Tom Chamberlain used various media technologies throughout the research, planning, construction, and evaluation of his A2 Media Studies final project. He used Edublogs to create an online blog to post documents and track his progress. YouTube and Vimeo were used for research and inspiration. Microsoft Office applications like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel helped with planning and documentation. Slideshare was utilized to share PowerPoint presentations. DaFont allowed him to search for appropriate fonts. SoundCloud was a source for royalty-free music. Adobe software like Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop supported video editing, effects, and design work. His iPhone, Macbook, and iCal helped with organization and communication throughout the

1. Tom Chamberlain (3241)
Harrogate High School
A2 Media Studies
Final Evaluation

2. How did you use media
technologies in the construction
and research,
planning and evaluation stages?

3. Research and Planning – Edublogs
I used Edublogs.org to post all of my documents onto an online blog. I found Edublogs very
easy to use as the workflow between posts, editing and pages runs flawlessly; increasing my
productivity as I have gradually completed the course. The simple page layout and design
allowed me to customize my blogs appearance through themes and thus improve the
overall presentation of my work.
•Post anytime from anywhere.
•Edit, upload and amend from multiple
technology platforms and devices; such as my
iPhone, laptop and tablet.
•Upload images, video and links to illustrate my
writing more clearly.
•Post any ideas, thoughts, progress or
modifications to my production as a form of diary
throughout the completion of my media
production.
•Used to track my progress and cross reference
any documents that were still outstanding.

4. Research and Planning – YouTube and Vimeo
Both YouTube and Vimeo are video sharing websites used around the world to post the
majority of videos onto the web. I found YouTube very helpful to view student films, while
Vimeo was used to watch professional short films from a diverse range of directors focusing
on many different subjects and genres. All of my findings were highly inspiring and
consequently allowed me to write a textual analysis for multiple moving image products and
led me to make the final decision of choosing the Science Fiction, Post-apocalyptic sub-
genre.
•Related links to similar videos from the same
genre, actor, director or producer.
•Easy to search, navigate and save content that
needed to be watched and analysed at a later date.
•Very fast buffering speeds, allowing me to watch
high definition video and see all of the detail the
director intended for the audience to see and
understand.
•Easily share my findings with my peers before
conducting an analysis, as a basic form of audience
feedback for my research choices.

5. Research and Planning – Microsoft Office Suite
I chose to use the Microsoft Office Suite as I felt highly proficient in Word, PowerPoint and
Excel. Before some of my work was uploaded onto my blog, the complex and important
documents were word processed to ensure their safety if my blog encountered any
problems or errors. PowerPoint's were used to assist my presentation of my work, while
Excel helped to create spreadsheets, charts and graphs to provide a visual representation of
my planning documents and research.
•Work was easy to access as the applications were
installed on many portable devices and computers.
•Graphs, charts and tables made all data simple to
interpret and analyse.
•Used as the fundamental form of media
technology in my production.
•Create clear layouts and a add variety of choices of
presentation to my media blog in attempt to make
it look more appealing and interesting.

6. Research and Planning – Slideshare
During the research and planning process, I discovered an interesting website which allowed
me to upload PowerPoint's onto the Internet. This website helped me primarily during my
research into similar ancillary products, as many other students use Slideshare to post their
work online in order to gather feedback. This new form of media technology proved highly
successful, as I received a view count growth of over 1100% within the first week of posting
my work onto Slideshare.
•View similar slideshow presentations related to the
same topic, for instance the structuring of audience
feedback from a research questionnaire.
•Upload different types of files if needed, such as
uploading an entire ‘word’ document containing
rich data text.
•Save and download the best slideshows and
analyse their effectiveness.
•The process involves, create PowerPoint, save
PowerPoint, upload to Slideshare, convert file and
post link onto media blog.

7. Research and Planning – DaFont
I used a website called DaFont to search through thousands of different fonts available for
me choose for my production. As my aim was to create a strong sense of band identity, I was
aware that the style of font would impact both my main task of creating a short film and the
construction stages of my two ancillary products. I found DaFont very easy to use, as it has a
complex category section which allows the user to narrow the search for the specific font
being desired. The website also has a preview font system, enabling me to view the text in
the custom style before downloading, and thus improving my efficiency as I didn’t waste
time downloading the style and deciding it would not work for my production and genre.
•Download many different fonts for free.
•Skip through a diverse range of categories and
styles instead of the standard availability of only
San Serif and Serif fonts.
•Easily compare and contrast font styles, while
analysing their design and therefore beneficial
meaning to all three of my products.
•View fonts from genres, such as ‘Horror’, ‘Science
Fiction’ and ‘Action’ making it easy to find a font for
my genre of film text.

