How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
New media technologies have been increasingly helpful to the media in the production of media texts. During this portfolio, we used different media technologies to help our planning and production.
RESEARCH
To progress to our final products, we each constructed primary and secondary research.
I began my initial research into teaser trailers, film posters and magazine covers. I found my magazine covers and film posters through Google Images. I used Youtube as a way to get my teaser trailers and upload them onto my blog where i was able to see clearly areas for analysis and stop and start so that i could understand the trailer better.
I then researched into the different types of technologies that i expected us to of used throughout this project. Again, using the internet was a way for me to find out about these technologies and write up a brief evaluation of how we would be using each of these and to show an understanding of the products.
From this i went on to do my questionnaires to find out how general audiences felt about this style of genre. I used different ways of sending this questionnaire out to people. I first began by printing it out and handing it out to different people, and then i decided to use Facebook. I used this as i knew it was an easy access to a lot of friends that would be willing to complete the questionnaire for me. I also sent it out using Google Mail, as not everyone uses Facebook, such as older audiences.
PLANNING
When it came to planning, there were a lot of things that my group had to consider to make sure our final products were thought through well enough to make them as effective as we wanted them to be. We began by doing a props list, so we could see what kind of budget we would need, if any, and what we would need to get together for our products. To create this list we used Google Images. Google is a quick easy way for us to get access to the certain types of images we need, and also a place to find where we could buy such props if we needed to.
For the ancillary tasks, I did a font test where we looked at a different selection of fonts from dafont.com, and chose our favourites for the genre. This website has different categories for the types of fonts they have which made it easy for me to select which would be best for our genre such as ‘Destroy’ ‘Cartoon’ and ‘Distorted’. Each of these categories provided most appropriate fonts for our products and genre.
We also had construct mock-ups for the final products so that we were able to see what would look good and what needed adding to. This was also done to become more familiar with the software so that we knew how to make the final products stronger. To do this I used Adobe Photoshop CS3. For the first mock-up I used an image from Google, until we had done our own Photoshop where I then tried to see how it would work with our own images.
To plan for our trailer, we did a list of possible locations that we could use to shoot our film and then selected ones that would be most appropriate and easy for us all to get to as well as the actors. I went round to get images of the location we decided on to get a location reccee so we could see what areas to use. I got these images off my phone Samsung Tocco Lite. My phone provided images with good enough quality that were clear to see.
To help with the structure of our trailer, I drew out a storyboard of our shots so we were able to see the basic flow of what the final trailer would look like. We then used this storyboard to scan in and create animatics using Final Cut Pro. Tim used each image from the storyboard to put them in a sequence which we thought worked best, and also cut out shots that weren’t necessary and also got the timing right. He also used the sound effects that were provided to add to the trailer. This was helpful to us as we as a group were able to criticise our own work and visualise how our trailer would come out, making it easier for us to get the right shots.
Tim and his friend were responsible for creating the music, which they did in Logic Studio. Once they created this, he was able to add it into the animatics, showing where certain shots worked well with parts of the music, and gave us even better timing. This was something we could look back to when making the final trailer.
CONSTRUCTION
To construct the ancillary tasks, we came up with a shooting schedule of when we could take our images. We had two shoots: one in the studio, one on location. For the studio shoot, we used Graces camera – Nikon D40. For this shoot she used low key lighting using just one soft box to light up the main character for the shoot. She set her shutter speed to 125 and the ISO to 400 so that the camera complied well with the lights in the studio. she used a range of shots, both portrait and landscape to give more variation to the shots. When doing the location shoot I used my own camera – Canon 450D. We located the shoot in an alley as we thought it would be appropriate to the film trailer. To get my shots I used a range of shots using the zoom ring on the camera. I had to change the ISO and shutter speed to make sure that the lighting was correct and there was no over or under exposure in the images. I changed the white balance as the natural lighting was very grey and was quite bright, so I changed the setting to ‘cloudy’ so that it gave a warmer colour to the images.
I then used these images and put them into Adobe Photoshop CS5.
For the film poster, I edited the original image changing the levels and curves to adjust the lighting, and also corrected the colours and saturation. As we weren’t happy with the background, I used my camera again to go out and get images of a more urban setting that we could use for the poster. I adjusted the lighting again on the background, and then using the selection tool, I cut out the characters from the original image and placed them onto the new background.
I rearranged the characters so that the main character was larger and in the foreground, with the two muggers smaller and in the background.
I then used the font that we had chosen from dafont.com and placed our title in the middle of the characters. For the text, I first began using a colour scheme of red and white, but felt the red was too powerful for the image so I used a colour scheme of blue and white instead. I used the effects of having an outer glow on the text, so if the text was white it would have a blue glow and vice versa.
For the magazine cover, I began adjusting the levels and curves first. I also edited the colours as the image started out quite cold.
I then made a new layer of the background and then chose to use the radial blur.
As I had made a new layer, I was able to use the eraser to make the main character in focus, keeping the background blurred. I also used this same effect to turn the image into black and white, and then used the eraser tool again to turn the character back into colour
Once I had finished editing the original image, I then moved it onto a new page. I had already created the masthead previously for the font selection, so I added that to the layers. For the text I used the fonts provided and kept a colour scheme of red and white. I used the same font for the film title from dafont.com
For our trailer we used two cameras: Sony A1E and Sony HVR-V1E. we began recorded using the Sony A1E. We then moved on to using a Sony HVR-V1E because the features and quality were better. The Sony HVR-V1E had a better dynamic range and colour quality as described in my earlier post.
When filming we used both handheld and steady shots using a tripod. As a lot of the filming was done in daylight, we used the exposure control button on the camera to keep our shots from being over exposed. To also keep our shots in focus, the focus ring was often adjusted. We also had to readjust the white balance for each change of setting. We often set our own white balance by placing a white sheet in front of the camera and manually setting the white balance.
When we had finished filming, we took the tapes from the camera and imported our film into the Macs at the college. Tim was responsible for most of the editing as he was most familiar with the software, but the rest of the group gave ideas, criticism and feedback to ensure we were all involved in the making of the trailer. The software used for editing was Final Cut Pro.
We used this to cut our shots and put them into a basic sequence of order. This was made easy by using the section across the bottom that showed the times segments of where each shot was. Tim then imported the music track, where we were then able to cut our shots down even more to fit the music timing.
Once we had all our shots in place, Tim then began to add on the transitions onto the shots. He used a lot of fading transitions which worked well, but also kept a lot of them as cut shots to add the drama of the trailer. After this, we then added in title cards at parts that we felt weren’t necessary or relevant, but also so that they were put in the right times and places.
EVALUATION
To evaluate our work effectively, we got audience feedback on our media products. I used different ways of getting this feedback such as questionnaires and voice recorders. I scanned in each of my questionnaires and analysed them on blogger. For the interviews I recorded, I used my phone and used the sound recorder on my phone. This was an Lg Optimus One, which is an android phone and has good quality microphone built in. I then uploaded these recordings onto Audioboo which is a website where you can blog your recordings. I used these to analyse as well to constructively analyse and criticise my work.
Overall using new media a technology has been overly helpful to the whole production of our work as it has helped us to plan effectively, evaluate and produce good quality media products. During the whole portfolio we have used blogger to upload our work and be able to work as a group well.
