QUESTION 4) HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES? Emily Barron

What different types of media technologies did I use?

Web Technologies; IMDB YouTube Google Images Wordpress Scribd Survey Monkey Facebook

Software Technologies; FinalCut

Adobe Photoshop Elements Bamboo Pad

Canon EOS1100D Camera

IMDB When it comes to the use of Web Technology and how it allowed us to come

up with our product, IMDB and YouTube were vital in the research and planning stage.

IMDB in particular was extremely useful when it came to us having to look up and analyse different film trailers from the genre of social realism. Without the use of IMDB there would have been no way in which we would have been able to access the actual trailers from those specific films (As there can be fakes of the films on YouTube made by unofficial people for those specific films also).

Not only that but IMDB also allowed us to see instantly when that film was made and also what actors where in the films, this then enabled us to analyse the trailer even more specifically and enabled us to highlight how the genre of social realism has developed and changed over the years. Also by seeing what actors where in the film this then allowed us to look up whether they have been in any other social realism films and that we were able to look at and dissect more and more social realism trailers, posters and magazines in order to give us a bigger picture and more ideas of what to do for our own.

YouTube When it comes to YouTube, not only did this allow us to look up trailers of different films but it also

aided us in terms of our evaluation, research and construction stages. Research;- When looking at how it helped in the research stage it allowed us to look up the different trailers from

the social realism genre. When we could not find the official trailer on YouTube that is when we would search on IMDB.

- Not only did it allow us to do this but also it is through YouTube that we were able to put up our analysis of the different trailers, poster and magazines in all of the different forms in which we did our analysis. Without having YouTube there would have been no way in which we were able to upload these to our blogs on Wordpress.

Construction;- When looking at the construction stage, there are many ways in which YouTube helped us , the main

way was enabling us to look up the trailers that we analysed and also other trailers in order to decide on what institutions we would use in our trailer, what type of typography we would use ect.ect.

- It is via YouTube that we were able to look up the ‘Inside Llewyn David’ trailer in order to see what typography they used in order to inspire our own use of typography in all three; the trailer, magazine and poster.

- We were also then able to take the institutions at the beginning of ‘Iside Llewyn Davis’ in order to use it within the beginning of our own trailer. That way it looked a lot more professional and we also had the institutions that many social realism films use.

- Finding quotes in trailers was also made easy by using YouTube because we were able to watch the trailers and look at the quotes and text throughout in order to inspire what quotes we would come up with and use.

Evaluation; - In terms of the evaluation, it is through YouTube that we were able to get our audience feedback, this is

because if YouTube was not there then there would have been no way in which to show the audience our finished trailer product in order to get feedback on it.

Scribd and Wordpress Wordpress and Scribd are vital in terms of how we actually made and went about our whole A2 task.

This is because without Scribd there would have been no way in which to put up our presentations, word documents, screen play, storyboard ect ect onto our Wordpress blogs. Not only that but also without Scribd it would have made it a whole lot harder to actually carry out different presentation styles and methods for showing our research, planning, construction and evaluation.

It is through Wordpress that we were actually able to put all of our work into one place in a presentable and aesthetically pleasing manner, that way it can be easily marked and also easily edited if a post has something wrong on it, you can easily click the edit button on the bottom left hand corner and change the post how you like.

It is through the edit button that this also enabled us to change the date in which the work was published which then in tern allowed us to organise our blogs much better so that they flowed a lot more and that they looked more presentable.

Wordpress also allowed us to upload the actual trailers from the films that we analysed. This turned out to be quite handy as we were then able to upload the actual trailer clip before publishing our analysis so that it was easy to see which trailer we analysed and referencing the points made in the analysis’ was made a whole lot easier.

Without Wordpress there would have been no way in which we would have gotten feedback on our magazine and poster. Which in turn would then have meant that there was no way in which I would be able to evaluate the effectiveness of each and of all three products together.

Not only that but also Wordpress enabled us to upload our trailer onto our blogs and therefore that meant that we were able to analyse this ourselves and also it was then alot easier for us to get our audience feedback as by having our Wordpress blogs all three; the trailer, magazine and poster were all in the same place.

Google Images and Survey Monkey

When thinking about Google Images and how this helped, it was mainly in the research and planning, this is because it is through Google Images that we were in fact able to get hold of and find the different covers for the magazines and the different posters for all of the different films that we analysed.

If we did not have or where unable to use Google Images that finding these things would have been extremely challenging and we would probably not have been able to find them.

This then meant that we were able to look at all of the individual aspects of the magazines and posters and this then allowed us to analyse them in depth and we were able then able to see how ancillary texts such as magazines and poster should be constructed and what exactly they should look like when it comes to a piece about social realism.

