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

Using different technologies has enabled me to improve my work on my horror trailer in a number of ways; one being through organisation and collection of my work. Blogger has been my method of publishing my work to the internet and has helped me to keep it collective and organised. It’s allowed me to hold different pages on screen so that I and others can easily find my work and therefore, identify where I need to improve.

Using the IMac’s throughout the editing stage has showed me how to improve my work and teaches me how to use basic editing programs. The editing software ‘IMovie’ has been beneficial as it has helped me to add effects and move the different shots in my sequence around till I am happy with the way it fits.

When it comes to filming the trailer, although the use of a tripod was available to me, I decided not to use a tripod as it makes the footage look jumpy and rough, meaning the audience doesn’t know what to expect. I don’t regret this decision as I believe that the rough look of the trailer adds to the mystery and tension felt by the audience.

The storyboard planning process for my trailer helped me to lay out my initial thoughts for the plot and the types of shots I was interested in showing to the audience. This improved my work as I see this as a starting point for the construction of my trailer.

However, my use of technology has also held me back when it comes to the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of my trailer. It was an early decision of mine to not use a tripod as I wanted to symbolise the roughness of the relationship and also make the audience members feel on-edge. When I made this decision, the main regret that I have about it is that I haven’t tried to gather any audience feedback. I know from past experience of watching horror films that the ones that are in found-footage style are more believable however, the constant shaking of the camera can get highly irritating and can become unbearable to watch. This is the reason for my trying not to shake the camera as much as other films do however, still giving it that found-footage look.

Another way that I was held back due to my use of technology was through my storyboard. By originally planning my plotline and shots, I felt as though I was limited to stick to this plan. I ending up going completely against my storyboard and finding new ways to film. This occurred when I realised that my plans for locations was a bit too ambitious and slightly impossible due to the building getting torn down. Although, many people to still enter the building, it would have been extremely dangerous and risky to enter the building which has reportedly begun to fall down due to the roof occasionally collapsing. Due to this, I had to find other locations and make new plans to film without changing the plotline too much although, the plotline was originally based around this building. I achieved this by getting exterior shots of an already abandoned building and then getting interior shots in a different building which also looked deserted. This helped me to achieve the creepiness of the location without putting anybody at risk.

Although I encountered a few setbacks, I was still able to engage with the audience in my trailer. A way I did this was by not using a tripod. This makes the audience feel uncomfortable and jittery which complies with the themes and gives off the overall feeling of isolation as it takes the audience out of their comfort zone. I’ve also considered other types of technology to construct my trailer; one being the use of a dolly. A dolly would enable me to include smooth movements with the camera when I wanted to and would also help me to introduce more methods of camera movement. However, I didn’t use a dolly as I wanted my trailer to all be filmed using hand held cameras.

Using Photoshop improved my work on my poster by allowing me to add different effects and layered features and adding more depth to the piece. I took advantage of using these layers by adding in my credit block, title, release date and tagline. This enabled me to conform to the conventions of a film poster. The credit block was challenging to make as I wanted to conform to the fonts and sizes of the different production jobs and names. Photoshop also enabled me to have access to different colours and fonts to see what looked better. I used a separate font making website to produce all of the writing in the poster. This makes my poster more creative as I haven’t used a standard font easily accessible through Microsoft word processor.

Photoshop was difficult for me to use and if anything, also held me back whilst producing my poster. As I had had no previous experiences with Photoshop, I had to teach myself to use the different features and play around with what I could achieve through this editing software. However, this held me back as to create my poster, it took me around 3 and a half hours. For someone that had already known how to use the different functions on Photoshop, they could achieve what I have achieved in half the amount of time.

I did research and download other editing software’s but as I was looking at those, I realised Photoshop had the best editing equipment and would have been the easiest to use once I got the hang of it. I did feel as though my lack of knowledge on Photoshop held me back when it came to producing my poster as everything would take me longer, I had less chance to experiment with what I wanted to do and my idea of my finished product was different than first thought.

I had originally planned to make my credit block have a transparent background, following conventions of a film poster. However, when I decided to have a monochrome theme mixed with red, the writing became difficult to read against its background. Therefore, I made the background of the credit block black to make the write writing stand out from far away. I had also initially wanted to change the colour to the actress’s lips red to further grab attention from passes-by.

I had difficulty doing this as I struggled to find the right technique on how to do this. I tried to educate myself by watching YouTube tutorials. Eventually, I managed to find a way to do this. However, due to the actress’s hair hanging slightly over her lips, I struggled to find a way to make the colouring suit the rest of the image. If I had managed my time in a more effective way, I most likely would have found a solution for this and could have achieved my initial intentions.

Technology held me back in the creation of my magazine in a number of ways including: the strip, the barcode and my own time management.

I found it difficult to create a strip on the top of the page as I couldn’t get the layers right on Photoshop and therefore, my black background was in the foreground and the text was in the background. This was due to my inexperience when it came to using Photoshop. As I have previously said, this made simple tasks take longer. For example, getting rid of the background layer for the main image.

I intended to create a strip along the top of the magazine which would have enabled me to include more information about the content of the magazine, without using too much space. Instead of this, I added text and a image along the top of the page to fill more of the space and include more information.

I also intended to turn the barcode horizontally so that it used less room on the page and also, followed the typical conventions of a magazine. Due to my lack of experience using Photoshop, I couldn’t turn the image sideways so instead, I made room for it along the bottom which is also seen in conventional magazines. As long as the barcode is out of the way of the other features and is in one of the corners, it therefore follows the conventions.