Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
The internet was a media technology which I used for research, planning and audience feedback purposes. Such sites as: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Google images and Blogger were used in the research and planning, construction/production and evaluation stages of my work to first allow me to understand and research how to complete the task I had been set and secondly to plan how I was going to complete my work.
Blogger was a media technology used for documenting my research, planning, construction and evaluation progress over my course and a media technology crucial to the success of my media work, as without it I would not be able to track, record or present any of my work.
Excel was used for creating my production schedule which I used as a calendar to keep myself on track with all my work and deadlines.
Prezi is a media technology which I used for the purpose of collating ideas on one specific subject such as a 'publication plan' or 'target audience plan'.
Powerpoint is a media technology which was put to good use by myself for creating my magazine and poster drafts on, as well as creating my auditions poster on it and recording my pitch and audience questionnaire pie charts.
Slideshare was a media technology used to upload my powerpoints onto the internet and enabled me to embed them into my blog.
Solvr is a media technology which I utilised when needing to solve problems such as what the name of my film was going to be. It allowed me to work through my problem online rather than debating the problem in my head.
Word it Out allowed me to throw all my ideas down into an online colourful mind map regarding production company logo and name ideas.
SLR cameras are a media technology I used to take the photographs for my magazine and poster - their sharpness and high quality allowed me to create more professional looking magazine and poster products.
I used a mini DV HD camcorder to video the entirety of my horror film trailer. The small size and light weight of the camcorder made videoing quick and simple and the changeable settings (such as: brightness, contrast and colour balance) allowed me to manipulate the footage that was being recorded to create a more horror feel to the trailer.
iMovie was a media technology I used to edit the footage I had recorded for my film trailer and manipulate all aspects of the footage from the framing and length of the clips to the colour and brightness.
In the video below I am using iMovie to select a few clips, adjust their colour balance, saturation and brightness to make them darker and more horror style. I also cropped clips to make them quicker in the video below:
iShowU was used to audio and video record my progress and my evaluation questions.
Photoshop was a media technology used to create my poster and magazine on. My previous experience with this technology last year enabled me to use it more quickly and easily this year whilst constructing my horror film poster and film magazine.
As photoshop was one of the main media technologies I used I have created a video to talk you through a few of the techniques I have used in my media work and to demonstrate how I have been using photoshop in general throughout the year.
I also used Garageband to create the music/score for my trailer; below is a video of me using garageband to add sound to my trailer. In the video below I record a sound in garageband, crop the length of the recording, duplicate the recording and time the duplicated recordings to the clip changes in the montage.
Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
To answer this question I have looked back over all the audience feedback I have received and discussed what I have learned from it all and how it has impacted upon the creation of my horror trailer, film poster and film magazine.
Audience interviews: Audience interviews allowed me to understand what my target audience initially wanted from the products I would be creating, so I was able to learn where to start in creating the products from my target audience.
Questionnaires: Questionnaires allowed me to collect feedback from my target audience and their answers helped my shape my media work and make it suitable and interesting to my target audience. Questions included if using a tripod for filming or filming freehand would be preferred by the target audience and the answer helped to shape the trailer as I used both filming techniques (as demonstrated in the trailer video to this question further down this page)
Trailer poll: I created a poll for my target audience to answer to help me learn what elements of horror trailers my target audience regard the most important so I could focus on those elements more. The poll informed me of such things as: the location is the most important element of a horror film. I used the information to focus more time on the location.
Social networking feedback: I used social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to collect audience feedback and learn from it. The majority of people I have as friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter are part of my target audience, meaning the feedback was relevant and particularly helpful for shaping and improving my work. I used social networking sites primarily to get ideas and feedback on drafts to help shape the further stages of my work and ensure I was pleasing my target audience with my products.
Media class feedback: As all of my media class are part of my target audience they were perfect for getting feedback from. Also, as they are creating similar media work to myself their feedback is both informed and important. I learned a lot regarding improvements I could make to my media products from my class feedback.
What I have learned from the audience feedback regarding my -Trailer-
What I have learned from the audience feedback regarding my -Magazine-
What I have learned from the audience feedback regarding my -Poster-
Upon completing all three media products I asked for audience feedback and everything was overwhelmingly positive; suggesting to me that I was successful in creating products which appealed to my target audience!
Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
Main areas discussed in the video below:
Text font styles and colours: the font of the film title 'Transfixed' is the same and consistent throughout all three products, effectively showing how the three products are combined and promoting the same thing. The colours of the text throughout the trailer titles and film title are consistent as they are all grey, again, showing how effectively the three products work together.
Representation of characters: the hair, costume, make-up and over all representation of the characters in the trailer, magazine and posters are consistent and therefore demonstrate how effectively all three media products work together to promote the film 'Transfixed'.
Locations: the locations used in the poster and magazine photographs have also been featured in the trailer, such as the graveyard and the 'crime wall', showing the three products work together effectively.
Colours and lighting: colours such as greys and reds are found throughout the trailer and on the poster and magazine through such mise-en-scene elements as blood, spray paint and low key lighting. The consistent use of such colours and lighting techniques demonstrates how the products show they are promoting the same film and are an effective combination.
Foreground and background: the consistent use of my lead male character in the foreground of shots and female character in the background of shots throughout the trailer, poster and magazine also demonstrates how I have effectively combined elements of all three of my media products.
Over all, I believe the combination of my main product and ancillary tasks is very effective, as (for the reasons stated in the video above) my film trailer, magazine and poster can all be easily identified as being promotional materials for the same product: 'Transfixed'.
What my target audience thought about the effectiveness of the combination of all three of my media products:
This is the updated version of my magazine. As much as I loved my original masthead font too much negative audience feedback was coming from it and so I changed the font to a more conventional masthead style font and added a more conventional banner text above it. I'm not too happy with the colours yet and I think I might change the tagline colour to white to frame the masthead more.
I have also added the image in the preview box at the bottom - I'm rather happy with this image and the way it looks on the overall magazine cover.
Today I took the final photograph for my magazine cover. This photograph is going to be used as a 'preview' item on the cover of my magazine. It is going to be placed within the red box in the bottom left corner of my magazine. Although I originally wanted a female to be the model in this photograph, using a male works just as well and I'm pleased with the sharpness and good quality of this photograph.
I've been having a bit or trouble with Blogger and it dropping my post count from around 186 to 179 in the space of a few days. Myself and my media teacher Googled for cases where a similar problem has occurred and found loads of results, most without a solution to the problem. In most cases, Google (on behalf of Blogger) have assured the people who lost posts that the posts would eventually be restored to their blog, however there is no set time frame in which this restorative process happens, which is a complete pain !!!
Myself and my Media teacher have identified a few posts which we both know were on my Blog at some point but are not anymore, such as my iShowU video, Filmed auditions, sound research and some other posts which I will be re-posting back onto my blog.
I just wanted to make you aware that such a problem has occurred incase the 7 missing posts re-appear and I end up with duplicate posts on my blog, or in case more posts disappear.
Above is my horror trailer so far. it still needs sound adding over the montage, the very end scene and I have yet to add sounds such as twigs snapping and lights flickering to the appropriate scenes. The video is in a low quality to enable a quick upload time, hence the grainy quality and slight blurriness of the video.
PLEASE NOTE: the sound is really quiet !I'm not entirely sure why it is quite so quiet, however I'll look into this when I'm next using Garageband.
Aside from using Garageband to add sound/a score to my Trailer, I am going to record some sounds on my phone, such as: twigs snapping, fluorescent lighting flickering and flashing, garage doors banging and anything that sounds horror style to either add over existing scenes in the trailer, or use in the score that is yet to be added over the montage.
In response to my audience feedback I am going to add more layers of sound to the score for my trailer to make it sound better and I am going to record some real sounds, not produced by Garageband, to highlight certain areas of the trailer, such as twigs snapping during the woodland chase sequence and florescent lighting flickering sounds during the light flashes in the trailer.
Although my Media teacher said she liked the idea of completely reversing the convention during the montage in the trailer by having it silent (as it currently is in the version of the trailer I am still working on), I do want to add sound over the trailer and I will work on this over the next few days.
After improving the sound on my trailer and making the changes suggested by the audience feedback I received I asked my fellow class members and other members of my target audience for yet more feedback on the new and improved sound on my trailer.
