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

I used a wide variety of different media technologies throughout my coursework which helped aid my research, planning, construction and evaluation of my project. However the main media technology that I used throughout my development of my coursework was BLOGGER. Blogger allowed me to keep a detailed journal of the different stages of my project, from research and planning, to the production and evaluating. It enabled me to store my work efficiently and was easy to access throughout the duration of my coursework. As well as this it also allowed me too upload images and videos which related to my work.

Research:

The main form of media technology used for the research stages of our coursework was GOOGLE.

Using Google allowed me to thoroughly research different genres and the conventions of supernatural thrillers, as well as this it also allowed me to research other existing supernatural thriller films.

Using the browser steered me towards many useful websites which helped towards my research stages of my coursework. One of the most useful website that Google lead me too was http://www.filmsite.org/ Filmsite is a online website which has been operated by Tim Dirks since 1996 and offers information concerning; Greatest Films, Oscars, Quotes, Genres, Scenes, History, Reviews etc.

This website was extremely useful for us when it came to genre research and it had a huge variety of information concerning different genres and conventions of genres. This website was ultimately responsible for our final choice of Supernatural Thriller.

As well as this, YOUTUBE also played a vital role in helping us research other thriller trailers and allowed us to see what forms and conventions were used in them.

Youtube allowed us to search different trailers for films which fell into the category of supernatural thrillers, such as Paranormal Activity and The Shining. Youtube played a vital role in the research stages of our trailer because it gave us the opportunity to analyse in depth real media trailers and see what conventions were used when it came to things such as; lighting, music, camera shots and angles. It was also very time saving and efficient to use, and it also meant that I could copy the URL link and post it on to my blog.

Planning:

When it came to planning the dates for our filming and arranging a time and place we decided to use the social networking site FACEBOOK to send out an email to all of the people involved as well as this we also sent out group texts from our mobile phones confirming of dates.

When it came to the planning of our film poster and magazine cover using media technologies was limited as most of our planning was achieved on print. This is because we drew several copies of potential posters and magazine covers by hand. However, in order to get the image onto Blogger we used an image scanner. This is a device which optically scans images and printed texts and converts them into a digital image. We also used this technology device to upload the images of our story board for our trailer which had originally been designed by hand.

For the planning of the film poster i decided to make a template version on the software package ADOBE INDESIGN. This allowed me to have a rough idea of how the final poster was going to look on a computer and showed me what worked well and what didnt. It gave me the opportunity to play around with different colours, backgrounds and positioning of different texts.

We also used PAINT and MICROSOFT WORD to help us decide what font we wanted to use for our main title "Darkness Awakens". In order to achieve this we used the popular website DAFONT, to look at different possible fonts that could be suitable for our poster, trailer and magazine cover. We then print screened the shot from the website, pasted them onto paint, which allowed us to crop the font that we wanted and then finished by pasting all of the possible options onto Word. This allowed us to compare the different fonts and come to a decision on want font we wanted to use.

We also used these two programs for the designing of our logo, we were able to use the images already provided on the software and play along with different pictures and texts.

When it came to the planning for our trailer, one of the media technologies that we used was a KODAK CAMERA. We used this device to take pictures of our potential cast members and also to record the auditions that we had taken. This was quick and efficient and allowed us to easily upload the images onto blogger. This was also the same camera that we used to take the images for the magazine front cover and the film poster.

Construction:

Media technologies were used most when it came to the construction of my coursework and they played a vital role in the development of the trailer, cover and poster.

To create the magazine front cover and poster we used a combination of different softwares which allowed us to edit the photos and put the whole product together. To edit the picture for the film poster i began by using MACROMEDIA FIREWORKS MX.

I used this software to edit the pictures of the house and the face and i aslo used it to put together all of the aspects of the poster. This was very useful in the construction of our ancillary task as it enabled us to add different effects to the images such as changing the colours and contrasts. I also decided to use this software because i found it easier to work with which meant i could be efficient and achieve the best results possible.

When it came to the magazine front cover, Charlotte decided to use INDESIGN instead. This has similar features to Fireworks but as Charlotte had used this program before she felt more comfortable and knew how the tools worked.

We filmed our footage for the trailer using a DV CAMCORDER with digital video tapes. How to use the camcorder was easy to pick up and we were able to use special effects on the camera such as night vision and zooms. We then uploaded the footage from the camera onto the program MOVIE PLUS 5, as this is the software that we used for the construction of the trailer. Although none of us had used this software before it was very easy to pick up and eventually we were able to get the hang of it, adding special effects such as slow motions, adding different transitions such as flashes and fades, adding text and images and also changing the volume for some of the shots.

Evaluation:

In order to achieve adequate feedback for the evaluation of our coursework we felt the best way was to post our poster, trailer and magazine front cover on FACEBOOK. We chose to use this social networking site because it is extremely popular with our target audience of 15+ and we are also extremely aware of how the site operates, which means we were able to upload the pictures and videos without any hold backs.

We also uploaded the trailer onto YOUTUBE, we decided to do this because it is used widely by millions of people and therefore we can gather a larger range of audience feedback.

BLOGGER has also been extremely useful when its come to evaluating all of our coursework. This is because it has given us the opportunity to keep a detailed analysis throughout and also talk about what went well, what didnt and what could be improved.