Question 4- How did you use media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Planning WhatsApp – Mobile phone application, this was extremely helpful for our group. We created a

conference group and spoke about ideas, updates and tasks which needed to be completed. We also sent images, trailers, audio notes and production work to each other. Due to our clashing timetables within school, WhatsApp made it easier for us to communicate as a group and share our ideas.

Skype – We used Skype for important discussions. Similar to WhatsApp we shared our ideas and thoughts about our production work and research. This was extremely helpful as we saved time in our production timetable and could focus on producing and filming our product rather than planning and researching.

Research• Internet and search engine sites – Search engines such as Google and Yahoo

allowed us to access a wide range of media texts for our product research. It also helped us gain ideas for our own print work. Using the interest was fast and accessible. While researching we could access a range of media texts from my IPod or mobile phone, this made is easier for me to share my ideas and compare them with other media products.

Constructing our product

YouTubeYouTube was extremely helpful in researching and constructing our product. We searched trailers and movie clips on YouTube and embedded them on our blog and product research. YouTube also helped greatly with our print work. Due to my occasional use of Photoshop, I wasn’t very confident in constructing our print work. Issues such as using the quick selection tool were solved through YouTube Photoshop tutorials. While watching a variety of tutorials I gained a greater understanding of Hue and Saturation effects which allowed me to change the colour of my main image from brown to green. This was significantly important as while planning we found it difficult to find a distinctive eye colour for our main image.

iMovie

iMovie 11 played a significant part in the construction of our product. iMovie was easy and simple to use, the new software presented us with a variety of transitions and editing options. While constructing our trailer we used to upload different versions onto YouTube and shared it with our friends, family and teachers in order to receive detailed feedback, iMovie made this easy and simple for us to upload. Initially we created our voice over on Garage band but weren’t pleased with the outcome as the script didn’t correspond with the scenes within our trailer. The ‘mike’ button on iMovie allowed us to record our voice-over while our trailer played, which allowed us to match the script with the action in the scenes.

Prezi

Prezi – I used this to construct my product research, it was easy, reliable and fun. It allowed me to brainstorm my ideas and add hyperlinks and images. A great advantage of using Prezi is the route creation which allowed my ideas to link together. While filming our product Prezi was easily accessible and allowed my group and myself to look back on conventions of horror movies and implement them within our own work.

PC Tablet – The typography of our film was inspired by the Uninvited film poster. We used a PC tablet to handwrite our title. Although tricky to use at first, we were able to create the perfect typography for our film poster.

PC Tablet

Photoshop • Photoshop – Initially I was nervous about using Photoshop to construct our print

work, as I found it extremely complicated. The issues I encountered were with regards to the different layers and how to access, lock and change layers. I also found it difficult to fade and certain images into background images. However, with the help of YouTube videos and internet sites I gradually gained a better understanding of how to sue the tools and functions on the software.