How did you use media technologies in the

construction and research, planning and evaluation

stages?

Looking at www.wordpress.com for posting my research and construction stages

I wanted to keep my work organised. In year 12 I didn’t feel my work was that organised and in year 13 I wanted to make sure my blog was easy to navigate around. This made it easier for myself to find relevant work which I wanted to look at when creating my three media products. It is also easier for other users to navigate around my blog. Comparing the two years and categories you can tell that A2 work was a lot neater and more organised. Focusing more on the right image, I organised the planning into categories depending what I was researching into. When I was creating my poster, I knew I wouldn’t have to search around looking for posters I had analysed as I could go to the poster category and in that category there is the ‘Poster research’ sub category with all the posters I have researched. This was the same process for when I created my film magazine cover and film trailer. It makes it so much easier and quicker finding the specific work. It also makes it easier when audiences click on the wrong post, the category list will still be there with out any confusion.

Year 12 categories

Year 13 categories

Having a category toolbar also meant I could access work I did a while back without going through pages of work. And this was most convenient as stated when relating my work to research and wanting to look at those posts for help and guidance. When putting together my trailer I could look through my posts at what I needed to do and put together by looking at my story board. If I couldn’t do this my work would be quite messy and not as organised as if I could find my story board post much quicker. I would have had to improvise rather then be in the know of my next stages and shoots I needed to do. Using Wordpress meant I was able to insert as many posts as I desired, I could also re-organise the sequence of posts if I posted one too late I could change the published date to a closer date to a close related post. This I used as I had missed out some research posts, so I added them later on during the coursework process and I changed the date to around the dates when I was submitting research and it meant they are all together around the same date.

Using the internet to look at trailers for research purposes

I firstly began looking at YouTube.com at different trailers. I looked at YouTube in particular as it was simple and easy to find trailers as they have any video you want to know on there. YouTube provided me with every trailer I searched for in the search engine area at the top of the page. I watched a variety of different genres trailers with different genres. I analysed a selection of trailers I watched for incorporating conventions from those trailers into my own trailer. I looked at the genre, sound, techniques and editing effects and transitions. I noticed different aspects that related to each genre such as slow music with a big event in romantic films, horror films had much shorter clips and a plain transitions too. Musical's were very happy and long clips with different music over the top of the clips. I also took a look at the different classification as I knew this would help me decide towards what story line to go towards.

Once I had chosen the genre I began doing some more research and also looking back at previous years work. For this I used www.mediachs.edublogs.org. it allowed me to look at students in the same year and running of a low budget and also what grades they received and how their conventions got them what they wanted. I looked at British company films as well as American. Looking at other trailers made me work towards my story line for 21 12. I also looked at different conventions of horror trailers and how they different from other genre films.

Using the internet meant that I could access different style of trailers and watch a variety of horror film trailers. Not all I analysed though. As I used YouTube I could pause the video at anytime. This was convienany for myself if I needed to analyse the trailer or write down any ideas for my own trailer.

Using the internet to look at film magazine and film posters

During the research for magazine covers, I was already aware of titles for the covers. I used Google for gathering and looking at posters. I looked at a lot more then I analysed. I analysed three different companies; Empire, Total Film and Entertainment. Each magazine had a different audience and this was express through the mise en scene and layout of their covers. When searching for the magazine on Google I typed in the magazine title and then chose out of the results that came up. I chose to use Google as it is fast and the results are relevant. I had no hassle or problems when finding the magazine covers I wanted to research and look at for inspiration. I never didn’t have any choice of which ones to look at as Google provided me with page after page of covers.

During looking for film posters for inspiration and ideas, I used Google again. However for this research task I needed to already know film titles before searching for the poster. I did however use Google again as they search engine is quick and gave me correct results. When searching for a specific film titles film poster it meant that the results had many different versions. I had to decide which ones I preferred most and then I analysed about those. The posters I analysed were films I was already aware of fitted the genre I was searching. I also used films that are recent in the cinema as this was easier knowing them and finding the most recent posters as they were up in cinemas and at bus stops etc. using the internet also meant that I could find posters of all genres and ages.

Using Wordpress

I used my blog to create polls, some of which are shown to the right. It made me get an audiences point of view. As students in year 12 and 13 are the audience for my film so their opinion is important. Polls provide anonymous feedback and direct too. However they involve closed questions so I am only finding out their opinion using answers I have typed out. It is still relevant though. I wasn’t getting enough results, on some polls I might only get 6 respondents which aren't many however it helps towards my progress.

