EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4

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

From using a program we were very familiar with but also had a large bank of font we could quickly decide what we were looking for and then copy and paste it straight in to our blog. Due to are familiarly with this program we already new how to work it and why we chose to work with it we did realize that compared to others who were struggling to use font websites on the internet we found our font quickly, allowing us to spend more time on the deign of our poster allowing it to be of the quality our target audience expects of a high budget action film. 

the tripod and computer we used

The computer we used was standard to our school and was a dell, we found them easy to use with the occasional lose of internet which was solved by swapping computer. What we did find on the other hand was that because there was 3 people in our group using and working on different computers was that it took time consolidating work on to one computer and when for some reason a member of the group was unable to attend a lesion then the work was locked on the computer with know way to access. In retrospect we should of all worked from one computer and all know the password to it, but this would of meant that all members would of had to work on the same thing at the same time and so would of delayed production.   

We were using the same tripod as last year and new how to work it reality well, unlike last year however we played around with the height of it creating different shots and angles compared to us just using fully extended. The problem we found with using different heights was that when we went to re-shoot certain footage it was hard to properly recreate it and found that it was easier to just re-do the whole scene. Another problem we found  was that it took a lot longer than normal to set up the scene when the actors were getting cold and rushed the performance, this can be solved by a warm overcoat but we did not realize it would be that cold.  

me and the tripod/camera

the camera we used

The camera we used was my own one, as i found it to have a better quality than the school one and i was already familiar with the working of it and so made the filming process more smooth. I learned two things about my camera from the filming of our trailer they were that first it can film underwater; taken advantage of in one scene, and also that the zoom effect really doesn't work on it and results in it becoming grainy and so because of this we had to stop filming and move the camera closer something that was not ideal. 

We had the option of using the camera the school provided for us and so to find out which one was better we filmed our first scene on both cameras to make sure we were making the right decision in using my camera and also to ensure the footage was of the highest quality we could manage, to add to the realism of the film allowing the target audience to become properly submergence in the reality we were creating. 

Blogger

Blogger is something that i have become very familiar with over the two years i have used it, something i have learn and found very helpful despite my familiarly is the HTML button at the top left hand side of the post page, this allows you to see the code that goes into the the post and so allowing me to directly embed youtube footage onto in.Blogger was also very helpful in tracking our process and making sure we are keeping on top of our filming and research and planning, it also allowed members of the group to put ideas on and an easy place for us to access them and discus when we meet up.     

youtube

 

Something new to Youtube is that fact that now it allows you to automatically enhance shaky and dark pieces of footage, i had a mixed reaction with this on one hand it worked really well to smooth short peaces of footage but when it came to making it lighter it ended up with a blue tint covering the screen also when a peace of footage got to a certain length it almost dragged the images along in an effort to steady the shot and to fix these it took time. I do think with a bit more work it will be a really good function to use but as it is still in the early stages it hindered the work. 

Youtube is also the place where you can find almost any trailer for a film, with big franchises having there own account to show interviews and behind the scenes footage there and also Youtube channels dedicated to showing the latest film trailers. so by using Youtube to display our trailer makes it look very real and something our target audience is expecting of us.

Adobe photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is something that i personally find hard to work with and was slow when working with it, for this reason i did not have that much technical influence when working on our posters and magazine cover, i did put some creative input into the creation of it but i was working mostly on the footage editing leaving Josh and Jaymie to work them who were a lot more skilled in Photoshop and new how to work the many technical elements that makes it up. I did learn how to blend to photos together but i was significantly slower than them and so focused my efforts on to the editing aspect.  

By using Adobe Photoshop in the creation of our film poster and magazine cover it allowed us to make a very real media product and a wider range of options to chose from when dealing with which one would attract our target audience the most, we chose a black and white with red writing contrast for our poster and a smoke effect on our magazine front cover, both in an effort to attract our target audience and to also create a realistic media product.  

Microsoft paint

Paint is something that again i have been using since i was very small and have found that it is the easiest way to crop, place screenshots and save pictures to allow me to put it into my blog. Last year i spent quite a significant amount of time trying to use Photoshop to do all of theses but with a higher workload this year it was allot more simpler to use this. 

the use of paint was purely to make it easier to put it our blog for the media products intended for the "public" we have used photoshop to give us more options and to also make it look for professional something our target audience would be expecting.  

Non-copyright music website

Freeplay music is the website we used to find our non-copyright music. It was easy to use by selecting ether a; cd volume, style or feel and it ran a search matching the selected criteria. It was a new site we used this year as we found it easier to use and also a faster way of downloading the music. Once we had downloaded the music it was harder than expected to showcase it on our blog and so and to make it in to a movie upload it you youtube and then we could embed it. Another thing i found was that i was hard to find the same peace of music again and so had to download it then or it would of been lost. The website suited my needs allot more than the previous one and also has a much wider database.  


The music we chose has a very big impact on the mood of our trailer so we chose a very fast paced tension filled piece, this is something our target audience would be expecting  from the action genera and so conforms to this stereotype. The music we have chosen will also attract the attention of our target audience due to the very stereotypical music.      

adobe premiere elements 

As i used this program last year i was just relearning and remembering how to work everything, what i did learn however was how to split the music from the footage and turn it up and down to ether create a dramatic effect of just to cut out the background sound, allowing us to create a very realistic final product that would stand a chance of passing off as a real media product. This manipulation of the footage and the music is something that we have used a lot more in comparison to our film opening when we just dealt with the music and dint attempt to change any of the diagetic or non-diagetic sound and so this media product already looks more professional.