Not only was it in the research and planning that Google Images came in handy but also when we had to actually construct our poster and magazine.

Without Google Images there would have been no way in which we would have been able to find and use the film festival logos for our poster. Google Images allowed us to save the photo and then ‘Place’ it in our poster, this then gave our poster a professional feel and we were also able to use film festivals that are associated with niche independent films.

We were also able to use the title and the date logo from the ‘Variety’ magazine on our magazine so that it was precisely the same. (I will explain later how we managed to do that).

When it comes to Survey Monkey, this is what we used in order to get our audience feedback. It is through Survey Monkey that we were able to write and set up a questionnaire in order to get our audience feedback. This made a lot more sense than a questionnaire and getting people to fill it out.

The reason that we set up a Survey Monkey is because that way we were able to spread the link on Facebook which enabled us to get vast amounts of feedback instantly rather than having to print off, hand out, collect in and then analyse the multiple questionnaires.

It also meant that we were able to get a lot more people to actually carry out the questionnaire and there was no way in which they would have put bias answers, they were more likely to put honest answers as they know there would have been no way to trace that questionnaire reply back to them as an individual. Meaning that the answers to our questionnaire where reliable and honest.

Using Survey Monkey also made it a lot easier to analyse and get percentages for the data, which made it a lot easier to analyse.

Final Cut Express When it comes to FinalCut this software was vital when at the construction stage. This is

because this is the software that we used when making our trailer. The software allowed us to arrange our scenes into bins on the side for easier access, manipulate and change shots in order to make them look more realistic, alter the sound within the trailer and many other things.

One of the main uses that we made out of Final Cut was the ability to change the speed of the shots. Nearer the end of our trailer we had a shot that involved Noah sitting down on his own with people constantly moving around him, when shooting we filmed this shot for 5 minutes so that when in the editing stage we could select the clip from our bin from the side, drag the clip onto the sequence and change the speed by clicking ‘Modify’ on the top bar of Final Cut. Once we clicked ‘Modify’ we then clicked on speed and then because we wished to speed up the clip we increase the percentage to 160%. By doing this we were then able to play this clip multiple times in between other clips allowing us to give the effect of a montage.

Final Cut Express Continued We also used this effect when editing the crash scene at the end of the trailer. This is

because we initially films the crash scene in sow motion (so that no one was harmed) and therefore it was vital that we increased the speed of the crash scene when editing.

However it was imperative that we did not increase the speed too much as that would have made the shot seem unrealistic and fake. Therefore we played around with many different levels of speed and in the end settled for 203.7%.

Final Cut Express – changing the opacity

Changing the speed of the clip was not the only thing that we were able to do and utilised in Final Cut. This software gave us multiple options to work with and many different ways in which we could change and develop our trailer.

Throughout our trailer there is an image of a clock, however when ever this clip is shown we always show it on top of another clip. We wanted to do this because then we were able to show the clip ontop of a clip of Noah and this highlights how he likes to stick to his routines.

However we couldn’t just layer it on top of one another as you would only then see one shot and therefore we had to change the opacity of the clock shot so that both could be seen. We did this by double clicking on the clip in the bins on the left hand side, the clip then showed up on the left hand screen, here we then clicked on ‘Motion’ at the top of this screen, this then allowed us to change the opacity of the clip to 60% which then when we layered it on top of another clip, allowed both of the clips to show.

Final Cut Express – changing the sound

Within our trailer sound is vital and the loudness of the sound in different parts is even more vital, this is because we also have a voiceover in our trailer, that then meant that at different times in the trailer the sound of the music tracks had to be a lot quieter in order to enable the voiceover to be heard. This meant that we had to alter the different tracks in multiple places in the trailer.

Not only that but also we wanted to change the legatos and stegatos of the sound throughout the trailer in order to heighten the crucial moments and also keep the audience engaged.

Therefore we did this by clicking on the mountain tool at the bottom of the software page in the left hand corner and we then clicked on the pen tool of the right hand side of the software, this tool then enables us to pick specific points within our different sound tracks (scores) of our trailer and edit these points as to whether we wished the sound to be louder or quieter at that specific point.

We were also able to lock the sound when moving clips slightly, this then meant that the sound stayed where we wanted it to and we were able to move the clips without it changing. We did this by clicking the padlock on the individual sound layer lines.

Adobe Photoshop Elements - Magazine

This is the software we used in order to create our magazine and poster. This software had many different features in which we were able to use in order to create our magazine so that it had a social realism feel.

The main effect was the fact that we were able to use the brightness/contrast effect on Photoshop in order to change the brightness and contrast so that the main image was darker. Because we had already captured the shot in black and white this meant that that was the only thing that we needed to change, therefore it meant that the image on the magazine was very plain, yet it had the edgy, simple feel that we wanted it to have due to the fact that the look we were going for was social realism.

