Evaluation Question Four

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

	Benefits	Difficulties
Blogger	The benefits of using websites such as Blogger is that I could keep my teachers up to date with what I had done. I could post images and get feedback about whether these photos were appropriate for the use of my media products. Blogger has enabled me to produce better work because I was able to get feedback about what it was that I needed to add in to complete my work to the required standard.	The difficulties of using Blogger is that while working on the video or digipak, I would not update the blog and it would seem like I had not been doing the work. Another difficulty was if the internet wasn’t working then there was no way of doing or updating the blog. One other difficulty was that I would often not be able to upload images and videos to Blogger as the files were not supported within the schools system or by the website and this meant that a lot of what I wanted to upload to blogger has not been uploaded.
Prezzi	Using Prezzi is an effective way of presenting all of the information I needed to in a structured order and there was no limit to how much I could add. It was very simple and easy to use, and therefore made the presentation very easy to read, watch, and understand. Prezzi enabled me to produce better work as presenting through Prezzi is different from just simply writing all information in essay form. Prezzi also helped me whilst I was researching because it was all laid out in a way which made the information easier to understand. For example, if I was researching something such as the different music video genres, Prezzi could have a different slide on each different type of genre, with mini-slides and images to reinforce understanding of the definitions.   The URL of the Prezzi can be copied and used through any other website. For example, one of my evaluation questions was presented through a Prezzi, and it is posted onto Blogger. This is easier than having to copy and paste a web link and wait for the page to load, and sometimes the web-pages do not load or will say they are expired. As the Prezzi is on Blogger, there is not any way for it not to be visible to anyone who views my blog.	However, the difficulties of using Prezzi (for example, when researching) could be that the information on the websites may not be reliable as Prezzi’s are made by the public and could therefore be their interpretation of the actual definition. This could lead to inaccurate work due to a false definition or belief. Prezzi could also pose some difficulty to use if the internet wasn’t working as it is online. This would mean that while making my own Prezzi, if the internet wasn’t working, then I would not be able to work on the Prezzi that day. Finally, if the internet stopped working while I was working on the Prezzi, then any work that had been done but not saved would be lost. This is not a major issue however is an inconvenience when trying to complete work.
Mobile Phones	Mobile phones were very beneficial when doing audience research and getting feedback while planning my video. Mobile phones have got Social Media apps on them, which are always to hand as mobiles are portable and therefore always with the owner of the mobile. Apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pintrest are all on phones (or are downloadable for smart phones). This means that if I had an idea and wasn’t on a computer and needed feedback on my idea, then I could put it online and would get a response either agreeing or disagreeing (sometimes with suggestions commented) with my idea. Through being able to communicate with the public at all times about my music video, I had an idea of what they would or would not enjoy watching. I used the social media platform Facebook to get feedback on the best font to use for my digipak through posting an image displaying multiple fonts and asking people which one was their favourite. Through getting this sort of feedback, I was learning how to get my potential audience interested and make them want to buy the product. It has to be aesthetically pleasing for them to want to buy it. Using social media allowed me to take onboard any constructive criticism and use it to improve my products where it was necessary.	However using mobile phones can be hard to use because there is always the chance that people won’t comment or give feedback on the question as they haven’t seen the post. This would then lead me to then have to use other social media platforms in order to get a response which means that the response isn’t happening instantly, which is what is expected when using social media. Another difficulty of using social media was miscommunication. Sentences can be interpreted differently, especially when reading them rather than hearing them. This lead people to interpret their own meaning of a question and not give the answer I was necessarily searching for. I asked people which font was they thought would look most appropriate for my digipak, and one person didn’t choose one of the fonts I had shown, but commented a description of the type of font they imagined being used for this genre. However all feedback is beneficial, so although I may not have got the result I was hoping for when asking people what font they thought suited my digipak, I still got feedback which could have opened my eyes to more possibilities.
Computers	Without a computer, I would not have been able to complete any work at all. Using a computer allowed me to have access to the internet to use Blogger and keep my progress up to date, as well as doing my research and audience research. Planning was not necessary to do online, however it did keep everything in one place. If I was to do all of my planning on paper, I would have probably lost some parts of my planning or it wouldn’t be organised, and nobody would be able to see everything that I had been doing. Using a computer also gave me the opportunity to use Photoshop for my digipak and Adobe Premier to edit the video. Using a computer also allowed me to use different media types when making my evaluation, which would not have been possible if I had not had access to a computer.	However, when using a computer for Blogger, I would often begin making posts and not have time to finish them in lesson. As I wanted to finish the work before posting it, there would sometimes be confusion about whether my work was completed as I hadn’t yet posted it. My computer in school didn’t have enough memory to save any more work which meant that every time I had to use Photoshop, my work would often be lost leaving me to have to start again. The next day or just redo the last few changes of a bit of my digipak. This became a big difficulty when using the computers.
Camera’s	Using the camera was the best way to film my music video. Using my phone would not have been as clear and therefore not as professional. Using the camera allowed me to make my video look more professional and I could zoom in as far as I needed to while filming which would have been difficult on my mobile as it would have wobbled the screen where there is not anything to make the mobile camera’s zoom in smoothly. The camera was also beneficial because it had a stand which I needed when I was out filming because otherwise the filming would have been all wobbly and shaking, which I needed in the second half of my video but while the camera was meant to be still, the stand was useful. When I needed the video to seem a bit dazed, the camera lens could go out of focus which gave the effect of the giraffe being dazed. That shot would have been much harder to do without the camera.	The camera that I was using was being shared between the two media classes, and therefore I had to plan in advance or plan around when the camera was free, or ensure that the students using the camera would be finished by the day they said that they would be. This made filming take slightly longer because I changed my video idea three times which meant I had to try filming with the camera three times too. This became difficult.
Photoshop	Photoshop was good to use for my digipak because it allowed me to do anything I wanted with the images I had taken. For example, my digipak cover has a duplicate of my artist, which was done through using Photoshop. It also allowed me to put the chosen font onto the digipak, which would have been very difficult to do and wouldn’t have looked as professional if I had used another program. Photoshop allowed me to delete the background of the font and put it over the digipak images in order to give the artist and album a name.	The difficulties of using Photoshop were that the program would sometimes freeze, and work would be lost because of this. It was also difficult to learn how to use all of the tools, however this did become easier and creating the digipak and poster became much easier.
Google (DaFont)	Using Google search and going onto websites such as DaFont enabled me to have thousands of more fonts as an option for my digipak. This meant that I had many so much more opportunity to get the perfect font to match my genre and style of the digipak and music video. Without using DaFont, the font on my digipak would have been very dull in comparison because the fonts on that website can be very different to other fonts which are on every installed computer program.	It could be very difficult to find the exact font that I wanted because some of them had differences which meant that it wasn’t how I pictured it. Some of the fonts would not say what I wanted because it would not change what it said, therefore making the font unusable which was a nuisance because sometimes I would really like a font and have to overlook it and choose another, which may not look as good as the other font.