The student used various new media technologies in their construction and research, planning, and evaluation stages. They used a more advanced camera than the previous year which provided better quality footage but was more difficult to use. They also used a reflector to help light scenes, their phone to send photos and record audio, and Final Cut Pro software to edit their trailer, adding effects and sound. Photoshop and Prezi were new software that they learned, and they created presentations using Popplet, Slideshare, and Emaze to share on their Mahara blog. They also used SurveyMonkey to create a questionnaire and YouTube to upload and share videos. Most work was done on an Apple Mac computer provided by the college.

1. Question 4
How did you use new media
technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation
stages?

2. Camera
The camera my group and I used was different to the camera we used last
year as it was slightly more advanced. The strengths of this camera were
that the quality of the footage and pictures came out excellent and we got
more capabilities with this camera, for example pulling focus, whereas last
year we only had a basic camera. However, the weakness was that
because it was more advanced and we only got shown how to use it
quickly, we struggled with how to use certain buttons and change the
settings.

3. Reflector
A reflector can be used to bounce, diffuse, or flag natural and artificial light.
By reflecting light off its surface, the reflector fills in shadowy areas while
controlling highlights. This was something we had never used before so at
first we found it difficult to use and to get the right angle so that it would
hide the shadows, but after using it several times we got the hang of it
and found it really helped as a lot of our shots were outside where you
couldn’t really see the actress on the camera much as the sunlight was too
bright, but the reflector worked well so that the actress was now able to
be seen on camera.

4. Iphone
We used our phone for a couple of different purposes, one being to send the pictures of the car
crash that was on someone in my groups phone, to one of our college emails. We then
opened the pictures up on a Mac computer and were able to save them onto the computer
and upload them to Final Cut Pro.
We also used our phone to do the voiceover which is at the beginning of our teaser trailer. To do
this, someone from my group recorded someone else from my group speaking on the Voice
Memo app on her phone. We then used the same process as we used for the pictures and
emailed the voice memo from Lucy’s phone to her email account, where we saved it onto the
computer from there and uploaded it onto Final Cut Pro.
We found this device easy to use as we use them all the time every day and so we knew what we
were doing.
This is the start/stop button

5. Final Cut Pro X
This is a software that I was unaware of before I started college, however I have had to use it a lot in Media
Studies and so gradually I have become more confident on it. For AS level I used it to do my editing on. For
A level I used it to do my editing on and to do question 1 of my evaluation. Whilst using it to edit my teaser
trailer I discovered a lot of new things. For example, some of our shots went too quick and you could
barely see them, however I learnt how to add a slow motion effect to slow them down. Vice versa, some
of our shots went too slow for a teaser trailer as the shots are typically quite fast paced, so I made them
more fast paced. Another thing I knew how to do from last year was how to overlap shots so that one shot
leads into another. I also got more confident at adding sound. Whereas last year I didn’t fully know how to
add in the sound, this year I improved and was confident in doing it. The sound that we included in our
teaser trailer this year was far more varied than the sound we used in our 2 minute opening sequence last
year as we had a voiceover to add in and we had to make sure every shot had some diegetic background
sounds in it to make it more naturalistic and advanced. Creating our company ident on Final Cut Pro was
something I knew how do to from AS level. We used an ident from Fin Cut Pro and edited it and thought of
a unique company ident name to suit our thriller genre film.
When using Final Cut Pro for question 1 of my evaluation, I was confident and knew what I was doing as I had
already used this software numerous times before.

6. Photoshop
This was a piece of software that appeared very difficult to my group and I as it was completely
new to us. For the magazine front cover we had to try and cut the background around the
image of the main character of which we had several attempts at and still couldn’t get it right
so in the end we cut out the section of the background that we were able to without cutting
into the main image of Millie, and left the rest of it. We were then able to select the colour of
it which enabled the main image to stand out more as we had hoped. We had the same
problem with the poster where we couldn’t cut our the background properly, so we had to
change the image to a different one of which the characters stood out more without having
to make hardly any adjustments to the background. After receiving help from some
classmates who had used Photoshop before, we were able to create new layers of which
enabled us to add in the text, titles and other images.

7. Popplet
Popplet is a website of which you can create mind maps. I used it
for question 3 of my evaluation. I found this website good as it
gave you the option to change the background colour, change
the colour of the boxes and add images in. A strength of this
website is that it is very easy to use and is presented in a nice
way. However, I think the website is better suited for
brainstorming an mind maps rather than an evaluation
question which requires a lot of writing.

8. Prezi
Prezi was a new website to me at the start of college, however being a media
student I have used it a lot in my work and have grown to love it. Prezi is
very much like a PowerPoint but you can zoom around and add videos etc.
I used it a couple of times throughout my blog and I also used it for
question 2 of my evaluation. The drawback for Prezi is that a lot of people
use it so it is not that unique. However Prezi has a lot of strengths, one
being that it is easy to use, and another being that you can add titles,
different colours, images and YouTube videos.

9. Slideshare/PowerPoint
Slideshare is a website that you can upload presentations onto and share them with
people or in my case, embed them into my blog. Slideshare is easy and straight
forward to use.
PowerPoint is the Microsoft software that I am using now. It is quick and easy to use
and I find it simple because I have been using it from a young age. It allows you to
change colours, edit sizes, add images and all sorts, and all you have to do is save it
and upload it onto Slideshare.

10. Mahara
Mahara is what I used to create my blog and upload new entries
onto my blog. Some entries were just writing and some were
presentations. E.g. Prezi, Popplet, Slideshare etc that I
embedded onto my blog using the embed button. For AS level
I was uploading images to Mahara in a way that takes up a lot
of storage, however this year I learnt a new way to add
images without using as much storage, and it was quicker and
easier.

11. Emaze
Emaze is an online presentation software. I used it to do my
Genre Camera Research. Emaze was easy to use when on it,
however it proved difficult when trying t embed it onto my
blog. I could not embed it onto my blog as a presentation so in
the end I had to screenshot each slide and add them onto my
blog as images.

12. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is a website that you can use to create
questionnaires. I used it to create a questionnaire about my
target audience. It was quick and easy to use and easy to
embed onto my blog. However it was very simple and didn’t
have much detail, but it was good enough to create a target
audience questionnaire. After I made the survey, I
screenshotted the questions and results and embedded the
images onto my blog.

13. YouTube
I used YouTube to upload a rough cut of my teaser trailer and to
upload my finished teaser trailer. This was easy, all I had to do
was log into my YouTube account and upload it.
I also used YouTube to embed videos and use them on my blog
as examples etc.
As I have used YouTube from a young age I found it easy to use.

14. Apple Mac computer
Most of my blog work and evaluation was done in my media
lessons on an Apple Mac computer. I used an Apple Mac
computer last year so this year I knew what I was doing. I
learnt how to use Finder on the desktop and how to
screenshot images so that I can upload them to my blog etc. I
also carried out some of my media blog work and evaluation
at home on my HP computer which is nowhere near as
advanced as an Apple Mac.