When getting the title of the magazine this proved to be a little more difficult. This is because in order to get the correct and exact same typography we needed to source it from the actual magazine. This meant that before even putting it onto our magazine we had to go onto Google Images, save the image onto the desktop and create a new file on Photoshop in order to place the image onto it. Then once we had placed the image onto the new Photoshop file we then ‘screened’ the title of the magazine and placed it onto our magazine, over the picture of Lara. However, once we had done this the title was not as white as we needed it to be in order to have it show up correctly on our magazine, therefore we also had to fill in the title with the paint fill can on the bottom left hand corner of the page so that it was block white.

We also had to do a similar thing when it came to the date on the magazine, this is because ‘Variety’ magazine have a specific logo that they use for the dates on their magazines. Therefore we had to go onto Google Images again and look for a magazine with a dark background in order to save the image and place the image onto a new file on Photoshop again. Once on Photoshop we then cropped the image and ‘screened’ the date, after which we then dragged onto our own magazine.

It is through this that we were able to make our magazine look more professional and also due to the fact that we only had those and a few lines of writing and a barcode, this meant that the magazine was simple yet effective and therefore enabled us to keep with the social realism feel.

Adobe Photoshop Elements - Poster

When it comes to the poster the way in which we use Photoshop for this was completely different. We didn’t have to get any Google Images and ‘screen’ them however we did have to do other things.

One of the things was that we had to capture a shot of the two characters in a way that would represent social realism, therefore we took a shot of them in front of a plain white wall. However when putting this on our poster we did not want the whole poster to be white and therefore we added a fade onto the two sides of the poster (left and right) starting from the bottom. The way in which we did that was by clicking on the layer in which we intended to alter and then clicking ‘create’. Once we had done this we then looked down the left side panel in order to look for the fade tool, this was placed above the fill paint tool. Once we had found this we then had to change the colour in order to ensure that the colour was correct for the fade, then using the bamboo pad we dragged the pen across where we wanted to fade to go and how far up we wanted it to go on the poster and then it appeared.

Throughout creating the poster we had to ensure that each individual thing was on a different layer, it is then that when we wanted to edit a layer or get rid of a layer that it made it a lot easier and if something went wrong instead of having to delete the whole poster, we only had to delete that specific layer.

When it came to the typography there was no way in which to change the tracking and therefore we just had to use the same font ‘Bebas Neue’ in order to at least ensure it was the same style text when it came to the names of the actors and also the title, however we changed the typography when it came to the quotes as we wanted these to stand out and the typography we used also went with the sketchy nature of the shirt and coat.

When it came to the stars, there is a shape tool on Photoshop however when we made the stars they were not the shape in which we wanted, as they didn’t really fit with the feel and look of our poster, therefore we had to Google Image search for the star design that we wanted. Once we had found the design we simply ‘placed’ it onto our poster. To ensure that the stars where all in a straight line we copied and pasted them and then merged the layers together so that if we decided that we wanted to move them to a different place, they would all move and stay in a line instead of having to move them all separately and try and keep them straight.

Bamboo Pad It is through the use of the Bamboo pad and Adobe Photoshop Elements that we were able to give our poster the feel

that it has. When using the Bamboo pad we had to make sure that it was plugged into the Mac using the USB connection and that

Photoshop was up on screen with the poster image opened up on it. When it came to using the Bamboo pad we used it in order to add effect to the main image; Noah’s shirt and Liv’s

coat. We wanted to the give both of those pieces of clothing a slight sketchy feel to make the poster seem more social realistic.

Therefore we chose the right colours for each, zoomed in on the image and selected the pen draw tool, then placed the pen in the position it needed to be on the Bamboo pad and started to draw. We had to be very specific were the pen was in position on the Bamboo pad before placing the Bamboo pen down as it was at times difficult to tell whether it was in the same place as the Bamboo pad is only a black surface, it does not display the image on the pad.

If we wanted to move the image around as we had finished sketching one part of the image, there was a button to press on the Bamboo pad pen which then changed the drawing pen to the moving hand tool. This then enabled us to carry on sketching and moving the image without having to keep zooming in and out to change the tool we were using.

When it comes to the camera’s that we used we actually used two of the same camera, this then enabled us to shoot from various different angles at the same time.

This in turn shortened greatly the amount of time that it took us to film and capture all of our footage and also it meant that the transitions between the shots where a lot smoother as they were filmed at the same time rather than trying to reconstruct the shot over and over again.

The camera’s also enabled us to have great clarity in the shots that we took and the pictures that we captured. This was due to the fact that we were able to control the shallow and deep focus of the shots as the camera’s we used we quite high spec.