This is my Eval Q 6 for AS Media Studies.

1. EVALUATION
QUESTION 6
W H A T H A V E I L E A R N T A B O U T T E C H N O L O G I E S I N
T H E P R O C E S S O F M A K I N G M Y M E D I A P R O D U C T ?

2. BLOGGER & YOUTUBE
Firstly, we have Blogger. I found it a simple to use blog maker for presenting my own
and the group’s work on. Unlike most the class and my group, who had taken Media
Studies for GCSE, I was thrown into completely new waters. I didn’t even know
embedding existed! So having Blogger as a platform to present my work, through
embedding of YouTube videos, Prezi’s and SlideShare’s, for example, opened up
branches in presenting my work in creative ways.
YouTube was essential to use because our preliminary, shot by shot remake and our
opening had to be live on YouTube. It was also a well known website to publish my work
on, such as a PowToon, so work can be easily accessed.

3. CAMERA
For the filming of our opening, we (obviously) had to use a camera to record
it with. We used a Canon camera, which I thought recorded very good
quality footage, compared to the camera that I have at home. To be honest,
I did not use the camera physically much, as Ayaan, her role being camera
operator, took charge of most of the camerawork, although I did direct her.
This said, I did use the camera for the high shot from the ceiling corner in
the first scene (I was the one who volunteered to stand on the table). This
was difficult as I still had to hold the camera higher than head height, so I
could not see what I was recording. Because of this, this shot took time and
was a trial and error process. If we actually had the budget for the film
Echoes, we would have had a crane shot using a small crane, connected to
screen from which we can see what is being recorded so we can adjust it to
our needs.
In our first take of the opening we found that many of the shots were out of focus, which was strange
because they did not appear out of focus on the camera on the shoot day. Also, some of the shots we
took were missing. This meant that we had to reshoot. A lesson to learn here would be to check
through carefully what has been recorded, and to not delete shots until the editing process so they can
be checked over.

4. TRIPOD
The tripod proved useful for the high shot because it rose
the camera to the height we needed.
The tripod was a Hama tripod and let us take still, stable
shots. Without it, the shots would appear shaky and
therefore not very professional, for the type of shots we were
using. Despite this, the moving the camera using the tripod
was not a simple task, because we found the tripod was
rather stiff and Ayaan had to be delicate with it when
panning. Even so, you can see in the second shot of the first
scene that the panning isn’t 100% smooth. I have recently
acquired a Hama tripod of my own and had a play around
with it. I think now perhaps that we could have loosened one
of the knobs.

5. IMOVIE & ADOBE PREMIER PRO
Then we’ve got two pieces of editing software called iMovie and Adobe Premier Pro. I
used iMovie for editing my preliminary and Premier Pro for the film opening. The former,
iMovie, was much easier to use, but Premier Pro provided much more accurate editing as
you could take each individual clip and trim its size to exactly what you needed. To be
honest, I didn’t play around too much with iMovie because I didn’t spend too much time,
or use any special effects on the preliminary, but Premier Pro provided me with a nice
black and white effect for a shot in our opening.
Initially, we could not operate Premier Pro as the settings were stuck on a setting we did
not understand, but with the intervention of other students we managed to get started.
Taking charge of the main bulk of the editing of the opening allowed me to familiarise
myself with editing and adding effects with Premier Pro, which to my surprise, I found I
enjoyed very much.

6. IMOVIE & ADOBE PREMIER PRO II
As for adding effects on the rest of the opening, most of the raw footage didn’t need
actually need any filters and editing. The group attempted to use Adobe After Effects to
add title credits but found it difficult despite watching various YouTube tutorials, so we
stuck with adding title credits through Premier Pro. Premier Pro, as you can see in the
screenshot, has each the option of placing clips of audio and video in separate channels,
meaning we could place many layers of each at the same time. This proved essential in
layering audio and adding titles. We also used copyright free sound for the car
crash to make a more realistic sound.
However, the sound came through a bit short.
To elongate it and emphasise the crash as a
car crash, Mitali and Shivani tried to create
some foley sounds but they did not sound
right, so me and Ayaan took a metal pole and
a school chair and moved them in different
ways to see if they made more effective
sounds. This was successful, and we
implemented the foley sound of car tyres
screeching by dragging a metal wheeled chair
across the classroom floor.

7. GARAGEBAND
We used copyright free sounds for some parts of our opening, which included a layer of
the first scene’s non-diegetic sound, the insect/white noise music for the black and white
shot, and the crash sound, but we thought this alone wouldn’t be original enough, so we
layered it with music we made on Garage Band
We started off wanting to create high
pitched “dream like” music to go over the
darker copyright free music. This was to
create an archaic, non-harmonious and
therefore unreal feel to the scene in the
beginning, to go with the auditory
flashback. We did this using a keyboard
connected to the computer and Garage
Band, as the “Airship Rising” layer above.
We also made another layer, using the
“Steinway Grand Piano” sound, of single
notes that increased in volume to add
extra tension to the scene. We reused
these two layers of music without the
copyright free music at the end of the
opening so the audience can link the two
scenes together and the emotions

8. GARAGEBAND II
I found GarageBand one of the more difficult technologies to use because I had limited
time to play around with this software, compared to Adobe Premier Pro, so little time to
orchestrate a far more better sounding piece of non diegetic music. Although I am
satisfied it is OK, I believe it could have been better.
Creating the second layer (Steinway Grand Piano, single notes) was more difficult than
the first because I struggled to separate the bars on the yellow “line graph” (I have no
clue what that’s called, but it’s visible in the screenshot on the previous slide), so
unfortunately they overlap and if you listen carefully in the opening, you can hear one of
them end quicker than it should have.
What I have learnt from this is certainly to do research into using software before you
undertake the task of using it, but I did gain a basic grasp of the software.

9. SLIDESHARE & SOUNDCLOUD
SlideShare was a useful website to embed information that I had used other websites to
make and found difficult to embed. An example of this would be the infographic for the
“Costume and Props” research post. Although the class were initially encouraged to use
Scribd, I found Scribd difficult to use and found SlideShare a much better alternative.
I used SoundCloud to create an audio only post as an alternative to plain writing. This
can be effective, creative and more understandable to some as sometimes long
paragraphs are off-putting. Also, some people find it easier to learn from hearing
information rather than reading it.

10. PREZI, POWTOON, EASEL.LY &
PIKTOCHART
I found Prezi similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, with the exception that Prezi’s are animated.
Large pieces of information can be divided into smaller chunks which can be easier to
understand. PowToon also offered the possibility of animating pieces of information in a
more creative way. Personally, I did not see much difference between PowToon and Prezi
other than PowToon having cartoons, which I suppose could intrigue readers more so they
understand/are more interested in the information it provides. However, having cartoons and
therefore more transitions made making a PowToon more creative, but time consuming to
make.
Easel.ly and Piktochart allowed me to make infographics, which are more visual
representations of information rather than wordy paragraphs. I used Easel.ly to create the
Costume & Props infographic and used Piktochart to create the Psychological Thriller VS
Fantasy genre infographic. I found Piktochart a much better website to use because firstly,
Easel.ly sometimes freezes, which is time-consuming, and also places words a few spaces
behind where it was meant typed. Secondly, I think Piktochart offers a more interesting and
standout selection of infographics (Don’t worry, Piktochart aren’t paying me to say this!).