Technologies used(FINAL)
- 1. Technologies used in creation
- 2. The Blog Splitting my blog into recognisable categories was the best way of separating out my work as I can find what part of my work I, or anyone else, wanted easily. This is one of the advantages I found with the blog, as it made my work more identifiable My analysis of trailers posters and magazines where all set out in a similar fashion. I embedded the video (or copy and pasted the picture) into a post and the analysed it. However, with my posters I organised them into different parts of the horror genre. This was to make it easy for people to see them, and rate them on my poll(s).
- 3. The Blog Continued These where all five successive posts. I did it like this as I wanted them to be easily comparable. Not just for me, but also for others voting on polls. Being able to see them together allows me to determine which has the best (or the one preferred by me and people voting) style and colour scheme. The people voting where all people of my age, which is who my ‘target audience’ is so any decisions made about my poster is based on not only response, but responses from my target audience. However, this is where one of the problems with the blog arose. I couldn’t put them all on the same page, and I couldn’t move my posts around on the page. This meant the posters and the poll where separated and far apart, making it hard for people to make a clear judgment n what they preferred,
- 4. Embedding, uploading and Youtube Youtube was important part for my video, as it acted as a way to put it on the internet. By doing this, it allowed me to be able to put my video from Youtube, and embed it onto my blog. 1.Putting video on Youtube 2.uploaded my video to YT 3.Putting video into a post 4. Video in a post However, I found Youtube quite annoying, as the video quality was terrible, and I found it hard to improve it.
- 5. Polls Being able to add polls into my post was very useful. This is because it allowed me to find out what my age group prefers in terms of posters, magazines, genres etc. it was a quicker way than asking people what my ideas where like, and people are less likely to lie. The problem I found with the polls is that i didn’t get a great response rate, so my information may be seen as not very reliable
- 6. Using the internet: Trailers, analysis and Youtube To research ideas for my trailer I mainly used Youtube, purely because of it’s simplicity and ease of use. Also, I was able to put the trailers on my blog along with the analysis. In my analysis I looked at what happened in the trailer, to gain better understanding into how they where put together. After, I’d look at conventions of horror trailers, what sort of colours are used, what sort of fonts etc. knowing what others had done before to make good trailers (or bad ones) steered me in the direction of what I wanted to do.
- 7. This is an example of some of the taglines I looked at. It was important to note the conventions of the good taglines, and the bad ones. This made it easier for me to decide what I was going to do, as I knew what the characteristics of successful taglines where. Google made searching for things so easy, as more popular results came up nearer the top, so I could get a better sample. Using the internet: Taglines To find these taglines (and what the reaction to them was like) I just searched things like ‘Horror movie taglines best and worst’
- 8. Camera and Camcorder My use of the camcorder is fairly obvious. I used it ‘test’ what my shots would like before doing them, both in how the shot would be done (camera transition etc) and then to see how my location would look. The camera used to take some location shots, and for taking pictures for my magazine and poster. I also used it for my actual video, to have some stills within it. Both the camera and camcorder where digital, which meant I could easily put them on the computer without the hassle of scanning printing etc. Using the camcorder at first was a real challenge, originally there was quite a lot of movement in my trailer, which made my camera very shaky. By changing many of my shots to be quick, but relatively still and making my trailer a ‘first-person, hand held’ style, filming was made much easier
- 9. Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop was the perfect programme for doing a poster. This is because of it’s range of tools, like the ‘magic wand’ which was used to cut out parts of photo’s and to use custom fonts. Also, as I do a lot of editing for my posters, it was the right tool for the job. This is because you can change the colour of the whole picture to two colours, and as I wanted to follow conventions of other posters, Adobe Photoshop was again, the right tool for the job.
- 10. Adobe Photoshop: continued To make my poster I first cut down my original picture to a more conventional poster size. Then, I upped the contrast to 100%, this gave it very separated and split colours. After that, I used the gradient tool to make it so there was only red and black. Then, I put the 2 nd picture on top of the poster, and increased the opacity. After that, I used a the crop tool to cut out my title and names. Finally, I added a ‘stroke’ to the writing, giving it the white border 1 2 As Photoshop had all these tools built in, it meant I didn’t have to switch between programmes to make what I wanted.
- 11. Adobe Premiere Elements Premiere Elements is another programme used for obvious reasons. Personally, I used version 2.0, as it was more simple and easier to use than the 4.0 version. Also, I had learnt to use premiere elements via the 2.0 version, so I knew my way around it. I feel I made full use of this programme as I used quite a few effects for my video, and it had a large amount of editing.
- 12. Adobe Premiere Elements: How I made full use of it. One tool I used quite a lot was the static effect to give the illusion that the ‘footage’ was real. In addition to the static tool, I used a sort of ‘reel’ effect, to again make the film seem like real footage that was damaged. I did make use of the titles feature of Premiere Elements, to ‘set the scene’ of the movie, and also introduce who made the film.
- 13. Custom fonts I used custom font sites such as ‘1001 Free Fonts’ to give my poster and magazine cover more interesting and unique.
- 14. Sound effects Sites like freesound.org provided free sound effects for my video, such as a static sound and a camera’s clicking sound. However, I wish I had found this earlier, as I thing I could have made better use of it.
- 15. Evaluation Stage
- 16. PowerPoint I used PowerPoint partially down to it’s ease of use. I could put pictures on, and large amounts of info could be broken down into smaller chunks that are less of a chore to read. However, I don’t think I should’ve done 2 of my evaluation questions on PowerPoint, as it doesn’t boast a huge variety of technologies used.
- 17. Using recording in evaluation I used a video camera to record two people discussing my video, poster and magazine in depth. I chose this method as I could get very detailed results. Also, I got responses that might be hard to write down. I had 2 people at once giving their responses, so it was more than just two peoples ideas, it was more of a discussion. Also, doing a recording is less dull that a page of text, so it is more interesting to look at, and extract information for both me and the marker.