The document discusses the various media technologies and software used by the author at different stages of their media project. During research and planning, the author used Word, PowerPoint, Slideshare, Facebook and Google to aid their work. Word was used for scripts and blog posts, while PowerPoint helped with presentations on theorists. Slideshare allowed presentations to be shared online. For construction, the author used a camera, tripod, microphone, headphones, iMac and phone to capture footage and images. Editing was done on iMac using Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop. During production, the author learned new software like Premier Pro, GarageBand and InDesign. Existing skills in Phot

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

2. Whilst conducting research and planning I used a variety of different soft wares. Most of
these soft ware are:
- Blogger
- Google
- Word
- PowerPoint
- Slideshare
- Facebook

3. For research, we mainly used Microsoft word to help us to come up with scripts for our voice-over
for the documentary and radio trailer, and we also used it to help create our article for our double
page spread. We also used word to prepare any other pieces of work that we had to put onto our
blog. However, we decided not to just make posts in word and stick them straight onto the blog
because even though it would make the blog look consistent and professional it would looking very
boring and long as there would be too many words to read, so we only used the word format on 2-3
posts on our blog. Word is a very easy and basic software to use and it can be mastered by anyone
instantly. I have got lots of experience with using word because I have been using it since school
right up to my current education stage.
As well as using Microsoft word, I also used PowerPoint to create presentations. This allowed me to
create and present my work in a professional and attractive manner because the layout of
PowerPoint is very basic and easy and also there are lots of different font and colour options that
you can use to help make the presentation looking more eye catchy. I mainly used PowerPoint for
my blog when I was carrying out research into specific parts of the blog, such as the different
theorists. After creating the PowerPoint presentation I had to put it onto my blog and to do this I
used another online software called Slideshare. Just like word, this is another easy and basic
software to use and also it comes with another feature which allows you to turn your presentation
into separate images depending on the number of slides you have. This then lets you go a step
further with presenting it in your own unique way.
Slideshare was another software that I used. However I didn’t use this software to create anything
because it is designed to allow you to present your work. Instead I used this software to allow my
presentations to be put online so that they can be added onto my blog. Another benefit that came
with Slideshare is that it allowed me to view other people’s presentations online. This was very
influential because it allowed me to look at presentations that other people had created around
the world and then do something similar to their work when carrying our planning and research in
the future. This is another very easy software to use as all you have to do is create a presentation
on PowerPoint and then put it onto Slideshare. I have not been using Slideshare for a long time
however because it is so basic and easy to use I quickly became very familiar with its tools and
now I feel as if I am very experienced in using it.

4. Google is not a software it is a search engine. However, I still used Google a lot when carrying out
research and planning into existing media products because I needed to understand some key
concepts of each media product that we were going to make. I feel that Google was extremely
helpful because it provided me lots of different search results that contained all of the information
that I needed to know about the three different media products. Just like Word and PowerPoint, I
have been using Google for a long time and therefore knew how to get the right information
whenever I searched something relating to either the documentary, radio trailer or double page
spread.
Blogger is an online blogging site that was created by Google. It allows users to sign up and then
post whatever they like onto different blog posts. I used blogger to help show all of the different
work that I produced throughout all the steps for the media products. The information that I
included on the blogger was mainly about research and planning into real media products,
research into our chosen topic, production and development and evaluation. On blogger, I didn’t
just stick the information on, I used various other software and programs such as Prezi and
Slideshare to help aid my work. They helped to aid my work by making it more interesting to read
because it looked more attractive than just sticking everything straight onto the blog. Blogger is a
very easy program to use and can be accessed by nearly everyone, I would also recommend it to
people who spend lots of time blogging because it is easy and basic to use and can help them
make their posts look good.
We did not use Facebook to aid any of the research and planning for our media products, instead
we used it to create a group chat consisting of all the members I was working with. We felt that
this was a good way for us all to stay in touch with each other because Facebook is a social
networking site making it easy for our group members to get hold of each other and to keep us
updated about the work we are doing. Another advantage our group gained by using Facebook was
that we were able to assign individual tasks amongst each other more easily meaning that we
were able to get the work done much more quickly.