Feedback:
My friend and class member Sammi, after asking to watch and listen to my trailer in class, said she really liked the sound and it definitely sounded horror rather than sci-fi which was a big improvement from the last time she listened to the trailer. She really liked the breathing sound as well.
My friend Martha gave me some feedback on Skype:
I had already though of adding light flickering sound effects over the part in the trailer where the light flickers, which is suggested in the above feedback.
So, this week is February half term, or 'reading week' as teachers like to call it! However, despite it being a week off College, I spent 5 hours today in class doing my Media work! :)
I worked primarily on my trailer today, more specifically the sound/score on my trailer. After receiving some feedback on my sound, I worked hard on making the changes suggested in the feedback and getting much more sound onto the trailer in general.
I worked on the audience feedback I had been given on Garageband today; I removed the beat that sounded sci-fi and added some breathing sounds over the top of some of my existing sound. I now only have the montage left to add sound over.
This is what I hope to be the final version of my poster. I intend on getting one last lot of audience feedback for my poster to see if there is anything major that needs changing, if not, then this will be my final and completed poster for my media work.
After creating the start of my score for my horror trailer I asked my target audience for some feedback before I continued with my sound, incase anything needed changing.
As I have been struggling with the creation of the sound for my trailer I was relying on some audience feedback to steer me in the right direction.
Feedback:
This piece of feedback from my Girlfriend is incredibly helpful, as she is studying a module on TV and Film sound creation at her College in Canada and was able to give me some help regarding what sounds right and wrong in my trailer score. As the beat in the background of my trailer has been identified as Sci-fi I will remove it and, as the above feedback has suggested, replace it with another beat/sound or just have no beat at all. I also love the idea of adding some creepy breathing sounds to my sound! I will definitely continue to experiment with sound and make changes to my score on Garageband.
In response to my audience feedback regarding the lack of sound/score on my trailer, I have been working hard on Garageband to try and create a score - however, I'm finding it particularly difficult and I just can't seem to get to grips with Garageband at all. *insert sad face here* :'(
I have started watching Garageband tutorials on YouTube, which have helped a little with how to use Garageband, however they haven't helped me to create anything on Garageband that sounds remotely horror style.
This was a particularly helpful 20 minute tutorial:
I have managed to create the start of a score for my horror trailer, however before I go any further and continue with this score I am going to collect some audience feedback on the sound to make sure I'm heading in the right direction.
After almost finishing my trailer, magazine and poster, I thought it would be a good time to review my trailer and film classifications.
My original classification rated the trailer a:
My new final classification for the trailer is:
I have changed the classification because I don't believe my trailer contains as much blood, horror, violence, graphic imagery, or adult themes to classify it a 15 anymore. I believe 12A is more suitable, particularly as I have seen similar horror trailers appropriate for 12A audiences.
My original film classification was a:
My final film classification is a:
I have decided not to change the classification of the over all film, as I know for sure if I'd been able to create and film the entire film it would have become higher than a 15 rating with the ideas and inspirations I had in mind. Also, horror films are typically 18 rated, as if it is 15 rated or lower it may lose its appeal to horror film fans, as they may believe the lower rating means the horror film isn't as horrific or scary as the type of horror films they like to watch which are rated 18.
I took the BBFC trailer rating test in preparation of reclassifying my film trailer now it is almost complete (just needs sound and maybe another scene with dialogue adding). This test (although only appropriate for U, PG and 12A rated trailers) has helped me to decide if my original 15 trailer rating is still appropriate.
I have yet to add sound/a score to the trailer, however I am currently in the process of planning and creating the sound/score I want on my trailer. I may add one more scene with dialogue on to help tell the narrative more - this is undecided, however it has been marked in the above trailer as '(scene)'.
This is my updated film poster for my horror film 'TRANSFIXED'. I feel the tagline is still too large and so I plan on making this smaller on my final poster. Aside from this little change I feel happy with the rest of the poster and believe it to be complete.
Above are two versions of a poster I have created for my horror film. I can't decide on how to arrange the credits/actors names/social networking symbols at the bottom of the poster. My teacher suggested keeping the credits and website address central like the top version of the poster, but put the social networking logos either side the website address and make them smaller. I will do this tomorrow.
