The student used various media technologies throughout the project. A Nikon DSLR camera, lighting equipment, tripods and SD cards were used to film content for the final product. Mac computers in the school and the student's personal Macbook were crucial for editing photos in Photoshop and videos in Final Cut Pro. Google was heavily relied on for research. Prezi and Slideshare were the most used web 2.0 tools for creating presentations on research findings and evaluations. Photoshop was utilized to design the digipack and album advert, manipulating images and text. Final Cut Pro allowed advanced video editing including color correction and tight cuts to the music beat.

1. EVALUATION: Q4
HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN
THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH,
PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

2. CAMERA EQUIPMENT
When creating our final product and the ancillary texts beforehand, we used the school’s camera
equipment, a Nikon DSLR camera to film each and every part of the content.
Depending on what we were filming and at what time of day, we often borrowed a light pack to light
up the filming that was being done at night time, a tripod to steady the camera when we did not want
it to be hand held and a change of lens so as that we could film both wide angle shots and moving
shots in equally high quality.
As a group, we also took out numerous SD cards throughout filming so as that we could film, keep the
SD card, give back the camera and then return the SD card once we had uploaded the content onto a
mac.

3. MACS/MACBOOKS
Another key, important media technology that was used throughout the entirety of the planning,
production and evaluating work were the school’s Mac’s and my own personal Macbook Pro.
The school’s mac’s came in very useful especially when working on Photoshop as it provided an extra
large screen that I could fit all of my work on and see exactly what I was doing as I was doing it without
having to move the page around due to it not fitting on my smaller, Macbook screen.
Equally, the use of my own personal Macbook laptop meant that I was able to take my work home each
day and work on it, uploading videos to my blog of progress that the group was making and editing
both Photoshop work and Final Cut Pro, both of which I purchased and downloaded to my laptop.

4. GOOGLE
Google was the main search engine used throughout the research and planning for audience
information, creating a wordle on current competitors, researching into the genre and the artist that I
wanted to pitch to my group and for any questions we had about using any of the software such as
Photoshop and Final Cut Pro.
Using Google saved us lots of time as it meant that we could gather lots of information far quicker than
if we were looking for specific websites ourselves as it simply groups an entire list of websites for you to
look through for the information that we needed.

5. WEB 2.0 TOOLS
I used a variety of web 2.0 tools throughout the creation of my media products, especially throughout the
research and planning in order that my research was shown in an interesting and visually satisfying way.
The web 2.0 tools that I used, included Powtoon, Prezi, Canva and Slideshare. I found Prezi and Canva to be
particularly nice to use with easy to navigate tools and made my research really easy to read and
understand the flow of how I reached certain conclusions.
It is important to use web 2.0 tools as opposed to simply writing everything in text as this makes it look
very dull and boring and therefore does not reflect well on my ability to create the text that I am creating,
whether that be the digipack, album advert or final music video.

6. THE MOST USED WEB 2.0 TOOLS: PREZI
I used Prezi throughout the creation of my media products for a variety of
evaluating and research and planning. I found prezi especially useful and attractive
in the way in which the information is presented, because I was able to add as much
information to it as I needed, simply by adding a new circle slide each time. I also
found the way in which it is presented very useful because having each slide clearly
laid out before hand gives any viewer a clear indication as to how the presentation is
chronologically laid out.
Prezi was used for my research and planning to present the findings that I had
researched and also for my conclusions to sum up.

7. THE MOST USED WEB 2.0 TOOLS: SLIDE SHARE
Slide share was another very useful tool in presenting both my research and planning and for
evaluating my work because it was a very easy way of creating a PowerPoint and then being able to
upload it to slide share and then embed that on to my blog. Doing this was extremely easy and
meant that I was able to design the PowerPoint exactly as I wanted and then have an easy way of
showing it on my blog.
Using web 2.0 tools such as Slide Share and Prezi has meant that I could make my blog as attractive
and interesting to navigate as possible and has laid out my evaluating points and my research and
planning before creating my products as effectively as possible.

8. PHOTOSHOP
Photoshop was used for when I was creating my digipack and album advert.
For both texts, Photoshop proved to be the best programme for the job, with advanced editing
capabilities for me to manipulate pictures and change text so as that I can make my work look more
interesting and give a brand to ‘Bailes,’ this meant continuing the house style and fonts. My ability of
using Photoshop developed drastically from my foundation portfolio when I created a music magazine
and a preliminary school magazine, through to creating both my digipak and album advert in my
advanced portfolio.
The tools that I utilised in my advanced portfolio included the lasso tool, lighting and brightness
settings along with manipulating the pictures to make them look more interesting, and enhancing the
colour of the OVO owl to make it stand out.

9. FINAL CUT PRO
When using Final Cut Pro, I was creating my music video, Final Cut Pro has by far in a way the best tools
for editing and cutting a video, as a group we found both pieces of software rather straightforward to
use and our skills with using the tools in the programme developed throughout the project. I found
Final Cut Pro to be particularly useful when we shot a scene in the evenings when it had gone dark, and
we were able to brighten the footage using the tools on Final Cut Pro. I had completed an ancillary task
before hand which practiced my skills of cutting to the beat of the music. This came in particularly useful
because when our first draft of the music video was marked, one of the critiques was that it did not cut
to the beat tightly enough, I therefore went through the entire video ensuring that as soon as the beat
changed, so did what was on screen. Final Cut Pro was a pivotal tool in the creation of our music video
and would not have been as advanced and professional if we had used something more basic such as
iMovie.