5. In terms of research and planning in AS, I feel as if my research and planning skills and
improved a lot more in A2 because I have used a wider range of skills and software to
present my research and planning into the media products we are studying. Also because
we are producing different products in A2 compared to AS I feel as if that had been
another reason for why my planning and research skills have developed. What was
different about this unit was that we had to create three very different media products
and at the same time make them all link to one another forming a synergy. I believe that
this is one of the biggest reasons why I have been able to develop my knowledge in
media studies a lot more and also understand how very different products can still be
linked with one another.

6. During the construction stages I used lot of different hardware to help gather everything I
needed for the documentary, radio trailer and double page spread. These hard wares are:
- Camera
- Tripod
- Microphone
- Headphones
- iMac
- Phones

7. To get all of the footage that we needed for our documentary we had to use a camera. I was able
to use the camera given to our group to take images and also record footage. The camera was very
simple and easy to use and the footage it provided with afterwards was very good and clear. I also
learnt lots of other features on the camera and lots of different techniques with the camera. I
learnt how to use different zoom methods on the camera so I could always adjust the lens to have
the most appropriate setting for each piece of footage we needed. I also learnt how to get lots of
different camera shots such as wide shots, panning shots and close ups, etc. I found the camera
very easy to use and operate and because of this I was able to capture lots of good footage to use
for our documentary.
A tripod was another piece of equipment I used. This piece of equipment allowed me to easily
capture certain camera shots such as panning shots and tracking shots without distorting the
image on screen. Another advantage of a tripod is that all my clips were levels and there wasn’t
any shaking footage in our documentary. This is a very easy piece of equipment to get used to and
it is very beneficial because it can aid you to capture lots of good footage. Also the camera was
very easy to set-up onto the tripod and there was excellent manoeuvrability.
A boom microphone was an external microphone that our group decided to use with the camera to
help capture the sound more clearly. A problem that did arise was that sometimes the wire of this
microphone would occasionally get caught under the tripod but as a group we were able to fix this
problem by keeping the tripod and microphone a fair distance from one another. This also helped
to keep it out of shot meaning it didn’t block anything.

8. We also had to use headphones during recording. Headphones allowed us to hear what the
microphone was picking up more clearly. This then enabled us to make any changes I necessary
before filming. This saved our group lots of filming time because we were able to get the shot right
the first time by making sure everything was set up properly first, rather than just rushing into the
get as much footage recorded as possible. The headphone were a very easy piece of equipment to
use because all we had to do was plug them into the camera and they began working.
The iMac’s at college were there for us to transfer our footage onto and to also edit the clips in the
future. The Apple Mac’s made editing and transferring the clips very easy because of the speed
and user friendly devices that it came with. However, during editing, our Mac went through several
server issues meaning that we had lost lots of editing time during the editing period. However we
were able to overcome this once our group’s Mac was fixed by coming in during our frees to work
on editing so we were back on track. A Mac was fairly and easy to use and therefore it allowed us
to create some really good media products.
I used my iPhone 5S to get any other images and footage that we needed either for our blog or
documentary. Once again this was another very easy piece of equipment to use because it is my
phone which I have had for a while and therefore knew how to operate it very quickly, and also
because it was another Apple product it allowed me to sync it with iMac using a power cable so I
could transfer the files over.

9. In terms of construction and use of equipment, I feel as if my skills have developed a lot
because firstly during AS I only used a camera to take pictures, whereas in A2 I was able
to use a camera and other accessories that were compatible with it to get footage and
images for my media products. Also because for A2 we had to produce more media
products, I feel as if my use of all the different hardware have improved and developed
because there are lots of new skills that I have picked up on in terms of editing which I
will not forget and also operating all the equipment to get the best pieces of work
possible. However, despite improving my skills from AS in A2, I still feel as if that I can
further improve my skills more by using the same equipment again to create other
similar products.

