Evaluation Question Four

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used both Google documents and Facebook to conduct my audience research. I sent a message to people who fit with my target audience asking them to follow a link to fill out my questionnaire.
I feel this was very helpful to me as it was much more efficient than handing out paper questionnaires or even answering questions by email. I got a much higher response rate than I expected, which gave me a wider view of my audience, and I feel this is due to the fact that the process was much easier for people.
I also used Youtube when conducting my product research. There is a wide selection of teaser trailers available for all users to view which was extremely useful for me when I was trying to establish conventions. If Youtube did not exist it would have been a lot harder to conduct this research as I would have had to search for them using DVD content. However, as every user can upload content it was sometimes difficult to tell the difference between fan-made and official teaser trailers.

During the planning stage I used Google calendar to outline my long-term planning. The online calendar was useful for me as an overview of what needed to be done. I could also always access it and there was little chance of my losing it as there would have been in the past when using paper-based calendars.

During the construction stage I used high quality video cameras. This allowed me to have good quality video giving it a more professional feel. I also used Photoshop CS5 to construct my magazine and poster. I used a free font site (cooltext) and a polaroid picture creator. I had never used Photoshop before and I found it very useful as it allowed me to create a more professional look for both my magazine cover and poster. It was much more useful to me than an amateur photo editing program, such as Microsoft Paint would have been, as there were many more functions. For example, on my poster my background was originally too light and did not fit with the poster, using the layer function I was able to edit only this part of my poster and darken it, improving the overall dark theme of my poster. The polaroid creator enabled me to give my magazine cover the overall young theme I felt it was lacking. The site had lots of options so it gave me a fair bit of freedom when choosing my end pictures. It was also a great time saver as I would have had to construct the polaroids myself.


For the construction of my teaser trailer I used iMovie HD to edit and a free music site for the sound. iMovie is sophisticated software which allowed me to cut my clips with the precision needed for a fast-paced piece of film such as a teaser trailer. It also allowed me to mix music and sound to create a more conventional teaser trailer. The free music site was a great help to me as we were not allowed to use copyrighted music. Had I not had access to suitable songs that didn't have copyright, such as the ones on this site, I would have had to compose my own music or try to get permission from the PRS, both of which are very difficult to do.
Finally, in the evaluation stage I used Facebook and Google documents to conduct my audience feedback as I felt this had worked well in my audience research. This again saved me time and helped me to get it out to a wide range of people. I also used Blogger to post my answers which allowed me to make my evaluation more interactive. I could demonstrate ideas using pictures and link to websites and other posts.