• Throughout the creation of our final products me and my group used media technologies in order to edit, research, discuss and share ideas as well as learn new things.

DIFFERENT FORMS OF WEB 2.0 AND TECHNOLOGY

Blogger

• I consistently used Blogger to showcase what new things I learnt in terms of theorists, posters, trailers, magazines, the Horror industry and more (in terms of conventions and beliefs). This was useful in terms of storing all our ideas and any progress we made on our blogs, so that if we needed to refer back to it in a future post we could easily go back to past posts.

• Blogger us to go back to old posts and analyse whether or not we met our aims as directors or not.

Hotmail/Outlook

• Me, Priscilla and Afreen would communicate through email in order to inform each other of any ideas we had come up with or to remind a member to complete aspects of planning, e.g. storyboards and shot lists. This was particularly useful in the week we started filming, as we would remind each other to bring props, clothes and make up. It enabled us to be more organised as well as maintain a sense of cohesion within our group.

GOOGLE & IMDB

• Google and IMDB both provided information on directors, dates, how successful films were at the time and actors/actresses which surrounded specific Horror films we researched. This was perfect at the pre-production stage of our course when we were learning about representations, aspects of genre, narrative, sound and media language which surround the Horror film industry.

- An example of what I searched on Google as well as on IMDB ‘s

website.

YouTube• Me and my fellow teammates consistently used YouTube before and after

the filming process. This was in order to gain a sense of the conventions within Horror trailers, through sound, characters, location, iconography and narrative and structure of trailers (e.g. what duration did the build up and climax occur within the trailer).

• We also used YouTube to upload videos in terms of updates on our progress which we uploaded to our blogs and our final trailer.

• I also used YouTube in order to learn how to create animations and effects on text using After Effects. YouTube is perfect when you are trying to learn how do create specific effects which in result can strengthen your piece. This was evident when I discovered a tutorial on the blind effect which we featured on our date/credits at the end of our final trailer.

URL TO MP3

• In order to download creepy and tension building music for our trailer, as an editor I often had to go on YouTube and copy the url and convert it to an mp3. This was extremely useful as it was quick and it enabled us to use music to evoke different reactions from our audience. (e.g. Fear, shock and surprise)

• In terms of converters we also used a video converter website called “keep vid.com”, which allowed us to download high quality versions of the Lionsgate/Twisted pictures opening and green screen to maintain a realitic feel within our trailer.

Other forms of Web 2.0• Vocaroo – This is a voice recording software which enables you to embed recordings into

websites and blogs. I often used this in order to express decisions and progress made on my blog in a creative way.

• Dafont.com – Through Dafont me and my group were able to find a font called “Skratch Punk”. It was distorted and cracked which was perfect for our brand name/film title Insanity, as we wanted a font which reinforced Flora’s personality. At first it was difficult to find a clear distorted font on Dafont however once we found “Skratch Punk” we had the readability and distortedness we wanted, so in result we featured it within all 3 of our media products.

• Whatsapp – As not all of the members within my group often check their emails, using the mobile messenger service of Whatsapp was perfect in terms of getting ahold of each other. It also allows you to record your voice and send it along with messages which was particularly useful when sharing ideas of what we could include in our narrative.

• Tumblr – Tumblr is a social networking site which involves gifs, graphics and edited images. I often copied the url of these images and credited the creators in the bottom of my posts under “references”. Gifs are often creative and exciting and enable a post on Blogger to become more exciting, especially if the post is quite “wordy” and detailed.

- This is an example of me using a Tumblr Gif on

my blog

- How we used Dafont.com and

how I used Vocaroo

Photoshop• Photoshop was a very important part of our course. It enabled us to edit and

change the colour of text which featured on our trailer, poster and magazine .• We often cropped fonts from Dafont and Photoshop enabled us to successfully

align credits, as well as use readable fonts to feature on our magazine and poster to maintain coherence, e.g “accord SF” (Magazine) and “Gill Sans MT” (Slogan on poster) which was previously “Egyptian710BT” and the “Tw Cen MT” font for the empire quote on poster”.

• We also used Photoshop to manipulate images and use brushes, e.g. the crack effect (which was downloaded from “visionwidet.com” I trailed other distorted crack brushes from “brusheezy.com”) which was vital in terms of conveying to the audience that Flora has two sides to her.

• Even though we decided not to shift Flora’s body to the side on our final poster due to it looking odd, originally Priscilla used two layers on Photoshop which both contained the same image of Flora in order to create the illusion that Flora had been cut in half. This shows how useful Photoshop has been to us as a group, even when effects and manipulation didn’t go as planned.

The image Priscilla edited

- Overall as a team we realised the idea of shifting Flora’s body

didn’t work well, due to it looking odd and somewhat

confusing. We want our audience to understand every

decision we made with our poster (in terms of connoting/

symbolising something).

- Here is evidence of text which Priscilla edited text on Photoshop which we included in our trailer,

poster and magazine

CAMERA

• Cameras enabled us to gain images of Flora for both the poster, magazine as well as document our props, items, locations and clothes which contributed to the creation of our ancillary products on to our blogs. It was particularly useful through the pre production stages, this was specifically with our final image of Flora for our final magazine as we used lighting in order to reinforce her good and bad qualities (one side with shadow the other bright).

• It also enabled us to follow the conventions represented within both real Horror posters and empire magazines, making our products easy for our audiences to engage with due to elements of familiarity e.g. the use of a mid shot.

CAM-CORDER• Using a cam-corder allowed us to film for our trailer, but also do vlogs on

progress we made throughout our course. For example after our final premiere me and Priscilla did a vlog on the audience feedback sheets (questionnaires) we had received and summarised what went well and what we think we could do better.

• When filming for our final trailer we switched from using the tripod which was better for more slow and still shots and handheld which was perfect for creating a sense of urgency. We also used a variety of shots and angles including long shots, wide shots, extreme close ups and more.

• Using a Cam-corder enabled us to be creative throughout the construction and planning part of our course.

I-Movie & Adobe After Effects

• I- Movie is a editing software which included text templates which reinforced the Horror genre far more in

comparison to the text within premiere and After effects. Originally we used after effects for text inbetween our

trailer, however it was unsuccessful due to the amateur vibe it gave off due to the chunky and grainy font despite

the interesting crack effect. This then meant we ended up using I-Movie as it was easier to use, but also appeared more intriguing and mysterious which was the sense of

enigma we wanted to create to make our audience want to find out more.

• We did however use After Effects for the ending credits for our trailer, as the blind effect and readable font was

exactly what we as a group wanted.

(This is shown above)

Adobe Premiere

• Premiere was particularly useful in terms of binding all our different shots together, as well as adding music, transitions and text we created in After effects and I-Movie to make our final trailer.

• One of the main skills I learnt this year from editing using Adobe Premiere was how useful different levels of sound are, as I constantly used the sound nodules in order to increase and decrease sound at certain times, e.g. I made sure to make the airy and jarring music fade in, in order to build tension slowly thus making it more uncomfortable for the audience.

Audacity

• Audacity is a sound recording programme which allowed us to record voice overs which we included in our trailer, e.g. when Flora says “my doll is the only reminder of my father”.

• Not only did this allow us to portray conventional elements of sound used in trailers, but it also allowed us to communicate our narrative to our audience without revealing too much.