Evaluation question 4

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

Media technologies in the Research
stage
During the research stage of our real media products we used the internet in order to
gather information. We used various search engines such as google and bing in order to
search for conventions of our chosen genre; psychological thriller. Furthermore we used
internet sites In order to gain inspiration and ideas from existing real media products and
researched upon how we can conform to some aspects of a psychological thriller but also
how we can add our own twist to it.
During the research stage we used the internet as a main source of information which
allowed us to exploit the genre of psychological thriller and also research upon
conventions of film posters and magazine covers. The accessibility of the internet was a
great advantage as it made it really easy for us to gather information and also save time.

Media technologies in the Planning
stage
During the planning stages of our real media texts we used the internet in order to
gather pictures for our mood boards which we all created individually. Once combined
it was evident that our group wanted to create a storyline which was eerie and tense
and played with a characters mind. The best genre which fitted into our combination
of ideas was a psychological thriller. The internet then enabled us via youtube to look
and evaluate existing media texts within the psychological thriller genre. This helped
us as we were able to find out conventions of existing films which we could use or
develop.
Furthermore we used blogger.com as a platform for us to note down the whole
process of creating to researching and planning real media texts. The use of blogging
was an effective way of presenting information and we were also able to incorporate
presentations, examples of music we used and images which enhanced our blog.

Media technologies in the
Construction stage
During the construction stage we used many forms of technology in order for us to
accomplish our media texts. The main form of technology we used was a canon video
recording camera. This allowed us to record our footage and was the main
equipment used for our film. Whilst filming we were able to make the camera go
blurry (blurred vision) which we thought would be effective to use in our film as it
gave a sense of eeriness. Also it was very easy to film a lot of shots with different
angles as the camera was a handheld therefore we were able to get better angles and
although some parts of the footage may have been unsteady we felt it would add to
the themes we wanted to portray through out the film. Also the deliberate use of
having unsteady scenes during a point of view shot would make the film seem real
which was important as one of our main themes within the story line was reality and
the loss of what is real and what is not. We also used a tripod in order to hold the
camera to present steady still scenes. This gave our film a professional look. The
tripod also helped us to pan effectively.

During the construction and editing stage of our media products we used many
software's which were most effective using apple macs which were the main software's
of constructing our film, poster and magazine. The two main software's used were Adobe
premiere pro for the film and Adobe Photoshop for the film poster and magazine cover.
Adobe premiere pro was a great software for the film as it allowed us to be creative
whilst not damaging the quality of scenes. Although it offered us the normal tools of a
construction software such as crop, cut, trim it also offered us a range of advanced
editing tools such as toggles to change the brightness and lighting, the pace of the film
from fast to slow, rewinding scenes and also offering a range of effects from fade to
black, zoom in/out, twirl etc. The range of tools offered made it easy for us to be able to
get the best effects as we believed it was the effects which would heighten the tension
and suspense and really entice and capture the audience. Also our group knew how to
use adobe premiere pro from AS therefore it was easy for us to construct our film.

We also used Adobe Photoshop in the construction of our film poster and magazine
cover. As we were familiar with adobe Photoshop since using it in AS we were able to
construct and edit both ancillary tasks effectively. Adobe Photoshop offered a range of
effects from text fonts and effects to picture grading and colour tone effects. However
the picture of the film poster was effected using a website called picmonkey.com,
although adobe Photoshop offered a good amount of various effects we found a better
effect which we thought fitted well with our storyline and fully exposed the effect we
wanted to present. Nonetheless adobe Photoshop has a reputation of producing flawless
images which allowed us to clean up the image of the protagonist on the magazine cover.
Rather than clean up the face we used the magic hand tool in order to define the body of
the protagonist. Also it was extremely easy to import images in to Photoshop which we
were able to incorporate within our ancillary tasks specifically the magazine cover. With
regards to the magazine cover we were able to import many backgrounds and images
and also experiment with them which helped us find what we thought to be the most
effective and it was very easy to remove an image by removing the layer or using the
undo tool.

During the construction and editing process of the film we also used the internet giant
Youtube and youtube converter which allowed us to research and find sound effects
and music which we could then convert into an mp3 file an incorporate within our
film. We had some problems with youtube converter as sometimes it would not
convert the video or sometimes it would not be high definition which would not have
been effective within our film therefore we went to substitute sites such as
video2mp3 which gave us a better quality of sound.

Media technologies in the evaluation
stage
During the evaluation stages, our main software of recording and answering the four
evaluation questions was Microsoft PowerPoint, However we had to change the
format of a PowerPoint into slide share which could then be added onto blogger.
We also used many effects from Adobe premiere pro and websites such as
picmonkey.com in order to enhance our film, poster and magazine cover.
We used blogger as a platform to record the whole A2 film trailer and ancillary tasks.

Conclusion
To conclude we used a variety of media technologies in order to complete the tasks
of creating a film trailer and two ancillary tasks.
The use of blogger was good as it was easy to access the site through different forms
of technology such as a laptop, apple mac and phone. This made it extremely easy
for us to record every stage effectively. Also the various amounts of websites and
search engines enabled us to research effectively and quickly. For example it was
very easy to understand code and conventions of real media products within our
chosen genre of psychological thriller.
Furthermore the use of Adobe software’s helped create our film, magazine cover
and film poster which we found easy to use especially as we were familiar with the
software as we all had used it in AS.

Evaluation question 4

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Evaluation question 4