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

2. Blogger
I have used blogger throughout the whole of A2 to do my media documentary. It is very
easy to use and helped me keep well organised especially through the process of
planning and production because I had everything I needed on my blog so I knew exactly
what I was filming when I was filming and how I would use it in my documentary. This
made the whole process filming and editing a lot easier and quicker because I could just
refer back to my blog all the time. This helped me produce better work as I was always
organised and therefore did not get stressed when trying to film or do my other activities
such as ancillary tasks. It also helped me to produce better ancillary tasks because by
putting each rough draft on my blog and then completing another one I could compare
them really well and continue to improve and see the improvements by comparing them
on my blog well. Blogger also helped me when doing my evaluation because I could do
drafts to each question and then read from my blog the answers when I filmed my video
diary.

3. Prezi
I have use Prezi twice throughout A2 media. I used it as a pitch to my documentary and
in my second evaluation question. I found Prezi quite difficult to use as sometimes it
didn’t have the right template I wanted to use or it was difficult to be able to pick one that
I felt matched what I wanted to write about. In my evaluation question I had to add more
boxes and they wouldn’t go where I wanted them to and ended up being on top of boxes I
had already previously written about. However it was good to use as a presentation
source especially when presenting my documentary pitch to the class because it looks
good and can be easy to navigate around once the presentation is actually finished. It
helped me to produce better work because it was neat and looked good which helped me
work looked better. I did not use it in planning and production because I felt it was to over
complicated for the simple things such as health and safety forms and shooting
schedules that could be done easily on blogger.

4. iPad
I used my iPad mainly for planning and evaluation. It helped me with the research I
needed to do in the planning stages such as watching documentaries on BBC3 and
making notes about the conventions they have that I want to use in my own documentary,
I used it to research the main conventions of documentaries and make notes of them to
make sure I included them in my documentary. I also used it to gather my audience
feedback as this is where my twitter account is linked up to so it is where my twitter
feedback came through to. I also took my iPad out when gathering audience feedback as
I showed them my documentary on it and then recorded what they had to say on it as
well. This made my work a lot better because it was easy to use and quick to gather
audience feedback because it was small and easy to carry around. However it did have
disadvantages as it does not hold a lot of storage and sites like blogger are not easy to
use on it.

5. Apple Macs
I used the macs throughout the whole documentary making process. I use them for
planning, production and evaluation but more than anything for production. This is
because I used the software on them to edit my documentary and make my ancillary
tasks. The mac overall was very simple and easy to use especially as I had used it last
year. It helped me produce good work because it had good software that we had been
taught how to use. I did most of my work on the mac so it helped me with planning as
well, although I also did some of my planning on a normal computer as well so I feel there
was no benefit for having the mac throughout my planning. It helped me with me
evaluation questions and helped me produce good questions because I was able to
record myself speaking on one and then edit pictures over me speaking to give examples
to the audience.

6. Digital Cameras
I used digital cameras to take pictures for my ancillary tasks and film all of my
documentary. Using a digital camera enabled me to produce good work because the
footage I filmed and pictures I took were of a good standard because the camera was
good. This means that my footage and pictures came out clearly and not blurry whereas
if I had taken them on my phone they would have. This was also the main benefit of using
a digital camera to film instead of another camera. However when I first started to take
pictures and film it was difficult because I had not used one before, I struggled to make
the camera in focus and couldn’t work out how to record at first. These were the main
problems I had with using a digital camera and these problems occurred because I had
never used one before. After overcoming these problems the camera was very good and
helped me produce good quality work.

7. Photoshop
I used Photoshop to design and edit my ancillary task. I decided to use this instead of
InDesign because I wanted my ancillary to be a magazine advert and not a magazine
article so therefore I felt like Photoshop was best for me to use. I found Photoshop
difficult to use at times and therefore it took up a lot of my time because I had to
constantly experiment with things because I had not used it much before. This was the
main problem with using Photoshop as it took me a lot longer then it needed to complete
the work. However using Photoshop had its benefits because my picture was a lot darker
then I wanted and Photoshop enabled me to lighten the picture and therefore it looked
better. This also meant I produced better work because I was able to make my pictures
look better. I also found it became easier to use and time went on and I became more
used to it.

8. iMovie
I used iMovie to put my documentary together. iMovie helped me a lot because it had a
lot of different elements I wanted to use for my documentary such as the different
elements coming together and being able to move swiftly from one section of the
documentary to another. It was quite simple and easy to use as it was not over
complicated. It was also good and easy for adding finishing touches to my documentary
that I needed such as tag lines for the people and voiceovers. It was particularly good for
me adding my voiceovers over what I had already filmed. This helped me to produce
good work because it allowed me to include all the conventions of a documentary easily
and effectively. However it did have its difficulties as you could only get iMovie on a mac
and therefore I could only work on the production side at school because I had to do it on
iMovie and therefore had to do it on a mac. The good points outweigh the bad points
because iMovie enabled me to make my documentary seem like a real documentary.

9. Wix
I used WIX to put all four of my evaluation questions together to make it look good and
professional and organised so they would all be together. I found this very difficult to use
because it was very complicated to work and I had never used anything like this before. I
only used it in the stage of my evaluation as it did not come in handy when producing or
planning for my documentary. However it was good because it made all four of my
evaluation questions come together in an easy way where they could all be viewed
together. It also looked good. Therefore for my evaluation it helped me to produce good
work because it looked like it had been done to a high standard.

10. Google
Google is probably the website I used most throughout planning, production and
evaluation. It helped me research all the conventions of a documentary as well as current
documentaries for me to watch to also help me with the process of planning. The main
websites it led me to were BBC3 iPlayer and slide share for power points on conventions.
I also kept going back to google though out production stage to refer to these
conventions so I had a clear idea of what I wanted my documentary to look like and to
make sure it was clearly following the conventions. Google is quick and easy to use so it
saves you a lot of time. However it does not always come up with what you want and I
found this quite a lot when doing my researching to plan my documentary. Google helped
me make my work good, especially my documentary as it was quick and easy for me to
research and look at documentaries and the conventions of a documentaries and was
easy for me to refer back to.

11. You tube and Twitter
These are the main Web 2.0 sites I used. You tube was a site I have used regularly throughout
planning, production and evaluation. In my planning I used it a lot as I was continuously researching
and looking at other documentaries on it to help me with my idea. Every time I did a rough cut or
gained audience feedback I also put it on you tube so I used It for my production as well. You tube was
used in my evaluation because for two of the questions I decided to record them in a video diary and
upload them to you tube so they could do on my blog. You tube is very easy to use and is also
convenient for research and for being able to upload videos to so you can place them on the blog.
The only difficulties I faced were not being able to access you tube at school. You tube helped me
produce better work because I was able to upload all of my videos on it and put it on my blog so it
looked neat and professional. I used Twitter to gain feedback for my documentary and also used it in
my evaluations. It was used in my evaluations as one of the questions asked me to discuss my
audience feedback, some of which I received from twitter. Twitter is easily accessible and means that
a wide range of people could watch and comment on my documentary. Twitter helped me to produce
better work as it gave me a wider range of audience feedback to improve my documentary on.

12. By Bethany Dimmock