Evaluation Three

A2 MEDIA: POPPY ROSE

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

Section A: Research and Planning

The use of new media enabled us to easily make a horror film that included action and body horror as we knew what our audience would expect to see by this type of genre film. The research mainly took place on YouTube, looking at clips and trailers from other films being action and horror. Below are the trailers for Shaun of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead; both horror films. Also included is an action trailer of Godzilla, a recent action film. These trailers helped us by enabling us to see what was already out in the media; this pushed us on to make a trailer of a high standard.

Shaun of the Dead Trailer Godzilla Trailer Dawn of the Dead Trailer

Section A: continued..

Another site that we used for research and the planning of our trailer was IMDB.com. IMDB was very useful as it lays down information and vital facts that we needed to access very clearly. The website listed cast, plots, themes and reviews which helped us. A film that helped my coursework was The Fly. Although I only watched this to analyse in my own time, I think the extreme types of body horror featured throughout the film ‘opened my eyes’ to the amount you can do with latex and wounds, as this film took body horror to the extreme and unusual.

Another media source we used were DVDS, as well as watching films we also researched into horror films by looking at different features the DVD provided such as; bonus features, deleted scenes and most importantly director’s commentaries. One of these we watched was American Nightmare (1999) from the Hills Have Eyes disk.

Lastly, any information we still needed would be found from popular website Wikipedia. This website would usually be our last resort as the other media sources used were so reliable and jam-packed full of information. Wikipedia was useful because it would do a more in-depth look at a plot line and the characters involved; however Wikipedia was not always reliable due to the general public being able to edit information on the webpage.

Section B: Construction

I used new media for my construction by using Premier Pro. When getting used to the programme, I used three different techniques to edit my video these were: Camera Blur, the Razor Tool and the Vocal Enhancer.

Here is a screenshot of Premier Pro.

This screenshot shows the effect Camera Blur; we used this to make our trailer more mysterious and spooky, confusing the audience. I thought this effect was very useful.

This screenshot show the effect Vocal Enhancer; we used this effect mostly on the screams or shouts used in the trailer, by making them distorted it reinforces the theme of horror and vulnerability.

This screenshot shows the Razor Tool; this tool was the most effective as it allowed us to make our trailer with very fast collision cutting, and let us cut down to the exact second we wanted.

Section B: continued…

Many different techniques were used on Photoshop to create my Film Poster and Magazine Cover.

A tools on Photoshop I used most was the Brightness tool.I used this because it was effective in making the images darker without having to go out on a dull day, it easily gave us the theme of horror in our photos without much effort.

Another tool on Photoshop I used on my products was the Clone Stamp Tool.I used this to blend and make the pictures more aesthetically pleasing and smooth.

A tool on Photoshop which was effective in my products was the Hue/Saturation tool. This tool allowed me to edit the colours on my pictures and make them brighter or more dull and it also allowed me to make the picture on my film poster a sepia colour.

Section B: continued…

For all the fonts featured on my products I went to the website ‘DaFont’.

Here is a screenshot from Dafont showing the main font I used on my film poster; An Unfortunate Event.

Here is a screenshot of the I used on my magazine cover from DaFont.com.I featured the fonts Wild Wood and American Horror Story on my magazine cover along with some normal basic fonts from Photoshop.

Section C:

I used media technologies such as Blogger and our Focus Group Screening to evaluate our products.

The focus group screening was the most important activity that helped us evaluate our products, with the feedback we received from the other classmates it helped us see other flaws or points with our product in a different way. It was also very helpful because they scored and added comments on things to improve. Reinforcing this we got to see other groups’ trailers so this enabled us to see how hard everyone worked therefore pushing us to make our product even stronger and allowed us to see other techniques we may have not thought of ourselves.

YouTube was also a helpful media technology when evaluating our work; by having our trailer posted in the public domain it enabled us to re-evaluate the look of our trailer and it inevitably pushed us to make our trailer the best we could before the focus group screening and before it went out into the media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PZMBCLU8Lg