Evaulation Part 3

Evaluation Part 3: How did you use media technology in your construction, research, planning and evaluation?

How did you use media technology for your research and planning?

In the initial research we used many technologies such as YouTube.com for trailers and clips from example for the past and modern examples. Three of the trailers we watched were ‘Evil Dead’ (2013), ‘The Toxic Avenger’ (1984), ‘Cloverfield’ (2008) as well as many more. Also we used DVD/Blu-Ray for the full screening of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1979), ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (2004) and ‘Psycho’ (1960) as well as special features from other DVD to help us understand the horror genre. An excellent example of this were the documentaries ‘Document of the Dead’ and ‘The Dead Will Walk’ on the ‘Dawn of the Dead: Ultimate Collection’ (which really helped us understand horror effects) as well as the documentary ‘The American Nightmare’ on the old ‘Hills Have Eyes’ 2-disc set.

Furthermore with our research we also used IMDB for getting dates, directors and stars. It also helped me find out about more horror films that would be helpful to watch, especially ones made by auteurs I liked such as George Romero and Zak Snyder.

For the planning we used general text editing software such as Microsoft Word and Publisher for our shot list, Prop list, Health and Safety. Finally for our mood board we used the internet to get the images for our mood board and then used Photoshop to arrange the images in a tidy way.

How did you use media technology for your construction phase?

To start my ‘ancillary products’ the internet and Photoshop were very important. In Photoshop I used a couple of techniques such as using layer so I could put certain parts above the other like in my poster with the moon texture on top of the yellow circle. I also hid the text slightly behind the killer’s head to give a professional feel. I also used a text texture through the ‘fx’ button to have the text seem more horror like with the grey/blue colour. Finally I also used personalised paint brushes downloaded copyright free from the internet so I could have an effective spatter on the poster.

The images below are the Photoshop files for my ancillary products. As you can see in the images, there was a total of 18 layers for my poster and 29 layers for my magazine cover. This shows the amount of complex hard work that went into them.

In our construction phase, we mainly used Premiere Pro. We uploaded our shots from the HD camera and then edited them using in and out points (with the “I” and “o” buttons on the keyboard). We also made the contrast higher using the contrast/brightness filter to give a darker look. Then we used ‘After Effects’ and the ‘emerge’ filter to make it seem like the text was growing from the background. Against the textured background like the killer’s mask, it gave a rough but professional feel.

 

To help finish off the trailer we used many different technologies including websites like soundbible.com, freesound.org and Dafont.com for our sounds and text and we made sure they are all copyright free In addition we also used a Digital Still Camera in assisting with ancillary products as well as a HD cam recorder for the actual trailer.

How did you use media technologies on the evaluation?

We used a Camera recorder to record the reactions to both the rough cut, and this led us to change a lot of a product. We added in more text at the end (YOU WILL BE REAPED) and also cut a lot of shots such as the girl and boy being pulled into the woods. Our final trailer was much shorter and more exciting because of this, so filming the reaction to the rough cut (‘focus group’) was very useful.

We also used Blogger to upload our evaluation and this meant we could not lose anything. It was annoying when I didn’t have access to the website when there were internet problems but generally it was very useful.