Media A2 Evaluation

1. Question 4
How did you use media technologies in the construction, research
and planning and evaluation stages?
I used a range of different media technologies in all stages throughout the construction of the
project. When it came to the research and planning side of things, I decided the best programs
to use were Prezi, Microsoft Word and Powerpoint. The reason for this was because it allowed
me to be more creative when it came to presenting my research and planning, especially Prezi
due to its unique presentation style and layout. In my research and planning, Prezi also enabled
me to insert different types of media, such as video and image which would not be affected
when I uploaded it to Blogger. Whereas I found out that when i inserted video into my
PowerPoint presentations and then uploaded the document onto Blogger, the video would not
work and therefore I decided to use Prezi more often than not due to its diversity in layout and
the aspect of creativity it gave me. Prezi also makes it easy for me to edit, find and change
different documents as they are all in one place and organised in order for me to change them.
Google drive also aided my research and planning stage. I could upload my documents to
Google drive at school and then continue working when I was at home which helped me stick to
deadlines and allow my work to achieve peak success. This was the same when it came to the
construction and the evaluation stages. The internet aided the stages throughout this project
massively, without it, I wouldn't have been able to get a full report on research and analysis, the
internet allowed me to be to search different existing trailers, posters and magazines in order for
me to analysis these pieces to help me create my own versions. Once I had done this I was
able to report back to my group and we could all converse our different ideas on what we
thought was best for the project, how did we do this? Through using Gmail and talking in
person. In order for our target audience to see our promotional package we used YouTube to
upload our trailer and shared it on different social media sites, such as; Facebook and Twitter.
We knew this would be the best possible way of getting our target audience to see our trailer as
this is one of their main hobbies so it allowed as many audiences to access our work easily.
When it came to uploading all of my work I used Blogger.com, this was the same website I used
for my AS level work, so I was already familiar with the site and I developed a clear
understanding when using it. The blog didn’t only allow me to have all of my work in one place
but it also allowed me to customise and create a user friendly place for all of my work to be on
show so that it would be easy access for anyone who wanted to view it. Moreover, when it came

2. to presenting my work I could customise the settings, background and theme to make it feel
more horror esk:
I used blogger to vary the presentation of my work and make use of different media
technologies but still keep it professional, this wouldn’t of been possible using any other method.
When it came to the construction of our promotional package we used three main features; a
camera to film our footage for the trailer, Photoshop to edit the ancillary tasks and Premier Pro
to edit our footage to create a trailer.

3. When it came to using the camera I felt quite confident as I had done some filming outside of
school when I used to film my cousin fighting it MMA competitions. This enabled me to teach the
others in the group so we could all film and direct our trailer appropriately. Furthermore, when it
came to taking the images for the ancillary tasks it was easier this year as I had learnt in the
previous year when I took shots for my music magazine and my preliminary task. The only
disadvantage we had when filming our trailer is the fact that I only had the basic knowledge of
filming and that I had never filmed a trailer that had to have many different angles and shots and
therefore we had to do some excessive research for the trailer because we needed to
understand what the most effective shots were and how to make a scene more dramatic. We
used our mobile phones to add extra light to some of the scenes as we wanted to film at night to
emphasis the scare factor but by doing that our camera didn’t have a night mode so that’s why
we used our own torches.
I found it difficult at first when it came to editing due to the fact that I had never edited before.
However by watching a few different YouTube tutorials, it helped me to become more confident
in creating the trailer. Media technology has a massive role in the editing process as it has
enabled me to take my raw footage and bring our vision for Deadwood Grove to life. Adobe
Premier Pro was the software we decided to use for the trailer because we found a lot more
tutorial videos online to use different techniques. However we felt more confident when it came
to using Adobe Photoshop as I had previous knowledge from using this software in AS level
when creating my preliminary and main tasks for my music and school magazines. But as I
soon found out, the skills I had were basic and I knew there was room for improvement in order
to make my ancillary tasks look more professional. I learnt how to use tools such as the Burn
and Dodge tool to make certain parts of the image lighter or darker. I also watched some
YouTube tutorials to find out how to make my original image darker as when we took the image
there was still some daylight. I found out from this the sponge tool was more effective when
darkening part of an image instead of using the brightness tool which lowers the brightness of
the whole image. Below is the original and the edited poster.

4. Above is a screenshot of the editing process that took place when we took the raw footage
captured by the camera. I wasn’t that familiar with editing so I learned most of the skills I have
now by watching a number of YouTube videos. I learned how to implement different audio
tracks to go alongside the raw footage whilst only having the visual from the raw footage without
audio, we found this was an effective way to eliminate any other sound effects such as wind.
Moreover I found an efficient way of cutting the different soundtracks and video by using the
razor tool. This tool especially helped me to create montages and cut out raw footage that I no
longer needed. I also used the key frames to have the audio music tracks which allowed me to
control the pitch and therefore there was smoother transitions between each soundtrack.
Furthermore I used video transitions, such as fade, to increase the fluency through out the
trailer.
Overall I think we used a range of media technologies successfully and I can know say for
myself that I am confident in using these different media technologies and hopefully I can go
forward with these skills and implement them into my life as I want to start making videos on
YouTube and therefore the skills that I have learned in Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro
over the last two years in A-levels will help me alot to do this.