My teacher was also leaving me comments and feedback for what I needed to improve or if work was looking good. This was good for my self as it meant I knew I was on track and understanding work.

Wordpress also allowed myself to add YouTube videos and they played from my blog. I could add updates of my trailer which I had uploaded to my YouTube account and then add them to my blog. Audiences didn’t have to click on a link which took them to YouTube for the video to play via that. I also meant I could add any text below the video explaining what I had changed and altered. To upload updates to my trailer as well as trailer video clips which I used for research, meant I could receive comments directly to my work via Wordpress. This was convenient. When uploading video clips of my trailer to my blog, I used YouTube. I uploaded all my clips to www.youtube.com and then copied the link and pasted it into the post of Wordpress. I created my own YouTube account ‘jhalsallchs.’

I could also insert video clips to posts on Wordpress. The files had to be jpgs. I inserted images such as updated versions of posters, magazine covers and photo shoot images. I uploaded the image and in the same posts commented on the changes I had made and why and what impact they had to the final design. I had the option to upload more then one image at a time in a post. This saved a lot of time when I have several pictures to upload. When editing my trailer, I print screened a lot of stages I went through. I converedt them to jpg images and uploaded them to Wordpress with no hassle. Wordpress also allowed me to choose the size of the image, this meant I could have some smaller then other, or some taking up a lot of the page.

I have also used websites in posts on my blog. This was used when I needed to upload PowerPoint's or links to website. The site is then hyperlinked from my blog to the website. The websites are opened on another tab. I used websites when I needed to write down the source.

I have used Slide Share which is a website that uploads PowerPoint's which then can be embedded to blogs. I have used Slide Share for my evaluation questions. They embed into the blog post which means audiences can view the slides and flick through them easily. Using PowerPoint’s make it much neater when presenting something via a blog rather then stacks of writing after each other. It gave me the opportunity to show my presentation skills.

Editing clips of my trailer

When I was creating my trailer by editing clips and changing around the sequence, I was consistently going back and forth to research and my plan. I was also using YouTube to learn new technologies and conventions of Adobe Premier Pro. As I hadn't used premier pro before, I needed to learn my way around it and learn to what extent the software could do. I used YouTube to do this. I also print screened my actions on the software so I could show audiences what I have edited and how. I used many different functions such as lighting, cropping, and the razor tool which allowed me to cut clips and this meant I could re-arrange the sequence and cut clip to move it to another area.

As I had never filmed like this before, I had to do a lot of practice shoots. Some shots didn’t go as planned so to change those I did in the end change my story board completely. Also when editing I found some parts confusing and too complicated so o I changed it. Such as the date at then beginning, I originally wanted that to scroll through dates however that was messy and jumped around a lot so I changed it to typing out the date. It looks a lot neater. After filming several scenes I began to get the hang of it a lot quicker and easier. My ideas changed for the story line as well which I didn’t want to happen but I began to become more aware and alert to make my trailer better.

To create my indent I used Adobe After Effects. Again I went onto YouTube to find a interesting and unique way of making my indent. I want a new and effect that hasn’t been used before. Before creating my indent I looked at other students in the other class and years above for ideas and inspiration. I followed the tutorial that I used.

The use of Photoshop

I created the poster and magazine cover on Photoshop. I have been using Photoshop throughout year 12 media studies and year 12 and 13 Photography lessons so I know my way around the software and what it has to offer. To start the media texts off I edited the background image. I edited to black and white and made it a lot brighter and sharper. Photoshop gives you the opportunities to go further with images and make them that one step better. Photoshop also allows you to have as many layer as possible which I also took advantage off. I used the internet still when creating both media texts for ideas. The shot I took I had a rough idea of the style of image I wanted as I got this from looking at posters. I used the same shoot for the poster as I did for the magazine cover as I wanted my actor wearing the same outfit as that is the outfit he wears in the trailer so it relates back. When taking the shoot I knew I had to consider the lighting and position of my model. I wanted a white background so I kept the background plain and chose to edit that in Photoshop.

When editing the images I airbrushed the model to make his skin a lot smoother. I also copied his right ear to the left to make them symmetrical as before hand the left ear looked messy. I needed to keep the images neat and I felt I achieved this.

Using Photoshop was an advantage as I already knew how to use it and it improved the quality and over all look of my final poster and magazine cover.