How did you use new media technologies

in the construction, research & planning

and evaluation stages?

By Ben Franklyn

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

YouTube

Here is an example of

me using YouTube to

investigate previous

horror trailers which have

been made by students.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Examples

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.