EVALUATION: QUESTION 4

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

According to https://sites.google.com/site/multimediadreamwiki/1--introduction, the definition of "media technology" is defined as technology and methods that support human communication over distances in time and space. 

Throughout the process of creating my media trailer and ancillary tasks to accompany it, I have learnt to use many different technologies as well as developed my skills in areas of technology that I already had experience in using.

The planning and research stage

Blogger - Blogger has been the one of the most essential tools for my planning stage. It has allowed me to keep track of everything that I am doing, making it easy for me to log on, check what I need to be doing for that day in particular, remind myself of any information regarding character, costume, plot etc and go and do it straight away. Blogger is easy to use and accessible from any smart phone so even when I was out filming, I was able to use my data plan on my phone to use the internet and get on Blogger to check I was doing everything correctly and that I was on schedule. It has been so much easier using Blogger than if I had created a paper portfolio as it may have been easy to get very organised with my paper, easily lose things and it would take up a lot of valuable time that I could of been using doing more research to better my project.

YouTube - YouTube has allowed me to look at other film trailers and take ideas from them to use in my own trailer. For example I've been able to view other horror films based on religion and note what features are used repetitively throughout them and which trailers were successful and why and more importantly, which trailers were not successful and why. I have also been able to look at other A2 Media students trailers and see what trailers got the highest marks and make sure I have met all of the criteria they did in order for me to get the highest marks possible for my trailer. I have also been able to look up royalty free soundtracks to use for my trailer and download them as well as work out which soundtracks work best for what genres of film.

Google - This may seem like an obvious one but without Google, I wouldn't have been able to find as much information about Christianity as I did. I would have had to go to a library and take out a few books on Christianity and flick through each one and hope that there is something mentioned about the Rapture in there somewhere. But, with Google, I can simply type in what I'm looking for and in the click of a button I have exactly the answers I am looking for. Google Images also allowed me to look up lots of information, such as masks used in horror films, magazine covers, film posters etc. Google has been a massive necessity for me as it has allowed me to do so much of my research which has been necessary for creating my film trailer and the ancillary tasks.

 Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp - Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp played crucial roles in the planning of my film trailer, poster and magazine cover. These two apps allowed me to get hold of any actors who I was using in my project, let them know what times and dates I needed them and allowed me to keep in constant contact with them. This allowed me to stay organised at all times and gave me the opportunity to be alb to rearrange my plans with good time if an actor was unable to make a shoot.

Google Maps - As basic as this may be, this is definitely a new media technology which helped me massively in the research and planning. By using Google Maps, I was able to find my way to places like The Grand Avenue and I was able to find new locations to film. Ten years ago, I would have had to use a paper map to find my way around and find new locations to film at so with the new development of interactive maps and specifically Google Maps, this has made the planning and research stages of my project so much easier. Google Maps also acts as a SatNav meaning as I was driving, Google Maps on my phone was telling me exactly where to go, speaking the instructions out at me. Not only is this easier than using a paper map whilst driving, it is also so much safer because I can keep my eyes on the road the whole time and I am not being distracted by the paper map.



The creation of the film trailer

Camera - To start of with the obvious, the camera was maybe one of the most necessary and crucial parts of creating my film trailer. Originally, I was going to use my Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 which is a DSLR camera. However, it was made to be a photography camera and not a video camera. The HD video feature does work on the camera but it is very temperamental so I decided not to take the the risk and use the school's purpose-built video camera. At first, I wasn't sure how to use it. As small and compact as it was, it took me a while to get used to how to turn it on, delete footage, record, change the view screen around etc. Once I had got to grips with it, I was able to shoot all of the footage I needed with it! For shots where I needed the camera to be looking down on my actors, I was able to hold the camera up as high as I could and flip the view-screen down so I could see exactly what I was shooting and make sure I had the right angle which was very useful! Another beneficial feature of this camera was the fact it is so small and compact. If I had used my DSLR for my trailer, I would have been carrying around a massive camera with a camera bag and additional lenses that I probably wouldn't have used. This video-camera could fit in the palm of my hand and it meant I had a lot less weight to carry around.

Tripod - Throughout the filming of my trailer, it would be fair to admit I hardly used a tripod. I used a tripod for all of my footage that I shot with the Devil and the girl with the gun in the field because I wanted these shots to be slick, sharp and professional-looking. However, I decided that for many of the other shots, I wanted them to feel more hand held, even though they weren't at all. Gary Ross did this when he directed the first of the four The Hunger Games films. A lot of the camera shots in the film were subtly shaky which made the film seem that little bit more real and I personally find this technique to work in a lot of films. To use the tripod to film the girl with the gun in the field, I struggled a lot to get the tripod to stop sinking into the ground (it had rained a lot the night before so it was very muddy) so I went and found 3 hardback books in my house and placed them on the ground and used them as small stands for my tripod to be placed on. If I hadn't of done this, then my shots would have been a little bit wonky and like I said, for these shots I didn't want that to happen. The slicker and cleaner these shots, to me, it represents how powerful these two characters are. This is a VERY subtle connection but that was my way of thinking it through.

