BY MICHAEL BANGURA

Question 4: how did you use media Technologies in the Construction,

Planning and research stages?

Pre-Production

During the process of researching and planning and constructing the final film trailer, I used a number of different Media Platforms in pre-production, production and post-production.

During Pre-Production, my role was to scout for locations, sort out the costumes, Mis-en-scene, props, hair and makeup.

The technology that I used for my research and planning during pre-production was:

A cameraThe Internet which I used for different search

engines – such as GoogleMicrosoft Word You Tube

Microsoft Word

During the research and planning stages of my final media product, I used Microsoft Word which is a word processor which allowed me to type up the majority of my research findings into one document. It also allowed me to save my ongoing research to the computer itself or onto a memory stick which was another media platform that assisted me during my research and planning of my final media trailer. Microsoft Word also allowed me to copy and paste images from the internet which is another one of the media technologies that I used for pre-production when I was in the research and planning stages of my film trailer, to the document in which I was conducting and analysing my research for our final horror trailer.

Using the Internet

I also used the internet to go on the search engine, “Google” so that I could find images of different Horror texts in order for me to follow, challenge or develop the different conventions of the Horror Genre so that I could make our final horror trailer look as convincing as possible to our target audienceand also so that I could find an innovative way to subvert peoples expactations of the horror genre . Google also allowed me to access websites such as “YouTube” where I could go and search up other Horror films and trailers in which I could go and use them so that I could analyse them and look at the conventions of the genre especially the psychological horror genre and so that I could see which conventions I could use, develop or challenge in the making of my final film trailer.

YouTube

YouTube was also used so that I could research and look at other Horror films and trailers; I looked at different Horror Films and Trailers so that I could look at the different conventions that had been set by the horror genre, I looked at different Horror Films such as “The Ring”, “Scream” “28 Days Later” and “Evil Dead”. It also allowed me to download trailers and film so that I could view them in my own time and it allowed me to copy and paste the embed code on to blogging sites such as Blogger where I could put the video on for the public, namely my target audience to see.

by going on to Youtube to look at other media texts in the horror genre it allowed me to gain a deeper insight into the conventions of the horror genre and to see whether or not I would be able to use them and which ones I could challenge and subvert.

Camera

During pre production when I was carrying out my research and planning, I used a camera to take photos of the potentials I may have wanted to use for our final film trailer. It allowed me as the location scout to visualise the finished product , it also allowed me to take photos of the costumes and props that I wanted to use for our final film trailer so that we had a basic foundation of what we were going to use and where we were going to film for our final film trailer.

When we had taken the photos, we were also able to upload them using the cameras USB cable so that we could put the photos straight on to the PC as a JPEG or PNG file in which we could use and put on to our document as part of our research and planning.

Microsoft Powerpoint

As well as Microsoft Word, I also used Powerpoint so that I could make my floor plans for my set that we were going to film (see images) I clicked the insert tab in which I could then click on the shapes tool and then it allowed me to create different shapes that were representative of what would be on the set in the floor plan for our location where we were going to shoot in. as you can see in the images below, I have used a selection of different shapes to show what the set would look like from above.

Production

During the production of our final film trailer, we used a video camera so that we were able to record our the several shots that we needed for our final film trailer. When we had finished recording the shots that we needed for our trailer, the camera also had an output in which you could connect a USB cable which was another technology which was quite important to the production of our final film trailer, to a computer or iMac and the shots that we took during our filming were able to be stored on the PC for future use or for when we begin to edit the shots we took for our trailer.

Post-Production

During the production of our final film trailer, I was also responsible for the editing of our film trailer. So this meant that I had to look at all of the shots that we had taken in the rushes and see which ones would fit best into our final trailer. I also had to cut shots so that they would follow such rules such as the 180 degree rule, I also applied different filters such as the vignette filter to create a sense of reality in our trailer and indicate the turning point in our trailer.

The technology I used for the editing for our final trailer was: the iMac and the film editing programme,iMovie. iMovie allowed me to upload the shots that we had taken from our rushes and put them into a one project that we could trim and and edit the shots to create our final trailer. iMovie also had tools in which I could manipulate the frames that were in the project, for example I was also able to change the brightness and the saturation of all the frames in the second half of the trailer.

iMac & iMovie

I used the iMac so that I could go and access iMovie to use the uploaded shots we took from when we were filming for our final film trailer. I used iMovie for the majority of the post production process of our film making, on iMovie, I would take the best clips that were used from the rushes and I would put them into the movie and then I would use the clip trimmer tool and cut the clip down to a suitable time in which we wanted to see our clip. In post production, I also used filters such as the vignette filter to show the change in the narrative, to show that the audience were entering a new reality of the state of mind in which the main character is in. I wanted to show that the main character in our main film trailer had descended into madness, I also reinforced this by altering the brightness and contrast of all of the frames in the second half of the trailer so that the colour palette looked as if it had a cold tone. this was done by me clicking on the frame and I would then click "Video Adjustments" tab and i would turn down the brightness to -2% and i would turn the saturation down to 72%.

I also used iMovie to evaluate my main product. The programme allowed me to again upload the footage from out main product which was the final trailer so that I could commentate on all the footage that was filmed for my voice commentary, I was able to click on the mic icon where I was able to use the built in mic to record the things that I wanted to say for my voice commentary. I was also able to upload any other recorded sound that I wanted to use for my voice commentary for my evaluation.