Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?

Whilst constructing our media products, we used many technologies to help us create our trailer and ancillary tasks.

Research and Planning

To carry out our research and planning we used a number of technologies which were mainly in the form of websites such as YouTube to watch clips such as the trailers we deconstructed, the main ones being ‘Halloween’ and ‘Scream’. This helped us to research into our genre and figure out the codes and conventions of a typical horror film to help us on what to include in our own trailer. We additionally used YouTube to post our own videos onto the website as we set up an account so that we could get feedback on what we had done so far.

In order for us to figure out our target audience we created a survey on Survey Monkey where we made up a selection of multiple choice questions for people to answer so that we had some proof to back up our choices when making our trailer.

Another website that we used was DaFont.com which helped us to decide on which font we were going to use for our poster and trailer. After browsing the fonts we chose the one that we felt suited our theme of horror and clowns the best. We decided on Extrakrebel 1987. 

In order to present some of our information on the blog, we tried to use a variety of forms in which to represent the research and planning. One of the ways in which we did that was to use the website Prezi to show the evolution of horror movie posters.

We also used iMovie to show our storyboard and then uploaded it to our blog so that the viewers would be able to see it in a more exciting format.

Construction

Trailer:

To film our trailer we used a Panasonic Lumix model for some scenes in our trailer because we found that the school camera, which was a Samsung, was not of a good enough quality during the strobe light scenes and we found the Lumix model focused a lot more, making it more effective. We also used an SD card so that we could store all of our footage and then later on transferred this to an Apple Mac for use in iMovie. We also found that the school camera was better for shots in the dark, for example the corridor scenes.

We also used the tripod to make some of our shots more stabilised such as the scene where the girl runs down the corridor.

In our trailer we decided to feature a montage of clips that represent destruction and violence to help create the right mood and build up for our trailer. We did this by searching on YouTube particular scenes that we wanted to include in the montage, for example clips of animals fighting and the atomic bomb. We then used an MP4 converter to access the clips in iMovie to edit together.

Website:

We used the Lumix model, which can also be used as a camera, to take photos of the clown mask for our poster and website in the dark room at our school to give the affect we needed for our poster idea.

The program in which we used to construct our website was Wix, we selected a template which we thought would suit our film concept and then created it by importing the background photo of the clown as well as embedding links to our social networking sites and actual trailer.

Poster:

To create our film poster we decided upon a photo that we had taken of the clown mask and edited the colours on the website pixlr.com. The effect we decided to use was named ‘Polak’. We then used the program Microsoft Word to create our poster by importing the picture onto a blank document. In order to get the correct font from DaFont.com, we had to download it onto the computer and then import it into the font section of Word. However we did have some issues with this as we needed to print it off in A3 which would have to be done at school and found that the font would not download from the website onto the school computers. We solved this by printing it out onto an A4 size at home where the font was downloaded and then photocopying this to blow it up to A3 size.

Editing and post-production

Footage:

To edit our trailer together we used iMovie. This program was very crucial towards our end product as it allowed us to add certain effects to make our trailer more successful. Examples of this include the amendment of the brightness/saturation of some clips. The most noticeable examples are the scenes where the clown was seen in their day to day life outside of the party as we wanted to change the colour to make it darker and more chilling.

We also experimented with Photoshop because we found that the scenes where we had lowered the saturation/brightness took away the attention from the clown. This was especially true when the student was in her car driving away from the school. In order to make the red on the clown costume become more prominent in the shot we took inspiration from a YouTube video and googled how to colour edit. There was a step by step guide which we attempted to follow, however this failed to work because it could not be exported back into a moving image.

We also used the Ken Burns function on iMovie to zoom into this same clip so that the clown was more apparent in this particular scene as we could not edit the colour.

We also altered the speed of some of the clips such as the scene where the victim is backing towards the wall as we felt it went with the speed of our soundtrack as without editing it, it was too slow.

To put the scenes together we mostly used the ‘fade’ transition so that it was a smooth changeover between each party scene. 

Sound effects:

We used our soundtrack by importing it from iTunes onto iMovie. This was the main source of sound throughout our trailer and we edited it using the fade out tool so that it did not continue playing until the very end and helped to stop it subtly so that it wasn’t too sudden. To get other sound effects in our trailer such as the heavy breathing at the beginning and the evil laugh at the end, we used a YouTube converter to receive the sound onto our iTunes, then did the same as our soundtrack and imported it onto iMovie.

We muted some of our scenes because we had the soundtrack to play over most of the trailer and therefore some of the sounds that went with the clips did not fit in with the music. However we did keep some sounds for effect, for example the sound of the victim running up the stairs.

Typography:

In order to use the font Extrakrebel 1987, we downloaded it from DaFont.com then imported it into iMovie. To create the flicker effect we recorded the screen using Quick Time by moving the mouse back and forth the clips of the text placed in iMovie.

Evaluation

Social Networking:

In order to receive audience feedback on our products (trailer, poster, website) we used a number of social networking sites so we were able to interact with people and ask for their opinions. We were particularly looking for opinions on what we needed to improve and to write about it in our evaluation.

YouTube – We created a YouTube account so that we were able to update any work we had done towards our final product, including our trailer. We then promoted these videos on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook – we created a Facebook page for people to ‘like’ so they could keep updated on the progress of our project. This included us posting a link to our draft and final trailer from YouTube.

Twitter – We created a Twitter account where people could ‘follow’ our progress and we kept it updated by tweeting the links to our trailer so that people could give us feedback. We also advertised our blog on these sites so that people could read about our project if they wanted to.