EVALUATION QUESTION 4How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

- Katie Charman

CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH

Hardware used….

Canon EOS 550D Tripod

In order to film our trailer ‘Freeze’ we used a Canon EOS 550D which allowed us to film in HD and create all the shots we wanted. As the camera is good quality we were also able to make use of the specialist features such as setting up a depth of field shot in some scenes. Overall, by using this specific camera we were able to make sure all of our footage captured was sharply focused which made the overall trailer look more professional.I used the same camera when I took the photos for the magazine cover and poster. By using this specific make it allowed me to manually focus the pictures which meant I could make Selina’s poster photo appear sharper than the other two characters in order to show her dominance.

The tripod we used was fitted in with a specialist handle so that we could pan smoothly in some scenes such as when Selina entered the bar. The tripod also allowed us to keep a steady shot which again meant the footage would make the scenes appear realistic.

Web Technology used…

laptop which meant that when the examiner was to finally watch the trailer, it would hopefully work and load properly.

Another benefit to using YouTube was that we could see the number of views our final product had received. This was interesting as it showed us the popularity of the idea.

YouTube

When the rough draft and final edit of the trailer were completed, we needed to upload them somewhere so that our audience could view it and so we could embed it onto our blogs. YouTube allowed us to do this as we created an account which then gave us the opportunity to easily show people what the finished products looked like. As YouTube is a well known and trusted brand it works on every single computer or

Software used…One type of software we used in the construction of our trailer was: ‘Garage-Band’. It is a software which is a music making programme which helped us create the two original songs that we used in our trailer.

GarageBand

It gave us the opportunity to create the exact sound we wanted as it had a sophisticated range of sounds we could choose from such as ‘hip-hop beats’ and ‘drums’ which gave us the base to our songs. As we wanted to create a change of pace halfway within the trailer, GarageBand allowed us to achieve this as we had complete control over when the first song ended and when the next song started.

Software used…

Final Cut Express

The main type of software we used when constructing and editing our trailer was ‘Final Cut Express’. This was because it has extremely detailed editing techniqueswhich allowed us to create shots such as the split-screen shown in the picture in the right hand corner of the screen. In our AS media production we only used iMovie software which although created a good finalised product, compared to the software available on Final Cut it was only providing basic editing technology.

Software used… The toolbar in Final Cut Express.

The Pointer Tool- This tool allowed us to select footage and manoeuvre it about. This was the most used tool as we were constantly moving clips in order to make them appear in the correct order when constructing our trailer.

The Pen Tool- This tool allowed us to pin-point exact moments on the clip which we wanted to edit or cut down. This was extremely helpful when editing sound as it allowed us to mark in and out points from the sound clip and we could then either make them louder or mute them completely.

The Scissor Tool- This tool aided us when we wanted to split a clip. This was used quite a lot when we knew we wanted to cut a clip, but we didn’t want to delete the end of it.

Software used…The browser to the top left hand side of final cut express was an extremely useful feature. When constructing the trailer, it was very difficult to know where to place each scene and so with the browser at the top, it allowed us to create different ‘bins’ which meant we could sort out each scenes into a separate bin. This meant that our whole project was organised and easy to manage as we could easily locate each scene. Music was the same as we could create different ‘bins’ for different sound clips such as the music itself and the voiceovers we re-recorded.

Software used…The tool box in Adobe

Photoshop Elements

The Hand Tool – This tool allowed us to move the photos around so we could easily manoeuvre around the page which helped especially when we were first constructing the image and planning what it looked like.

The Wand Tools – These tools allowed us to both cut round an image and highlight it. This was extremely helpful when we were superimposing the three images together for the poster as we needed to cut three separate pictures in order to create the final poster.

The Eraser Tool – When we used the wand tools, we didn’t cut the photo as precise as we wanted and so by zooming in on the image we were able to erase out some of the excess image that wasn’t needed.

The Text Tool – This allowed us to write text over the images which was helpful as we knew when planning that we would have to create text such as the films title.

The Background Tool – This tool was extremely helpful when trying to cut and erase an image as we could change the background from back to white as we pleased and so could see if there was any piece of the image which needed changing.

Software used…The layer tool to the bottom right hand side of Photoshop was extremely useful when constructing our poster and magazine cover. This was because we could clearly and precisely layer up the different images so that the looked as though they were taken at the same time. There was a ‘lock’ button which you could use to keep an image still from moving, this was particularly useful when making the poster as we would occasionally make the mistake of moving the wrong image and so, by having the ‘lock’ button, once we had perfected an image we could keep it still.

The Layer Tool on Adobe Photoshop Elements

Software used… Live Type

Another piece of software we used was called ‘Live Type’ which was a font editing programme. In the planning stages of our production we decided to create the production company name called ‘Vertigo Studios’ but we wanted this name to be unique to our marketing package and so we decided to edit and construct it on Live Type. Live Type aided us in constructing the company name as we were able to create a moving font image which is typically seen in trailers. This would not have been able to be achieved it we had only created a name on Final Cut.

We also used a still version of the created image onto our poster as this showed continuity.

PLANNING AND EVALUATION

Web Technologies used…

I used ‘Wordpress’ as a way of presenting all my A2 media work. Wordpress is a blogging website which allows you to freely post and embed documents onto a blog which you have created yourself.

In order to show that I was working within the film-noir genre, I uploaded a photo from Google images of a man in a trilby hat being held at gun point in black and white and put it as my header photo.

On the Wordpress blog, I was able to manage all my individual posts which allowed me to keep all my planning and evaluation posts in date order and so they were organised.

Web Technologies used…When planning and evaluating our products, I used the website ‘slideshare’ as a way of sharing my presentations as it was easy to embed onto my blog so that the examiner could read it. I tried a range of different presentation websites beforehand such as ‘scribd’ but ended up choosing ‘slideshare’ as it looked more professional and I believed it looked more aesthetically pleasing when embedded.

Slideshare

As I uploaded a lot of presentations onto my blog, it was good to use slideshare for all of these presentations as it meant there was continuity throughout the blog.

Web Technologies used…

When planning the initial idea for my A2 project, I researched a few theories such as the ‘Utopians Solution Theory’ in order to gain more of an understanding of how people respond to media texts. When reporting my findings I found that using a normal presentation wouldn’t capture the audiences attention and so I created a ‘PREZI’ which allowed me to present in a much more technical way.

Prezi’s take a while to complete but once finished they make the presentation look extremely eye-catching.