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

The first media technology I used this year in the creation of my A2 media portfolio was a piece of software named 'Adobe Photoshop'. I was already quite competent in photoshop because of the magazine I created during my AS year at college, although I managed to develop these skills further because I had created a piece of media for the 'indie' music genre last year and was now taking on the electronic dance music genre. It was very interesting seeing the different types of affects you have to use to create the EDM 'style' lots of glowing filters were added to layers and the iconography was more of a challenge because I had to use a few shaping tools to create my character.

Adobe Premier is the name of the video editing software I have used to create my final main product. I had previously had experience with this media technology and so after having used it for about half an hour had managed to remember the basic ways of editing footage and most of the uses of tools. Through using this software again I have been able to develop my video editing skills further such as when I had a problem with overlapping two clips and then used the opacity filter on the overlying clip in its effects panel, this was very effective when completed. One problem I had with the software was how overwhelming the library of transitions were and how when I would try to find quite a simple transition such as a fade I might be there for quite a while. It would be nice to have a search function when looking for the effects and transitions.

I also had to develop my skills of using digital SLR cameras because I was now using them to record video footage as well as capturing images. This did not present many issues and I now confidently know how to use digital SLR cameras for both photography and filming. The one difference I found is that you use a camera tripod a lot more for filming because you constantly need to get steady shots that are otherwise unattainable. The tripods also allow you to capture slow panning shots of a setting which are particularly effective if you are trying to create an establishing shot in a small area and cannot easily capture an extreme long shot.

I also used a new website this year in helping me to create an online survey for my market research. 'Survey Monkey' is a web based company that through technological convergence allow you to create an online survey and then distribute it either via email or with a link to many different people and then collect and analyse the results all through the same website. I found this to be very helpful and was a great success for me. One of the limitations surrounding this though was the fact that with a free account you were only allowed to ask 10 questions per survey.

Similar to last year I have chose blogger to present my portfolio of work and again found it to be very easy to use. It works well because it presents a nice clean way to view all of your work with just a few different pages. This is the way I have distributed my coursework. I have also once again used slideshare in conjunction with blogger any time I have wanted to present a powerpoint or word document that otherwise I would not have been able to.