Q4 evaluation stages
- 1. 4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? discuss the way you used your blog to organize your research and planning work and how you used it to showcase your production discuss your use of the internet to research into trailers and their conventions. How did you search? Did you leave any questions on message boards? Did you create polls? Did you use your own social networking sites (ie Facebook) to generate any initial research data? discuss how you generated responses to your work through polls and the ‘comments’ section of how did you make use of photography in planning your trailer how did your camera/editing skills develop as your trailer progressed? What specific skills did you need to master? How did you use photography, Photoshop, Publisher etc to create your posters and magazine covers. Which specific skills did you need to master? How did you use video/sound recording to get audience feedback? How did you use PowerPoint to help evaluate and present your work?
- 2. Blog I used Wordpress as my blog to organise all my research and planning work by using categories. I created a category called ‘looking at trailers’ to start with research for my trailer. I used Youtube to find specific genre trailers to do with my own and wrote about them on the blog. I learnt how to save drafts so I could come back to it when I needed, and I learnt to quick edit. I organised each post into a suitable category so that it is easier to find the way around my blog. I used it to showcase my work by using categories as well, they made it really easy to figure it out. Photoshop I made the two of my ancillary texts on Photoshop and I learned skills in this software. It is very easy to use when you know how and Media Studies in general has helped me figure out. I have previous experience with Photoshop before this course so I knew the basics but using last years knowledge of the software (creating our magazines) I started over and mastered new skills and techniques to put a cover together. I used a new layer each time I inserted a new piece of text or image and eventually once built and finished I saved it as a jpeg file. It took a lot of time to create each poster/magazine cover but practise makes perfect so I think I’ve mastered Photoshop by putting together these constructions. Before creating these magazines I needed to know how to cut out an image properly so that I could fit the magazine title behind without it looking obviously edited and false. I practised with the cut out tool rather than the stamp this time and managed to make it look appropriate. I also edited the storyboard photographs in Photoshop before putting them together in a powerpoint, just simply using the brightness and the contrast to make the photo look a bit warmer in colour and to exaggerate the main character’s hair colour. I made use of photography in this stage, rather than draw out my storyboard I used my photographing skills to my advantage. Putting the characters into ‘freeze frames’ so that I could photograph my ideas worked for me because I found it a lot easier than drawing it out as you can see it and interpret it better. After editing these photos in Photoshop I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make a slideshow of the images and a little explanation of what’s happening in the photo and why I chose this scene next beside it etc. I thought this was a good idea and it seemed successful so I stuck to it.
- 3. PowerPoint I used Microsoft Powerpoint for the majority of the answers for the evaluation questions. It made my evaluation a lot easier because I can flick through the slides as and when I need to and it’s easier to find what I’m looking for in my answer. I used Powerpoint to answer question one and question four because it’s neat, tidy and it’s easy to flick through as previously mentioned. It’s not hard to find what you’re looking for in each answer and I find that it keeps my work organised. I colour coded each presentation as well so that I know which answer is which and I don’t get myself confused or muddled with it. Video/Audio I used both video and audio for question three so I could get feedback from other students. It was easier to record it because I could get their full answers and opinions and it’s on camera to show that I had no input. It was a different way to show my answer because I’ve done the majority of my evaluation in writing so it was good to have a variety of answers on my blog. I used Premiere Elements 4 to edit the audio into just a file where you can see the poster/magazine and just listen to Eden and Laura answer my questions about both ancillary texts and I used Youtube and Slideshare to post them onto my blog. I only did three because I thought it was appropriate and enough video/audio to use for my answers, so I carried this on in writing. Premiere Elements I spent a long time trying to figure out the basics of this software but after creating two practise trailers I finally got used to it. I used the double lead to record songs off Youtube to use in my trailer and then edited together all the successful shots of the girls and Chris that I thought would make a good trailer. I used the titles in the trailer as well using this software and I purposely put them beside the shot rather than on top of because I think they’re more likely to be read. I learnt to use this software and it’s become very simple. Cameras I used a small camcorder to record footage for my trailer. I used a tripod to keep it steady and a variety of long shots, mid shots and closeups. I used the technical manual given to us earlier in the year to recall what shots were which etc.