Evaluation Task 4 - How Did You Use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages

How Did You Use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages

Digital camera:

We used a digital camera to take our footage for our film trailer ‘Naughty List’ as well as using it to take the photos for the film poster and magazine front cover. We borrowed out the camera from the school allowing us to have a long lasting access to the camera, therefore we were not completely restricted in the time frame that we had to film everything in and take the photos for.  When starting to film my partner Erin Surkitt had experience with how to use this type of camera and taught me how focus on what was in shot and how to zoom in and out of the frame. The digital camera allowed us to take more realistic photos’ in good quality that would be easy to see on a film poster and magazine front cover that made it seem as realistic as possible. The camera wasn’t too heavy and with the neck strap and carrier case, it was very mobile and which was needed considering we were filming in a variety of locations and had to bring the camera along with us. The neck strap came in particular help in the shot where one of the guests were running down the hall as Father Christmas was behind her and coming to get her. In this shot we used a handheld camera shot and did it in a canted angle. The sheer practicality of the camera being mobile helped us to be able to perform this task without too many difficulties, this
therefore resulting in us having a smooth shot that seemed realistic of a victim running away from danger.  We were also allowed to borrow a tripod from school this helping to make sure the shots in our film trailer as well as the other two components in a straight and non-shaky way.  Especially in shots in our trailer such as the high angle of me waking up at the end of the trailer which needs to be steady and clear, this was made possible because of the tripod that we were using.

 Blogger:

As I was able to access this website, and my blog from many different devices such as my phone, my home computer and the school computer, it meant that the blogging site was extremely particle in use. It also enabled to me to access my past research on psychological thrillers, this helping, me to be able use them when doing the planning for my film trailer ‘Naughty List’ and link it all back to be previous research. It also helped me when designing my film poster and magazine front cover as it helped to look back on the examples of the film posters that I analysed in m research section to know the key conventions to include on them, and make them seem as realistic as possible.  

Premier pro:

Premier pro allowed me and my partner to edit not only our film trailer, but also our costume and decisions video, as well as our changes and decisions vlogs. By creating separate bins for audio, video, intertitles etc. our footage for our trailer was easily accessible.  I have had a fair amount of experience with premier pro in the past with my AS work and also from taking Media in GCSE. However, we did need to research how to do things we have never done before, for example when it came to scaling and positioning our four guests waking up scenes to create a split screen of shots, as this is something neither me or my partner had past experience with doing, but we wanted to include into our trailer for dramatic effect. We found easy to import footage onto our sequence as well as audio tracks we had. It was also easy to delete footage or audio tracks that were not happy with or didn’t want to use from our sequence. This enabled to help make the editing process as smooth as possible, without too much hassle. Once the footage was rendered it was easy to play through our sequence and see what we had so far, and therefore see what we needed to improve, what else we needed to add in and what we didn’t like, or we didn’t work well together.

The software allowed us to layer audio tracks with the footage we had shot with ease, and allowed us to cut the audio to the length we wanted, and rearrange or delete audio form footage that was not needed. It helped us to use transitions such as dissolve or fade to black when it came to our actual footage, to blend all the shots together smoothly, making the trailer look as professional and realistic as possible.  

We could also easily include intertitle by adding a title into our sequence, for instance in our trailer our intertitle was “are you on the naughty list?” this allowed us to address our audience who would be watching the trailer, and therefore grab their attention.

As from past experience with using premier pro on our AS teen angst production, you could only use it on one computer in the whole school, therefore me and my partner transferred the sequence onto a memory stick and therefore edited on my partners laptop for our film trailer, this therefore gave us more freedom, and made the software more mobile. Therefore meaning we could easily meet when we were both free no matter what day or time and edit the film trailer instead of being confined to school hours.  

Photoshop:

Photoshop was a crucial piece of software that I had to use as it is how I made my film poster and magazine front cover. Again, like premier pro I had experience with using Photoshop when doing my AS research on recreating a film poster and creating a film magazine front cover for our teen angst film. I also used in in m GCSE media. It enabled me to create a gradient on my film magazine front cover by using the gradient tool, with the colour of black, therefore darkening the background which was stereotypical of the thriller genre.

For my film poster I used the brightening tool when trying to make the wrapped door pop out to the audience, to really bring across the Christmas theme of the trailer. I also was careful to keep the rest of the background of the poster to remain dark by experimenting with the contrast and brightness settings of the main image. This therefore making it seem like a dangerous and ultimately dark movie, which is what you would expect from a psychological thriller film.

I had to use the section tool on my magazine front cover to cut out around the head of Father Christmas, and then make a copy of as a different layer. This then enabled me to layer it over the masthead, which is stereotypically seen on a film magazine.

Photoshop provided me with a wide range of San serif and serif fonts, but for synergy reasons I stuck with Time news roman that was used in our film trailer for our title of our film “Naughty List” on both the film poster and magazine front cover. I used blending options to make the title pop, with a black drop shadow, however, I was careful to make sure I kept the distance down really low, this helped to make sure the text was actually on the poster rather than making it seem like it had been stuck on, again helping to make it seem more professional.

YouTube:

We used YouTube when it came to publishing our first draft of our film trailer, so were able to put it onto our blogs on blogger. We also used it to publish our costume video and our vlogs, so again we could link it on our blogs. It also helped us to get the audio we wanted for our trailer, such as the creepy doll music, as well as the elevator music that is used in our vlogs. It also came in handy when I ha
d to conduct my research on film trailers in thriller genre. As this was the platform that I watched them all on and did my research form, to help with the development of our production. This is also the platform where we received help on premier pro when it came to the scaling and positioning the split screen in our trailer.

Facebook Messenger:

Facebook messenger helped me and my partner to keep in contact with everyone who was acting in our film trailer. This is the platform we used when it came to communicating among each other. It was easy to accessible and, with the fact it was able to give us notifications we were able to answer any of the questions the actors had. I also allowed us to work around everyone’s schedule, and create a plan about when we were going to start filming, what time etc.

 Power point:

I used power point when creating our mood board in our planning for the target audience and USP of our film trailer. I have used this software on multiple occasions and so were very familiar with its told and functions, therefore importing photos to create a mood board and arrows to analyse it was rather simple however a rather creative way to demonstrate that part of our planning.