Question 4How did you use media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?

Research for my Trailer

-Wikipedia; I used this site to conduct research on popular film genres in 2010 and 2011, to base my own work on this so that I knew it would appeal to a contemporary audience. -YouTube; I used this site to watch film trailers and gather ideas to base my own trailer on, again to give me an idea of whether my own trailer would be popular within a certain genre.

When conducting research for my trailer, I looked at other blogs from past years for ideas on how to start creating my own. I also did my research on sites such as YouTube, Google and Wikipedia.

Planning my Trailer• To plan my trailer I used various

programmes, including ‘Microsoft Word’, where I created my storyboard. I was already familiar with this programme, so knew it would be simple to paste pictures which I has taken from Google (to represent the camera shots I intended on using) and add text boxes to explain why I wanted to use certain angles etc.

• I also created a poll on Wordpress for my classmates to vote on to get some ideas about what people my age would want to see.

Creating my Trailer• Once I had decided what it was I wanted to

achieve I used a video camera to film my trailer. I used a Panasonic SW21 for the majority of my filming along with a tripod to ensure that the shots I was taking were steady and looked professional. I considered using my phone to film some of the trailer, for example where Ben was being bullied to give the impression of a ‘happy-slapping’ attack. This is something I may not have been able to do in previous years, but with the advance in technology recently this would have been achievable.

Creating my Trailer• Once all of the filming had been done I

used ‘Adobe Premiere Pro CS5’ to cut and put together my shots. At first I was not confident in using this software but found it easy to adapt to and work with over time. I also learnt how to colour-correct and add video and audio transitions within Premiere.

• ‘Adobe After Effects CS5’ is where I created my ident. As I was unfamiliar with this programme, I looked up a tutorial on YouTube on how to create a certain effect. This is also something that may have been difficult to do in previous years, but as YouTube has become increasingly popular over recent years, tutorials were easy to find. I was also able to use similar tutorials when creating the title scenes for my trailer.

• To create the last two title scenes, I used ‘Adobe Photoshop CS5’, which I was already familiar with from using it last year for my magazine project.

Posting my Trailer

• To put my work on the blog I was required to set up a YouTube account, and initially post videos on the site before moving them to my blog on Wordpress.com. From here I learnt how to embed videos into my blog rather than just copying and pasting a link into a post. I chose to do this because I think it made my blog look tidier, and it also means my work is easier to access.

Magazine Cover

Research for Magazine Cover• I carried out some

analysis of popular magazines using Microsoft Publisher to gather ideas for creating my own. I did this to see what had or had not been successful for commercial magazine covers in the hope that this would improve and develop the ideas I already had for my cover.

Planning my Magazine Cover• When I was planning my magazine

cover I used sites such as Google to find other commercial magazine products to base my own around. I did this to ensure that my magazine cover would be popular if it were to be sent out into the commercial world. I looked at many different film magazines, including ‘Empire’ and ‘Film’. Most of my inspiration for the layout of my magazine came from an edition of ‘Premiere’. To recreate this layout I used Photoshop as I knew from previous pieces of work that I could create many different layers to create depth.

Planning my Magazine Cover• I started to look at commercial

magazines featuring the same sort of genre of film as my own. I found from looking at other commercial magazines that mid shot features were quite popular, so I decided to have a medium shot in my own to maximise its success in the commercial industry. I wanted to I took examples such as ‘Film’ and ‘Empire’ to develop my ideas. Using Photoshop I cropped my picture a number of times before making a decision of which to use to create the best effect.

Film Poster

Planning my Film Poster

•To collect ideas for my film poster I researched other films with similar characteristics to my own, such as ‘The Hangover’ and ‘40 Year-Old Virgin’ using sites such as Google.

Creating my Magazine Cover and Film Poster• I created both my Magazine cover and

Film Poster using Photoshop. Even though I had previously used Photoshop in other projects I found making these pieces has helped to develop my skills further. I used tools such as colour adjustment to whiten my model’s shirt in the intention of making him look more clean-cut, and portray the conventional image of a ‘nerd’ to an audience. To maintain continuity throughout my work I also used similar fonts and colours.

EvaluationQ1: For Question 1 I used Microsoft PowerPoint as I thought that this would be ideal for comparing and contrasting between media texts. Q2: For Question 2 I used Microsoft Publisher. I wanted to use Publisher because I knew I would be able to lay out my images and write about them so that it would be easy to read.Q3: For Question 3 I decided to record myself talking about my coursework. I also used Microsoft Word to write out what I was going to say in the video to ensure I was prepared and knew what I wanted to say about my work. Q4: I have used PowerPoint for Question 4 because this has allowed me to include pictures of my work and talk about them in a way which is easy to understand.