Research & Reflection

Since I started Media Studies again for my Second Year, I haven't really learnt how to use anything new. 

One thing which I have learnt how to use, and enjoyed using, is Garage Band. We have had to use this to start practising using sound effects and other sounds for our trailers we are eventually going to make. I enjoyed using Garage Band because I liked hearing all of the different sound effects you could join together and play. 

I have reflected in all my work so far this year. I think that I have wrote a lot of reflection about my work and it is good quality, but I thought this last year and it didn't turn out to be as good as I had thought in the end, so I have tried to be more technical this time round. 

I have done some genre research in my blog, this has helped me to get a better understanding of what I want to make for my own trailer, seeing the trailers about 'invasions of the comfort of own peoples homes' made me want to do an idea like this for my own trailer because it is something which is different and people do not expect, it also scares the audience because it could actually happen, although people think it wouldn't and couldn't. 

 

Skills Assessment

When doing my AS work last year, I learnt a number of new skills which I have never done before. One of the first things I learnt was how to use a Mac, before college I had never used a Mac before so I was weary when I found out we would be using them, I was also excited too because they are something new to use. Once I had turned it on and logged on etc I found it quite easy to use and find my way around.

Another thing I learnt how to use were websites such as Blogger and Prezi to store my work, I don't think I had ever even heard of these websites before until we had to start using them at college. Once I had set up accounts on both the websites I found them pretty easy to use and thought it was a good and different way of storing work instead of just using normal documents which is boring. 

When it came to starting to make my AS product, I needed to take pictures, so I had to use a Professional Camera to make the photos look high quality for the images in my magazine, I learnt about framing, eyeline, proportion and a lot more to do with taking photographs, this helped me when it came to having to take the photos for my product because it meant I could make them stand out in a good way and make them look professional.

 I had to use brand new software which I was not familiar with. Firstly I had to use Photoshop, this was hard at first because there were a lot of technical things which you could do on the software, but I realised that I didn't have to use all of the things on there, so when I figured out the things I needed to use I found it easy because there were only a few things to use. 

Another piece of software that I had to use was InDesign, I had never heard of this software before starting Media Studies, and I found this quite hard to use at first, I had to ask people around me a lot about how to do a lot of stuff. We only had to make the double page spread on InDesign and then insert everything into there in the end, so I was glad that I wouldn't be using it for long.

Starting Second Year Media Studies, I am a lot more confident because I already know how to use most of the software on the Macs, I think I should be able to get work done a lot quicker and faster because I shouldn't struggle as much last year when using the software.