iMovie - Whilst creating my AS Media Film Opening, I was using an old version of iMovie. I was very well adapted to it, knew all of the ins and outs and little tricks to make my media products stand out from the crowd. However, when it came down to editing my A2 Film Trailer, after uploading all of my footage to my Mac and opened up iMovie, I realised that whilst updating my laptop a few days before, this had also updated iMovie to the latest version. So, essentially I had to start all over again learning how to use it. I spent an hour or two watching YouTube tutorials on how to edit clips, add soundtracks, merge clips, speed up clips, slow down clips, add in text etc. This helped me get to grips with this new version of iMovie very quickly so I could get down to editing as quickly as possible. Using iMovie, I was able to edit my film trailer fluidly and make sure all of my timings were correct. The soundtrack was added in and I was able to edit my film trailer even more to make sure it rhythmically matched the trailer in terms of clip changes and blackouts. This took a lot of time as one of my massive pet hates is when there are shot changes out of time with the music. I think it looks a lot more professional when the shots change on the beat of the music. I figured out also that you could add filters over the top of shots to change the colour of them, for example, making a shot black and white etc. I used this feature by adding an 'X-Ray' effect over the top of a shot of a girl on a bed "freaking out" as well as speeding up the clip to make it seem like she really was going mad.

Garage Band - Garage Band was my main software I used to record and edit my voice-over for the trailer. To create my voice-over, I asked Carli Green to learn a monologue which he would then recite whilst being recorded by my laptop's internal microphone as I was not able to get hold of an external microphone. The reason I chose Carli is because he naturally has a very deep voice and once recorded, I was going to edit the sound recording to make it sound like his voice had been warped or disguised - in short, I wanted it to sound very edited and un-human. However, whilst I was going through the different filters on Garage Band, the filters that would make Carli's voice sound lower were making his voice sound way too low, almost to the point where you couldn't understand what he was saying. So, instead of making his already low voice even lower, I decided to take a more robotic approach to editing the voice. I used what is called the "Colorful Bass" filter to give Carli's voice a metallic sound and it made him sound a bit like a robot but not so much that you would instantly assume he was a robot, more that he'd simply altered his voice to cover his identity. This was essential as it adds to the mystery of who he is!


The creation of the ancillary tasks

Camera - For my ancillary tasks, I used my Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 to take my photos. For my film poster, I took this photo at the same time as I was filming Hannah. It almost looks like a still from the first shot that we see of Hannah with her back to the camera holding the gun which is effective because the audience can link that shot with the shot in the trailer. My film magazine cover photo was taken on a bright day in my garden. The lighting had to be perfect to make sure I had a very clear, professional looking photo and I think it came out perfectly.

Tripod - Using a tripod whilst taking my ancillary task pictures was crucial. I was desperate to have a clean, defined shot which was correctly balanced so using my tripod was a necessity for my ancillary tasks. For my film poster, I used the same technique as I did when filming Hannah in the field by using the 3 hard-back books to put on the muddy field to make sure my tripod didn't sink into the ground. For my film magazine cover photo, this was a lot easier to do as I simply put the tripod onto concrete and didn't have to worry about a sinking tripod.

Picasa - I lowered all of the levels in my film poster photo to make the photo look really dingy and undefined, but I tried to make sure it wasn't too dark as I wanted it to be a daylight picture. I was going for a 'foggy and misty' type of look. I then added a very light sepia affect over the top of this and blurred the edges around the photo before adding in the text in the same font (SF GUSHING MEADOW) as I used for the film title in the trailer to keep continuity. I used the colours red and black for two reasons; 1) to ensure that the genre of the film was still being pushed across to the audience and 2) to match up with the connotations of Hell (which I have wrote about in my evaluation question 1). My film magazine cover didn't need a lot of editing done to it as it was a clear photo in the first place. I changed the photo to black and white to give it a more professional look and then made the shadows on the picture a bit darker to make her face seem more brighter.


The evaluation stage

PowerPoint - Using PowerPoint was a way of using different technologies on my blog instead of just having walls and walls of text, making it hard for readers and it makes my blog look more appealing, PowerPoint allows people to easily create professional looking presentations. It has a very basic, simple format and makes it easy for anyone to use. By using it in my evaluation, it has helped me expand my presentation abilities and has allowed me to showcase my evaluation in a sophisticated, professional way.

Blogger - By doing my evaluation using Blogger, I have again been able to keep on track of my work and stay organised and on target. It also allows be to edit all of my work easily, spell check repetitively and means I can get more work done as I am not hand writing everything. I have been able to embed YouTube videos onto my blog to make it easier for examiners to know what I am talking about when referring to film trailers without them having to search for the trailer themselves. I have also been able to add additional information where needed without making my work messy, If I had hand-written my evaluation and then thought of an additional idea which should be half way through a question, it would be difficult for me to add the additional information.

YouTube - YouTube allowed me to find examples of trailers with features I had been discussing in a certain question. For example, if I was to talk about how my film trailer used a very powerful soundtrack with lots of instrumentation and I wanted to show an example of another trailer which did the same, I could search up the trailer for Inception and post the link and this easily shows the examiner what I am talking about.