2. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and
evaluation stages?
Throughout this course I used multiple different technology platforms to create the final product.
During the research stages we firstly used the DVD player, computer and projector to watch various
films and trailers. This also later became a quick and easy way of distributing the film to the whole class
in order to show our trailer. I then used Microsoft Word to analyse and annotate 3 movies which we
were prompted to study, Psycho (1960) and the two Dawn of the Dead films (1979 and 2004). We then
carried our individual research using YouTube to search for trailers and horror clips to evaluate. Some
trailers that I found particularly helpful when filming our trailer were as follows;
Eden Lake (2008)
Paranormal Activity- The Marked Ones (2014)
We Are What We Are (2013)
We then were promoted by our media teacher to use the website IMDb.com to get details and further
information about our chosen films, for example, the cast and crew of these films. was then able to
upload this information to my own blogger. Blogger required some alterations to be made to the design
of the blog. Subsequently changing background and texts, the posts looked enhanced and better suited
for the blog design of my own personal choice.
3. To start the planning stage, I used Microsoft Publisher to create a shot list before going in head first into the main production. The shot lists was later
altered (in many ways!) before the film was up to standards. We then had to rearrange the shots to ensure that the storyline basis throughout the shot lists
would lead to a good horror trailer. To help this process, Google Images and Photoshop helped us create a mood board which focussed our visual ideas.
During the construction stages of my coursework, there were also many chances for technology. Firstly, when filming our trailer, we filmed the whole trailer
on a handheld HD camera, where the footage was automatically saved onto an SD card. My group and I then had to transfer the footage from the camera
onto the iMac computers and upload the footage we had shot to Adobe Premiere Pro.
Using Premiere pro we were able to edit the brightness, balance and contrast as well as edit clips using simple cuts, fades, speed up/down tools etc.
One of the more challenging aspects of filming (and then editing) was the lighting as most of our filming members were only available during the daylight
hours. To overcome this problem we had to alter the contrast and brightness on Premiere, in the hope that this would make our horror trailer more
appealing and scary to our genre specific audience. Here is a prime example of contrast and brightness before and after on another film, illustrating the
denser blacks it creates.
We also included intertitles which were created on Adobe After Effects. The animated text was also created through the copyright free ‘Evil Dead’ preset
from rendaastudios.com. This helped us to quickly convey the narrative of our trailer. The footage was also overlaid with soundtrack music and special
effects using the multiple layers on Adobe Premiere. These various music sounds came from our own filming as well as copyright/royalty free files found on
YouTube which we converted. A sound effect that we found was the creaking of an old swing; this gave our trailer a more eerie feel.
4. For the ancillary products, everything was created using Adobe Photoshop. To get the exact image I wanted for my
magazine cover I used a digital camera and uploaded the images to edit using Photoshop. Upon choosing my image, I
used to ‘lasso’ tool as well as the ‘eraser’ to feather around my shape in order to get the image I wanted. I then placed
my photo on a grainy background and changed the opacity in order for the picture to look faint and old-fashioned. The
background image was made up of a number of different layer and photos. The grainy effect was a copyright free
texture I found on Google Images. I then faded it into a plain black background which created my darkened look. I also
changed the brightness and contrast of my poster in order for it too looks like a horror poster. To give my work an eerie
look, I used font from ‘Dafont.com’. My choice of font (‘House of Horror’) was found under the sub-heading of ‘Horror’.
I used the same techniques for both my horror poster and my magazine cover although obviously both of my images
are not the same. I used nearly almost every tool on Photoshop to edit my poster and magazine. The ‘selection’ tool
helped me to move around and place my images where I wanted them. The ‘lasso’ tool was again another useful facility
that I used. This tool helped me to reshape and editing my photographs and helped me to erase any parts of the photo
taken that I did not want. When using the lasso tool I erased the whole of my background in my poster photo in order
for the image to look correct upon editing it.
The final stage in which I used technology was during the evaluation stage. Having extracted and saved all of our trailers
as the appropriate files, the first rough cuts were put on to YouTube. We then had screenings in front of the class which
were projected onto a screen and shown and accessed. The class them have us both positive and negative feedback in
order for us to enhance our trailers, making sure that they were the best they could possibly be. After we had made our
adjustments, we then went through this process again for the Evaluation Screening, making sure that all the feedback
given to us was taken on board and accessed/changed.
Finally, we all uploaded our evaluations to our Blogger sites. I firstly converted my evaluation’s word document into an
Adobe Powerpoint presentation as well as saving the original copy onto my college computer. The benefit of all of these
stages was I always knew – unlike paper – my files could not be lost. They were safely stored on the college computers
and on “cloud” sites such as Blogger and Flickr.