8. Research and Planning – SoundCloud
SoundCloud was used to download different royalty free tracks for my short film. At first I
found this website quite hard to navigate, as there was no clear indication whether or not
the music file was either copyright free or free to download. I used a YouTube tutorial in
order to gain some insight into SoundCloud and the different steps needed to establish a
way to get the sound tracks I needed. I consequently found SoundCloud allot easier to use
once I downloaded a few pieces of music, as I discovered that you could pick audio genres,
such as ‘Film Scores’, ‘Electronic Ambience’ and ‘Instrumental’ music.
•Preview a song before downloading.
•Save music tracks to my user library.
•Look at other user’s saved music
libraries.
•Look at composers and producers
user pages to find more of their
music in the same genre and style.

9. Construction – Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro was used to edit all of my footage together to create my short film. The
software is non-linear, meaning I had a greater level of flexibility regarding positioning the
video files on my timeline and cutting the clips together. As my short film was non-
chronological, this method of editing was exceptional in allowing me to ‘overlay’ and ‘roll
edit’ the footage. Once my short film was finished, I used the inbuilt link to ‘Adobe Media
Encoder’ to export my film in two different formats; one for the web and other for the
media awards screening to gain audience feedback.
•RAM preview all files before exporting.
•Cut, re-edit and re-export using Premiere Pro’s simple
editing interface.
•Switch between Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After
Effects using Premier Pro’s advanced workflow.
•Software was very easy to use as I already had
experience from my foundation portfolio and freelance
work from outside school.
•Manipulate audio, by using waveforms to increase or
decrease the pitch, bass and overall volume.

10. Construction – Adobe After Effects
While editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, I used After Effects to compose my footage and send it
back into my primary timeline. I used a selection of plug-ins with Adobe After Effects,
including ‘Magic Bullet Looks’ to colour correct and colour grade my footage and ‘Magic
Bullet Grinder’ to transcode the original video files into lower bit-rate versions for my
computer to handle without it lagging or causing significant delays. As After Effects is a
motion graphics application, I chose to use this to create my titles at the start and end of my
short film; as effects could be applied directly to the text by using a plug-ins called ‘Twitch’
and ‘Digi Effects Damage’.
•Compose different footage together.
•Colour correct and colour grade.
•Create titles and apply effects.
•More options to fine tune the audio tracks by
using the software to create ‘key frames’ to link
the sound file directly to the editing of the
footage.
•Stabilize image motion to reduce camera shake
and improve the quality of my shots.

11. Construction – Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop was used to create my ancillary tasks of a magazine review and film poster. I
could have chosen to use Adobe ‘InDesign’ to create my magazine, but I felt more proficient
in Photoshop as I constantly use it to edit my personal photography before uploading my
pictures onto my website. I transferred my skills and ensured all photo manipulation and
transformations were carried out correctly, and the resizing did not distort or warp the
images in anyway. At all stages of production, I constantly exported the media products and
analysed the next process that needed to be carried out, such as adding or removing
conventions, changing image colours or rasterizing text font.
•Easily choose from a range of fonts
to create a specific house style for
my production.
•Design my own production
companies logo for ‘Spectrum Films’
and a magazine called ‘Lore’.
•Superimpose image files using
layers, the clone stamp tool, free
transforming, rasterizing, content
aware tool and the magic wand
tool.

12. Other Technologies
I used my iPhone to contact my production assistant
and cast member to organise times and dates for
filming, and inform each member on the total progress
of my production. I also used my Apple Macbook as my
main computer during the research, planning,
construction and evaluation stages of production. I
chose to bring my machine into school, as the
computer software at my educational institution falls
sub-standard to my own editing packages available to
me at home.
An application called iCal was used on my Macbook
and iPhone to sync dates recorded for my production.
This app became my organiser and planner, as notes
could be logged and sent back to me in order to write
up details onto blog and produce the final ‘call sheet’
for the dates of my production.

13. Evaluation
For my final evaluation, I used Slideshare to upload my slideshows I created on Microsoft
PowerPoint onto the Internet. I used Microsoft Word to write up my script for my evaluation
videos that were constructed in iMovie 09 and exported using Apple QuickTime Pro.
I feel it is not necessary to write in-depth about the technologies used in my evaluation
stages of production, as all process have previously been detailed in my work on research,
planning and construction.