Evaluation: How did you use new media technologies

in the construction and research, palnning and

evaluation stages?

Throughout all my research, planning and production I used new media

technologies to help present and produce my work. I shall go through

them, explaining why they were necessary and their different uses.

YouTube

I uploaded my trailer video on to YouTube in order to gain feedback from people who might not

necessarily be part of my target audience, but could still give me feedback regardless. YouTube allowed me to get positive/negative feedback to

help see on the things I could’ve improved on.

Blogspot

I used my online blog to organise my planning. I continually updated my blog

entries throughout the planning and production stages of my project so that

I could easily make changes and evaluations if needed to.

• http://geetgahir.blogspot.co.uk/

Social Networking Sites

I used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter which are currently

both huge hits. Similar to YouTube it allowed friends to comment on your teaser trailer, film poster and magazine cover. The

social networking site allowed me to send out questionnaires with the teaser

attached via hyperlink, or just to ask for people opinions, this could be sent to many

people at a time just within one post. Generally ,this made it very easy to gain

feedback, and it was more convenient for everyone. For the initial research Facebook

did not work so well, but using it for audience feedback was successful.

Facebook allows us to use technology simply and we can target our audience on here as

well, because so many people have access to it. The same would go for twitter.

Internet

Google

Google was a big part of coursework which

helped me gather various information

needed for my coursework. I used the Internet to do

most of the research by looking at YouTube

trailers, Google images of past horror

film posters and magazine covers.

Equipment Use

I used the tripod to film a lot of the shots to make them look smooth and

professional, especially when using techniques such as panning. I also used it

on close ups, because it was important there was no movement in the camera. However, for some parts I wanted to

create the feeling of rough and jagged movements so I held the camera myself or I had to use a monopad to get to the over the shoulder shots and extreme close ups.

PhotoshopUsing Photoshop was at first a difficult experience, but with more use and help from tutorialsit became easier. I definitely think my skills on Photoshop has significantly improved since last year as well, and that I could only achieve the 'look' of my ancillary products purely on this programme.

I used Adobe Photoshop to produce my ancillary texts (magazine cover and film poster), I found Photoshop difficult but after sitting there and pressing different tools I eventually got the hang of it. I also used photoshop to make the title cards used within my teaser trailer...

Photoshop and ‘Lunapic’ online image editor

I used Photoshop to add text, crop photo’s, enhance text etc. it could only do basic commands -there was no 'blending options' which were needed for the images. Which is where I had to use an online editor called 'lunapic' to add the blending effects to my main image.

Final Cut Pro

Using Final Cut was essential to the production of my teaser trailer as part of one of my products. Again, tutorials online were used to help edit the teaser, as well as guidance from our lecturer. I experimented with effects and fast pacing

the scenes, but I didn't feel necessary in the end. Using final pro cut enabled me to add all the effects, crop scenes, add

transitions, sound effects etc into one clip in order to result to a teaser trailer.

Soundtrack Pro

Soundtrack pro is another essential aspect used for the making of my trailer. I used it to make the soft and scary

high pitched background music, the piano rhythm you hear in the teaser trailer candlelight dinner

scene, alongside with the harsh effects used for suspense filled scenes. It has pre-recorded samples that you can edit. I found this software very easy to use for

what we needed to do. Soundtrack pro enabled me to add to the effects and make the trailer more realistic

through just little sounds which made up the trailer.

Garageband

Garageband isn't as sophisticated as Soundtrack

pro, but it did come in use as I did add the built in piano sound

to my overall sound I edited within soundtrack pro. As I

wanted a piano rhythm as part of the candlelight dinner

scene, I experimented two sounds, one from garage band

and the other from soundtrack pro. In the end I chose the one from soundtrack pro because it was more soothing and generally

sounded much more romantic. Across is the image whilst I was

editing making the first piano soothing sound...

Blackberry

I filmed the interviews and focus groups on my blackberry, the quality was not perfect, but it was very convenient and

shows just how much technology we have at my disposal. The best aspect was that I was

able to upload the video straight from my phone

to YouTube, which is very convenient.

Sony Video Camera

For a few of my interviews filmed at home I used my video camera which is of better quality, however it took much more longer to upload them onto the computer as the files were generally quite big in comparison to the size of interview video's on my blackberry.

Nikon D3100

This camera was the main essential use of technology that I used not only to film the trailer shots but also to take the images of the location, the big images for my poster and magazine cover. It enabled me to play with lighting and effects whilst filming. I got help from lecturers on how to film, I took many practice shots alonside with the help from tutorials.

Hotmail

• The use of emailing through hotmail enabled me to keep in contact with actors and those that helped me during the production of my trailer. I could send files and talk to them or answer any questions they asked. This is convenient and reliable because I could talk to them at any time and information won't be lost as it is online.

Survey MonkeyThis website helped me make

questionairres for my research and feedback aspects of my

coursework, Unlike youtube however it wasn't viewable to the public, it

was visible to some but not everyone and it is very difficult to find. I

personally had to get the link of the questionairres and post it on

facebook/twitter or send it to them in order to get the responses. the good thing about this website is it

gathered the responses and gave me percentages of what answer was the

most popular and which was least popular, this further benefitted me

as I was able to gather the feedback quickly on the research

that I took out. However when trying to find out feedback from posts I put on social networking sites I had to put the feedback together one by one which was a

much more long process.

Celtx

• For my shooting script and main script for my

trailer I used the website www.celtx.comonline to produce these scripts as part of my

products...• This enabled me set out

the scripts of my trailer the way it would be set out when producing an actual film as part of a

film promotional package.