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

Through the process of the coursework, we had to create a horror teaser trailer as well as a supporting horror poster of our trailer and a movie magazine (the ancillary tasks). We also had to do other relevant work linked with the trailer and ancillary tasks through using Blogger. To help us achieve this we needed the availability of the ever expanding world of technology. These included Adobe Photoshop CS4, Blogger, Flickr, Youtube, Final Cut Pro, Garageband, Livetype, FreePlayMusic website, a digital camera and an uploading camera.

Below is a section on each technology that i used and there is also an image of each programme, website or technology i have spoken about in the middle of this post.

- Adobe Photoshop CS4- This programme allowed me to primarily design my ancillary products of the film poster and movie magazine. I also used it as a place to place together images to flickr so i could do my analysis on the nine images from my trailer and existing trailers.

This programme enabled me to build up layers of texts and images and make alterations to the images that i wouldn't be able to do otherwise. I could change the brightness/contrast for my images, position the text and images where i wanted for most effect, use tools such as paint to help me cut around the images so i could cut out the backgrounds that weren't wanted. By being able to overlap images this allowed me to show layers above other ones to stand out from the page and create a much more professional and clean product.
There are useful tools on this programme that helped me a lot with completing my magazine front cover to make it have a more professional feel. Probably the most useful one was using the rectangle tool and putting this into white to delete the background of the main image of "Bloody Mary" with a cross behind her. I used this for the large area of deleting and then used the paint brush tool in white also for the closer detail to give the image a smooth edge. Both of these tools are down the left hand side of the programme. Also being able to place layers on top of each other was very useful when using the rectangle tool to create a small colour background and then put text on top of it. This is done by moving layers above and below each other by dragging them and is on the right hand side under "layers".

-Blogger- This website is the main focus around the whole of the coursework and is where everything that has been completed will go for assessment. Through the Blogger i have posted all work that has been asked to be completed and is in summary the portfolio of the work. It keeps a dated record of all work that has been posted and has easily allowed me to find up any work that i have had to catch up on. It has allowed me to embed horror trailers from youtube for analysis as well as upload images from Flickr. Using this programme is very straight forward and is easy to make a new post and there are other functions that are easy to access on the toolbar that is at the top of the website, such as editing posts and customising your own blog. It is very handy that you can just insert an image by just clicking on an icon on the toolbar whilst typing on a post by taking it from saved documents and downloading the finished trailer from youtube by getting the embed code and basically copying and pasting this into the post.

-Flickr- This is a website where i have been able to upload stills from my teaser trailer and existing teaser trailers from youtube and taken stills to complete analysis. Here i looked at the similarities i found between my still images from my trailer and existing ones. Using Flickr means that when on Blogger i can click on the image that i have uploaded on Flickr to easily access the image itself. Originally i analysed my nine images within both of the two main images but had to change this as i wanted to go into a more in-depth analysis of the stills and there was a world limit for Flickr notes. 

-Youtube- This has been a very useful site, especially for section D. Research for main product, as here i have downloaded existing horror teaser trailers and uploaded them on to my blog for analysis which has helped me with how to construct my own teaser trailer and to understand and follow the conventions needed for my piece. I used Youtube to upload my final version of my horror teaser trailer so it is available to the mass market to view and comment on my work as it would be in the real world for the distribution companies of professional teaser trailers. Youtube also came in to use for taking the stills required to upload onto Flickr, so i could then complete the analysis on each of the stills.

-Final Cut Pro- The use of this programme was solely in creating our horror teaser trailers after finishing all of the shooting. This programme allowed us to upload our footage via an uploading camera and then import it onto the programme itself. Then was the task of sorting through what footage was wanted to include in the trailer. This was done by editing out what wasn't wanted by pressing the "I" key on the keyboard for where we wanted the footage to begin and the "O" key for where we wanted the footage to finish. We then dragged the footage we selected onto the timeline and then placing together the shots in order. This then simply enabled us to integrate the video with the soundtrack, audio and sound effects which were part of the timeline structure. Each of the video, soundtrack, audio and sound effects are on different layers so we were able to move them where we liked to complete the trailer. We also imported soundtracks from FreePlayMusic, used Livetype for the titles and inter-titles and garageband for added sound effects to altogether assemble a more professional looking trailer. I was able to cut the shots to the pace of the music to give more impact on the audience and follow how a professional trailer would be edited. A useful tool on Final Cut Pro which vastly improved the quality of the trailer was fade in/fade out, especially when trying to create passage of time. Also in a couple of shots i was able to use brightness and contrast tools on the toolbar at the top to make a couple of the shots darker and more sinister.

-Garageband- This was a useful programme to implement strength with working with the soundtrack. I used boom sounds in my trailer during the three shots of taps to make it feel more horrific and show the significance in relating back to the beginning of the trailer in the girls toilets. Probably the most significant use was with the hiss used at the end of the trailer for Bloody Mary, as it made a few people jump which is one of the main aims. To put this onto our the horror trailer by recording a voice on Garageband and then inserting it onto the timeline.

-Livetype- I used Livetype to create the opening titles to make the trailer, to start off seeming as a professional piece. I only used it here and not all the way through as it would look too repetitive and wouldn't be as impactful. The opening titles consisted of the effect, the text and the length of the title itself. I had to play around with this to get the correct length of the effect with the running time of the text as we wanted it fairly long so people could read it and it not just being a flash.

-FreePlayMusic- I feel this was most probably the most difficult part of putting together the teaser trailer. This is because i had to find a soundtrack that would work well with the pace of the cuts through the majority of the trailer. Also as it had to have a beat where it would hit the cuts to make the trailer successful. I used a much softer, slow paced soundtrack at the start for establishing the plot and brought in the fast paced soundtrack for the action shots.

-Equipment (digital camera and uploading camera)- This is where the world of the trailer happened, in the screen of the camera. The digital camera was used so we could shoot our trailer onto a tape and upload the footage by then using an uploading camera to import onto Final Cut Pro. We used a tripod for the majority of shots as would normally be done but a couple of shots were handheld to give a sense of instability, confusion and mystery.

I feel that the storing my research and creating my evaluation on Blogger allows me to keep all my work up to date and together and would be difficult to lose unlike an essay that i had written on paper. Using a website such as this also helps to move forward with the expanding world of technology and to move forward from using a pen and paper all the time, which can be too repititive and doesn't allow any variation. It also allows for more creativity and makes the process much easier to show for instance a teaser trailer for my research with the analysis than indivdually if i didn'y use Blogger.
Overall i feel using this website is better than other forms such as writing an essay, as an essay lacks creativity, doesn't help to move forward with technology and keep work together in one area with instant access.