Evaluation Question 4

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

I used various different media technologies throughout all stages of my A2 Advanced Portfolio, some of which I had also utilised at AS, however others were new to me for this year.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

I used SlideShare to upload my initial ideas presentation, pitch & audience feedback and newspaper advertisement deconstructions to my blog. This website allows you to upload PowerPoints and embed them into blogposts and was something I familiarised myself with during my AS course. I found it useful and therefore decided to continue using this during my work at A2.

I was also introduced to Prezi at AS and found it suitable to use at A2. It is a presentation software which I used to organise my institutional research.

I created an online questionnaire using SurveyMonkey in order to complete some audience research. This allowed me to create a documentary which appealed to the audience by gathering information such as whether they prefer the interviewer on screen with the interviewee or simply the interviewee talking to the camera. In the same way as the above, I became aware of this website at AS.

I used Photoshop to create my newspaper advertisement and double page spread flat plans. At AS, I used Paint to create the flat plans and Photoshop to create the final piece. However, I decided to use Photoshop for the flat plans at A2 so I could use the international paper sizes of A4 for the advertisement and A3 for the double page spread to keep it to scale.

CONSTRUCTION

I also used Photoshop within the construction process in order to create my newspaper advertisement and production company logo. I found this a lot easier to use second time round, as I had familiarised myself with how to use it and its features at AS.

The majority of my construction work was the creation of my documentary, and this was done on Premiere Pro. Prior to the beginning of editing my filming I had never used this software before and had simply tried out a simpler editing software, Final Cut, during my time at AS. However, it didn't take me long to learn how to navigate the software and I simply used Youtube tutorials if I needed further assistance.

I used InDesign to create my double page spread. At AS, I created the double page spread of my music magazine using Photoshop, however I decided to use a more appropriate and professional software at A2.

EVALUATION

For my first evaluation question I chose to once again use Prezi. I felt this organised my response into consecutive paragraphs which don't appear as too tedious to read.

I used Stupeflix for my response to the second evaluation question, a website I also used for my evaluations at AS. I chose to re-use this website as it is simple, various themes can be chosen for the videos and an appropriate soundtrack can be added.

The final media technology I used was Soundcloud in order to create a voice recording for my response to evaluation question 3. I felt this was a question which would involve too much text for one of the previously mentioned technologies (e.g. Prezi) and so felt Soundcloud was an appropriate way to present my response.