Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Technology was a very big part of making our film trailer, poster and magazine cover, it helped us be able to do all of these things in effective ways which made the end products look great. A vast amount of different kinds of technology was used at different stages when making the film poster, trailer or magazine cover.
Firstly with the film trailer; we used lots of different technology when making our film trailer, the first main thing we used which helped us be able to make the trailer was a digital camera that we used in many different ways to help us get the camera shots we wanted when we were filming. Examples of times when we had to use the digital camera in creative ways include; when filming umesh's scene is his bedroom we had to record him sleeping in his bed, we wanted to get a shot that would look over his bed and record him sleeping, we tried holding the camera above him but realised this wouldn't work as it would mean the shot wasn't steady enough, so we introduced a tripod which was a great help and I had to stand over him and use a tripod to help keep the camera steady while I recored him. Another example of using the camera creatively was when I had to hold it while I was acting, by this is I mean that while I had to perform a kick to a gate, I had to hold the camera at the same time as well to get the POV shot that we wanted, this was our attempt of trying to get the audience engaged in that scene as it's as if they're the ones kicking open the gate meaning they're in the movie. A final good example of us using the camera in a creative way was at 0:17 and 0:41 of our trailer where we kept the camera on the floor and used it to record these two shots which help us include some of the landscape in the shot; such as the grass and the concrete floor. We thought this helped make the shot look more interesting, and it was difficult as Jai had to actually get onto the floor to record this.
When putting the trailer footage together we used Final Cut Pro as our editing programme. This was a useful programme as we could try out many different things to the footage. These things included; transitions, which we used often to help link the footage together so when it's viewed it runs smoothly which makes the trailer overall look so much better. It also included many different tools that we could use, such as the blade tool, trim tool and hand tool which helped us when editing as we could easily cut up our clips, trim them or move them around without too much hassle. The blade tool however also played a big part when we had two separate clips that were too long and boring to watch, so we bladed them and put the two clips together, so a part of it plays, then it plays the other clip, and then goes back to the first one (you can see this at 0:37 to 0:41 of our trailer). We thought this looked good and it was helped by having the blade tool. Another benefit of using Final Cut Pro as an editing programme was the fact we could easily import video footage or music into the programme which we could then add to our actual trailer which, this so easy to do and it was very helpful. We could also include titles in the trailer by simply adding a white screen and then adding text on top of that to make the title screens which we thought were great and made the trailer look more like a trailer. One of my friends that I showed it to said; "This looks legit" meaning realistic when he saw the titles that we included. Another benefit of using Final Cut Pro was that we easily discard and replace different things we changed our minds about and didn't want to include anymore, for example; one scene involved me in a comedy scene we were trying out where I'm pretending to masturbate and the joke is that I'm just cleaning my shoe, this scene also included a reggae soundtrack, in the end we decided not to include this as it was too difficult to make the scene relevant to the rest of the trailer and make it fit in. In the end we decided to replace it and use the beginning of the trailer we have now which explains what the movie is about, which was a much better choice. Lastly Final Cut Pro allowed us to include voice overs in the trailer, this was very useful as we realised at one point that our trailer lacked dialogue and we needed to add more dialogue, however we had basically finished and didn't want to delete any scenes and add some with dialogue, so we included a voice over which added to the atmosphere of the trailer, and it made us directly speak to the audience of the trailer, as if were addressing them, and this was very useful. Final Cut Pro was a very useful technology we had available when editing our film trailer and it helped us make the trailer we wanted possible with the use of the different editing techniques and things we could include and take away from footage we recorded.
Secondly, when making our Film Poster a lot of different technologies were used to make it was it is. Firstly, Jai drew the draft of the poster on a piece of paper, then he drew the image we wanted to include in the poster to make it an arty kind of poster. Secondly it was then scanned and put into a word document where he played around with the colour a bit until it was the right colour and shading that we both wanted. We then used a USB to put it on one of the MACs in school so we could import the image to photoshop. Once we had the image on photoshop me and Jai both on different ideas we could include in the Poster.
Photoshop was our main editing tool when making the poster as it included many different things that helped us make the poster to the standard we wanted. There were many benefits of using Photoshop over other image editing programmes. Firstly, photoshop includes many different tools and has many different functions which helped us make the poster, we could size and scale any images we included to get them to the correct size, we could insert text and change the font to make it match the font we used in the film trailer, however, in the end we changed the font we used in the trailer as we wanted to try something a bit more eye catching and fun. Photoshop also included a side panel which showed the different elements we included in the poster, we could re-order the positions of the elements so some layers would be in the background, or the mid ground or the foreground, this was very helpful as it helped us make the poster look more like a poster by having the title at the front with the image in the mid ground and the background image was in the background. We could also easily move elements of the poster around by selecting the layer from the side panel and then moving it around using the move tool. This was useful because it meant that the poster could be easily edited if we needed it to be, and at times we needed to change the position of the different layers of the poster and being able to do this easily and effectively was a great thing to have. Another great thing that photoshop helped us do was get rid of the green back ground we had when were in the green room taking pictures, this meant we could just keep the main parts of the digital photos that we wanted, and then easily get rid of the background so we could change it to something that would look a lot better.
Another main technology was when taking pictures for the poster was the digital camera again. Even though our poster was an arty type poster, we decided to include digital pictures in the poster as well as the arty pictures. We included these pictures to add a comical effect to the poster as the poster did look a bit serious with the artiness of it.
Thirdly and lastly, when making our Film Magazine Cover we had to use a variety of different technologies similar to that of the poster, we included the use of a digital camera and we used photoshop as our editing programme so we could easily bring the poster to life and make exactly what we wanted.
When using photoshop it was similar to that of the poster, we could easily reposition layers with the panel on the right hand side. We could easily use the tools that are displayed on the left hand side, and we could easily get rid of the background on our images and insert text where we wanted it. We could also had images of barcodes and QR codes that can be scanned with a smart phone to receive a free phone wallpaper as this would help give the magazine appeal because they could get something out for purchasing the magazine and this would make our magazine a lot better thanks to help of photoshop.
The use of the digital camera was the same as when we were using it for the posters, we had to take photos in the green room and then try out different things. We tried many different styles we could use for the magazine cover, such as a serious picture showing off the characters of the film and we also tried a fun one that displays the actors behind the characters. It took a while to decide what would be the best picture to choose as we kept going from serious picture, to fun one and then back to serious, in the end we decided that we'd go for a funny picture that displays the actors, and in the end, we managed to do this well.
Technology was a big help when making our film trailer, poster and magazine because we had so many different programmes, tools and recording devices that made it all possible, without the technology we have available to us it would of been very difficult to even start creating a poster, magazine cover or trailer, and that shows how important technology really is in the media world we live in.