posts and improve my grades.
• I used prezi many times for my presentations. Prezi
allowed me to include every piece of information and
evidence that I found in one place, making it easily
accessible. I find this piece of technology very useful as it
creates an organised set out for my work, as well as being
easy to use. However the site tends to crash on a regular
basis, making it sometimes time consuming to complete
work.

4. YOUTUBE
• I often used YouTube this year to research futher into music video conventions and
specifically my genre. I watched many music videos, mostly from the pop genre, which I
found helpful as it allowed me to understand the genre better.
• I also used YouTube to present my work and what information I had found. I used it to
upload my pitch and target audience interviews. I found this helpful as it helped me
present my findings and keep all my work together.
• I also used YouTube to watch and analyse both students work and real like media texts.
These were easy to access and I faced no problems with watching these. I found YouTube
to be a very helpful resource as it helped me to understand more about music videos.

5. THE INTERNET
• When researching my genre, I found some helpful websites that focussed on the pop
genre. These were really useful when researching the conventions for my chosen
genre. The websites that I found, also gave me information on psychographics and
demographics of my target audience.
• I also used the internet during my target audience research to find out more about
my potential audience members. This included the BBC’s Social Class Test which I
got some of my target audience members to complete, to determine what kind of
class I was going to target when making my video,
• The internet was also helpful when accessing my work, for example Blogger and
Prezi. Overall the internet has been very helpful at almost every step of the way
throughout this project.

6. MOVIE STUDIO PLATINUIM
• Throughout my research and planning, I sometimes needed to use movie studio
platinum to create short videos for my YouTube channel. For example, when I filmed
my target audience interviews and focus groups I edited the footage to create a video
for my blog. I also had to go through a similar process for my pitch.
• As I had used this software last year, I found it fairly easy to use. I found that I
didn’t face any problems once I had got to grips with it again. I believe that Movie
Studio Platinum was really effective as it made my short videos look more
professional.

7. CAMERA – TA INTERVIEWS AND PITCH
• Like last year, I used a camera and tripod to interview members of my target audience to
find out their opinions about my chosen genre. I found that by filming these interviews, I
was able to look back upon what I found and then use the findings in my video. I believe
that my camera skills have progressed from last year as I decided to work on my own this
year, meaning that I had to film everything myself.
• I also used a camera to film my pitch. I felt that this was helpful, as again I was able to
look back on the feedback so that I could adapt my ideas based on peer feedback. The
cameras that we used this year are the same as last year, therefore I already knew how to
use them, so I wasn’t worried about how to operate them.

8. RESEARCH AND PLANNING CONCLUSION
• Throughout the research and planning stage, I believe that I have improved my
knowledge and practice with using different technologies such as computers,
websites and software that I can use to produce work, such as Prezi. Using online
websites to learn more about my target audience and produce research that is
helpful to me, but most of all I feel that using the camera has helped me the most as
I have developed my skills effectively which ultimately helped me when filming my
final music video.

9. CONSTRUCTION
What went well? What didn’t go well? What did you learn
throughout construction?

10. CAMERA – OPERATING AND HANDLING
• I used a camera to film the performance and narrative sections of my video. I believe
that by using the cameras last year, and also during my research and planning stages
of this project that I was confident when using them. This year I varied the type of
shots I took, creating more interest in my work. For example I used the dolly several
times when filming this year, something which I didn’t use last year.
• I made sure that I filmed extra footage to ensure that I had plenty to make my video,
using the relevant footage I wanted to use.
• I decided to film in different locations for my music video, whereas when filming my
film opening I only filmed in one location. By varying the type of location, it helps to
keep the audience interested in my work.
• Overall, after having used the same cameras last year, I felt confident when using
them again this year to film my music video. I do believe that my skills have
progressed, due to working on my own throughout this project.

11. COMPUTERS – MOVIE STUDIO PLATINUM
• I used Movie Studio Platinum to edit together the clips I had filmed
as part of my music video. I feel that this year my knowledge of this
has really progressed as a result of working on my own, as last year
I didn’t do much of the editing. I used several filters in the ‘Magic
Bullet’ section of the program to add filters to distort the image and
make my video look stylized.
• I also used transitions such as dissolve and straight cuts, as
although they are simple transitions, they add to the classy theme I
was trying to create across my three final products.

12. COMPUTERS: PHOTOSHOP
• I used Photoshop to edit the images I had taken of
my actress to make my digipak and magazine
advert. I also used Photoshop to make the title for
my music video, as the fonts in Photoshop are
better than the provided ones in Movie Studio. I
found Photoshop fairly easy to use as I hadn’t
really used it before. Each tool is shown at the side
of the screen, making it easy to see and use.
• I used Photoshop to alter the brightness and
contrast of the pictures to make them brighter. I
also applied black and white filters to the images
so that the theme was carried through throughout
my products.

13. EVALUATIONS
How did these help you? What platforms did you use? What did you
learn?

14. EVALUATION Q1
• For this evaluation question I decided to use Prezi to
present my work. I found this the easiest software to
use as I have used it a lot throughout the duration of
this course. Prezi allowed me to show all my findings
and answer my question in an organised way.
• Within Prezi it is easy to add images and YouTube
videos in order to support points made within my
answer which I found easy to do. This allowed me to
show a clear comparison between images and videos I
had included to my own products.
• I feel that I have become more confident when using
this software, as I feel that I successfully answered the
question with help from the technological aspects that
this software offers.

15. EVALUATION Q2
• For this question, I decided to write a script
for my answer and record myself saying this. I
then used Movie Studio Platinum to overlay
images and clips on top of my answer to make
it visually entertaining.
• I used a voice recorder and a pistol
microphone to record my answer. This was
fairly easy to use, even though I had never
used one before.
• I gained more confidence when using Movie
Studio Platinum . As I had used this software
fairly recently during the construction of my
music video. I felt confident and at ease when
producing my answer to this evaluation
question.

16. EVALUATION Q3
• For this evaluation I decided to use Microsoft Word. In my
opinion, I believe that this is a reliable piece of software and I
have been using it for a long time, therefore I know where
everything is. I have had no troubles with using this software
this year, I have used it for many other pieces of work, for
example my shooting schedule and shot lists. I have found it
to neatly display my work and it is easy to edit work.
• I faced no problems when using Word and found it the most
easy piece of technology throughout the Evaluation section of
my coursework.

17. EVALUATION Q4
• I chose to use Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation to
complete this Evaluation question.
• In my opinion, this is a really reliable piece of
software that I am comfortable with using as I have
been using it for many years. I also think that this
is an effective way of presenting information in a
clear and organised way, which is interesting for
people watching. This is an easy piece of software
and I can upload images easily to support my
answer.
• I faced no problems when using PowerPoint and
found it the most easy piece of technology
throughout the Evaluation section of my
coursework.

18. CONCLUSION
How did you use these technologies? What did you learn?

19. CONCLUSION…
• To conclude, I think that I have developed greatly in my use of technologies
throughout my research and planning, construction and evaluation stages of my A2
media coursework. I feel that I have especially progressed with using Prezi as I
would now be confident with using these for any work after having overcome some
difficulties I found last year.
• However I feel that I have mostly improved on my editing techniques as last year I
worked in a group, whereas this year I have had to edit my work together myself.