10. There was not many software that we used for the production of our media products,
but there were still a few that I was brand new to which was a good experience for me.
The software that we used for production were:
- Photoshop
- Premier Pro
- InDesign
- Garage Band

11. This was a new software for me to use and therefore meant that I had to first familiarise myself with the
basic controls before I could use it to begin editing my clips and constructing the documentary. This was
quite an easy software to get used to because there were lots of different editing shortcuts on the
keyboard which made it easier to cut and movie clips together. I struggled a little using this software as it
had lots of different functions and was new to me but still enjoyed it a lot because it was a new
experience for me.
This was another new software for me to use and therefore meant that I had to first familiarise myself
with the basic controls of this software as well before I could use it to begin editing and constructing the
radio trailer in it. Just like Adobe Premier Pro, Garage Band was quite an easy software to get used to
because there were lots of different editing shortcuts on the keyboard as well. I also struggled a little
using this software as well because it had lots of different functions and was new to me but still enjoyed it
a lot because it was a new experience for me.

12. In Photoshop I was able to use lots of my skills, this is because I have been using this software for a
very long time and am very familiar with how everything works. Therefore I was able to create lots of
good drafts pieces of works for mainly the double page spread before moving on into InDesign to create
the final product. Photoshop was very easy for me to use as I understand it very well and I was also
able to my teammates along with how to use it and get better at it through the time of production.
In InDesign I was able to construct and create the double page spread based on our topic and our
documentary. I constructed a basic layout of where all the information and pictures would go for our
double page spread and then once this was completed I started filling in the blank areas with the right
information and pictures, depending on where I said I would put them. InDesign was a very easy
software for me to use because I had used it before for my AS media product and became very good at
using it back then because whilst constructing my music magazine for my foundation portfolio, I
experimented a lot with this software to get used to all of the different tools and features that came
along with it. Overall I feel that I am just as good at using this software as I am at using Photoshop but
still believe that my skills can be further developed.

13. In terms of production of our media products, I feel as if my skills in Premier Pro and
Garage Band are still basic but they are much better than what they were before I started
using these two software. As I’ve used Photoshop and InDesign before in AS and use
them quite a lot, I feel as if I have been able to use my skills of these software to create
some good media products. I feel that my skills can still be further developed for all of
these different soft wares that I have used and maybe if I get some more practise at
using them all, especially Garage Band and Premier Pro, I can create other pieces of
work like our group’s media products.

14. For the evaluation I used some of the same soft wares and hardware that I used during
the research and planning, construction and production of my media products. These soft
wares and hardware were:
- Photoshop
- Premier Pro
- PowerPoint
- Word
- Prezi
- Slideshare

15. For evaluation questions 1 and 2 I used Prezi to present them. I felt like using this program to
answer questions 1 and 2 because it is a fun software to use which is very easy and can help you
create good pieces of work. Also I felt that this program would make my answers look more lively
rather than just sticking them onto a blog post which is quite boring because of the amount of
words there are. Prezi is also a much more professional way of presenting information and this
was another reason why I chose to use it for evaluation questions 1 and 2. also throughout this
whole coursework unit, I have used Prezi a lot because I didn’t use it at all during AS, this was
because I didn’t understand how to use it during the making of my AS coursework, but now in A2
I am much more familiar with how to use it and how to present information on it.
For evaluation questions 1 and 4 I used Slide share. I chose to use this program because it is
simple, quick and very easy to use and again would make my work look more attractive rather
than just sticking all the information straight onto a blog post.
For evaluation questions 1 I used Photoshop for one part of my answer. I chose to use this
software to answer the program because it gave me lots of freedom in terms of colours, fonts
and layout to answer the question meaning I could make my answer look very good and present
it in a unique way.

16. For evaluation questions 3 I used Premier Pro to create a video to answer the question. I used a
voice over and images of pie charts representing the information. This would make my answer
unique because instead of having to read four different paragraphs, I decided to turn one into a
little clip which answers the questions.
I used word for all the questions because before presenting the information on different
programs and software I decided to type them all up in word, this allowed me to make changes if
necessary and also meant that there would be no spelling mistakes.