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

1. How did you use new media technologies
in the construction, research & planning
and evaluation stages?
By Ben Franklyn

2. Construction
• For the construction stages of the media
production we used several different types of
media technologies such as hardware being the
video camera and camera being used to record
the footage and ancillary photographs. Software
such as photoshop and iMovie which would
useful in the creation of the film trailer and the
ancillary texts.

3. Adobe Photoshop CS6
Photoshop was the main source of
the editing process within this group
as it is a program I feel more
comfortable with as apposed to
Adobe InDesign. Using this program I
was able to efficiently and quickly
make realistic looking magazine front
covers and an effective poster to
accompany our horror trailer which
followed the normal conventions of
the film and poster creation
conventions. This program was used
to create the empire magazine front
cover and the poster which would
accompany the film trailer. Also this
program was used to create some of
the inter-titles which are embedded
within the horror trailer.

4. Adobe Photoshop CS6
This is a screen grab of
me creating the
magazine front cover in
Adobe Photoshop CS6
at the 3 hour stage.
Here is an example of
me creating the inter-
titles which would
appear within the horror
trailer in Adobe
Photoshop CS6.

5. Windows Movie Maker
This is the film editing software our
group used during the editing
process of the horror movie trailer.
This program was more beneficial to
members of our group as it was
more easily accessible when not in
college as apposed to Apples
iMovie. This is a more effective way
of producing the horror movie trailer
as the footage can be edited, re
filmed and adjusted at home rather
than having to come into college, or
wait especially for that specific
lesson.

6. Windows Movie Maker
This is a screenshot the
editing process using the
software Windows Movie
Maker.
This is an inter-title which has
been created using Adobe
Photoshop and then shipped
into Movie Maker to continue
the synergy theme.

7. Mini SD Camcorder
This is an example of a Mini SD
Camcorder which would have been
used in the creation of the movie trailer
which has been supplied by the
College. This is an effective way of
filming a horror trailer of out sub genre
which happens to be in a ‘found
footage’ style. This almost makes the
whole filming operation seem slightly
more legitimate as it has been filmed in
this was as apposed to 1080p full HD.
This is a good example of us following
the common codes and conventions of
the horror film and trailer creation.

8. Research & Planning
• For the research and planning stages of the
project both primary and secondary
resources of finding out and researching into
the common codes and conventions of
creating a movie trailer. Using both variants
of finding out and researching into the way
movie trails and ancillary texts are created
would give us a more insightful and rounded
approach when it came to creating our own.

9. YouTube
YouTube was an important sources of
finding out and researching into the
common codes and conventions of
existing movie trailers as you are able to
find almost anything you want on this
website. It has been specifically useful to
us in the making of our horror trailer as
we have been able to take the good
things about some trailers yet take the
bad things and improve them. Also it
gave us a chance to take into
consideration the codes and conventions
of certain ‘found footage’ trailers and look
into the in more depth to be able to find
out why they are successful and how we
could replicate that in making our own.

10. YouTube
Here is an example of
me using YouTube to
investigate previous
horror trailers which have
been made by students.

11. Empire Magazine
Empire magazine was useful in the
research stages of the project as we ere
able to investigate into the types of film
which are looked into the magazine giant
empire and then even better then that put
on the cover. This was useful for us as we
were able to understand that horror films
don’t often make the front cover of empire
magazine due to popular opinion. From this
we understood that horror films only made
the cover during the Halloween period in
October so we decided our cover would
also be based around this time to make it
seem more realistic and follow the common
codes and conventions of the empire
magazine front cover.

12. Empire Magazine
Here I am making a comparison
between the legitimate Empire
magazine front cover and the text
I have created. In this
comparison I am stating the
genres of film which are usually
featured on the front cover are
action films. Due to this we came
up with our own way of displaying
the magazine on the Empire front
cover using the Halloween
period.

13. IMDb
We chose to use the IMDb website
to look for real Horror/Slasher
trailers for analysis. Along with this
IMDb has all the film posters to
accompany the trailers so we easily
get them for analysis as well.

14. Google Maps
Google maps was useful to use in
the research and planning stages
of the project as we were able to
scout out potential locations
without having to go to the site
first. It also gave use a good
indication on how far the site would
be from college/home and allowed
us to make the decision of whether
it would be a practical decision to
investigate and scout out the
location.

15. Google Maps
Here is an example of how I
used Google maps in the
location scouting stage of the
project. This was an area I
visited so I stated how I got to
the location by drawing over a
screenshot of the location on
Google maps.

16. Evaluation
• For the evaluation stages of the project we
used a variety of different media
technologies in producing the evaluative
material and in collecting audience
feedback which could be used to help with
the evaluation process.

17. Examples

18. Facebook
Facebook is a good source of feedback
which is useful in the evaluation stages
of the project. Facebook is particularly
good against other social networking
sites because a high percentage of
people have it and a lot of people check
is regularly in order to get updates into
what’s happening in other peoples lives.
This would be a good way to get
feedback in this media project as we
would be able to ask peoples opinions
on what they like and what could be
improved which would help in the
evaluation stages.

19. Other Social Networks
These social networking sites aren’t
as popular as the likes of Facebook
however they can still be useful as
Flickr and Instagram are video and
photography based sites which
could be more specific to the film
trailer and ancillary texts where as
twitter can be useful as things can
be spread around easily using the
‘retweet’ button which could mean
an increase in popularity and
feedback. Overall these sites would
be as useful as Facebook however
they should still be used to target
specific Video and Photographic
audiences.

20. Presentation Sites
Presentation sites like Prezi and
slideshare are useful in the evaluative
stages of the project as they can be
used to present information that you
have collected, gathered and made in
an interesting way. This is key to the
evaluation stage as 4 essay style
response to the questions can be
seen as boring and uninteresting. By
using these sites you are producing
and more thoughtful and proactive
response which suggests some
thought and consideration has been
put into the evaluation stage of the
project.

21. YouTube
YouTube is particularly useful in the
evaluation stages of the project as it is
a way of getting specific feedback from
predominantly video website. For
example it is very easy for people to
give you feedback in the ‘like comment
and rate’ section of the website.
YouTube is a very good place to put
the final cut of the trailer as people who
may be interested in that particular
genre of film would be able to view it in
the side bar of the site which pick up
more popular suggested videos.
Overall YouTube has been very helpful
in the creation of our horror film trailer.

22. Blogger
Blogger has been the most influential program
we have used over the whole process of
making, developing and researching into the
horror film task. The reason it has been so
influential is because we have used it in every
stage of the project to develop our
understanding of the horror film genre, track
our progress and present our outcomes. There
have been some stages where blogger has
been more useful than others, for example in
the development stages of the project it has
been extremely useful in allowing use to work
fluently posting regular updates to the blog so
our progress can be tracked. However on the
other hand, blogger has not been so useful in
the evaluation stages of the project as there
have been other sites which have been more
useful in helping use complete our evaluation.
Overall blogger has been very useful in the
tracking and presentation of our work as it is
very easy to view it as a unit of work.

23. Blogger
Here is an example of
how useful blogger can be
when it comes to the
information we have
collected, sources and
created along the way in
the project.