Evaluation - Question 4

1. Evaluation – Question 4

2.  I had to gain skills in using the camera to film my movie, which
took me a few trial and errors to get right, but quickly adapted to
the controls. Benefits from using a camera are that I can take as
many photos as I like that are stored on a memory card. This
allows me to keep trying and trying until I get something that I
like, and by the end of the shoot, I can look on the memory card
and choose the best out of a series of photos. However, a
downside to using a digital camera is certain settings. I
experienced using a camera that had previously been used by
someone else who had changed the aperture on the camera,
which allowed a lot of light to come through the camera lens,
making the photo very light and hard to see anything in the
photo. Because the aperture is an advanced setting on the
camera, I was unsure of how to change it and I was unable to
take any images for my coursework while I had the camera out of
college.

4.  The computer is the main piece of digital equipment used and the
most important for my A2 media course. The computer allows me to
put all of my theory into documents and onto a blog so that my work
can be viewed and checked by the teacher and by an examiner by the
end of the year. The computer also lets us store all our files such as
photographs, video clips and audio so that it can be found and used
later for my final products. Mainly, the computer is used to put my final
products together, without the computer; I’d have no programmes to
be able to create my short film. The benefits from using a computer are
that it makes storing coursework, files, audio, photos etc easier than
keeping them as hard copies. The computer also provides different
software and programmes that I can use to edit my photos and my
short film to make them seem much more professional than they
would be if they were produced on anything else. Disadvantages of
using a computer could be that some of the software and programmes
can easily crash, resulting in losing work. Also the internet can
sometimes be very slow, delaying research and also delaying deadlines.

6.  A microphone was used during the making of my
short film. At first, the microphone was quite
confusing to use and to get the files from, but after a
while of using the microphone, I quickly became used
to the controls. An advantage of using the microphone
for my short film is that I can have much clearer audio
on parts where there are people talking, as the audio
on the camera doesn’t have as much quality. However,
the microphone can be confusing to use sometimes
and is difficult to find my files when uploaded onto a
computer as they cannot be named and there are many
other files on the microphone already.

8.  This is software on the computer that I used to create my ancillary
tasks. It provided an appropriate layout for my film poster and double
page spread and several different tools I could use to edit certain things
on the products such as the masthead, the tagline, the photographs,
etc. Again, this is software that I had to be taught how to use. The tools
had to be explained to me and how to choose the best layout for my
project. But by the end of the ancillary production, I had significantly
improved using certain editing tools on the software and there is a
drastic difference between my first productions and my ancillary tasks,
as the ancillary had a more professional approach to it. Benefits from
using InDesign are that I can build my ancillary tasks on InDesign
alone without having to use any other software as it provides many
different editing tools for anything I import on the programme.
However, it is a programme that is known to crash and cause you to
lose all your work when it does, so because of this, I have to keep saving
my work after every little thing I change so I ended up having many
different files in my documents folder.

10.  Premier Pro is video editing software that enabled me to put all my
video clips and audio together to make my movie. By uploading all my
files onto the scratch drive on the computer, I was able to edit clips and
put them together in an appropriate order to make my movie flow
better. There are several tools I can use such as a split tool, audio
editing tools, video editing tools etc. When I first started using the
software, it was very confusing and I had to be show how to use certain
things, but by the time I was nearly finished with my short film, I was
able to use most things correctly to make my short film as professional
I can make it. The benefits from using Premiere Pro include being able
to change and manipulate my movie clips so that they all fit together
and they look as professional as I can get them. However, before every
time I use this programme, I have to save all of my files onto the scratch
drive before I can open the programme and then when I’m finished
working on the programme, I have to save all my filed onto the
desktop. This takes a lot of time to do and could delay the production
of my film.

12.  PowerPoint is a programme that was used throughout my
A2 course. It was an important programme to use as I was
able to display the majority of my coursework and theory
onto PowerPoint to create a flowing slide show to present
my work. I have been aware of PowerPoint for many years,
so using PowerPoint for my coursework was easy to do. The
benefits from using PowerPoint are that I can put all my
coursework and theory onto different slides in chunks so
that all my work isn’t in one block, making it easier to
process and understand, and I can also add animation and
pictures onto each slide to give more of an image in the
viewers mind. However, the PowerPoint files can’t be
uploaded straight onto my blog, they have to go onto slide
share first before it can be uploaded onto the blog, which
uses a lot of time.

14.  Slide share was essential for me and my coursework
because without this software, I wouldn’t be able to
upload any of my PowerPoints onto my blog. By
uploading all my coursework slideshows onto slide
share, it allowed me to embed the slide share onto my
blogger so that it can be viewed on my Blogger page
rather than navigating through the internet by links.
This makes it easier for all my work to be seen on my
blog all together on one page without any hassle for my
viewers.

16.  Blogger is again one of the most important pieces of
software to use for the whole Media Studies course.
This is a place where I can share my media journey
digitally and publically so anyone around the world
can see it, and most importantly my teacher and
examiner so they can see everything that I’ve done so
that I can receive my grades. When I first started using
Blogger, it became easy to use straight away.

18.  Prezi is a website that I used to display coursework,
similarly to PowerPoint. However, this website was
new to me in AS and it took me a while to be able to
use it properly and it is extremely slow to use on the
internet. By the end of AS and into A2, the tools and
layouts became more familiar to that of the one in
PowerPoint, so I was able to use both of them to
display different pieces of my coursework.