Evaluation #4

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

In the creation of our trailer, we used many new technologies in order to increase the quality of the final product. We used things such as iMovie, Garage band, YouTube, twitter and a HD camera.

For the planning section of our trailer, we created a hand done animatic; we then took pictures of it and imported it to iMovie where we were able to make it a picture video. We used sites such as YouTube and IMDB to research and give ideas for our planning of our trailers; we watched multiple different genres and were able to see which conventions were used for the different genres. For the research and planning of our poster and magazine cover, we used Google images and real media pieces to gain an insight of what the typical conventions were, although we had an idea and knew about magazine covers due to having produced them at GCSE level.  We also used websites such as 'bubbl' as part as our planning and research for both marketting strategies and for brainstorming ideas.

We used iMovie frequently in all stages of the production. For research we created a voxpop with it in order to gain an understanding of what our audience expected within the genre that we were going to do, this involved cutting together different parts of people’s sentences together emphasising on the separate words that they felt described it best. We also used iMovie to create our trailer, it enabled us to add effects either to the actual shots, such as black and white effect or to the transitions such as fades or cross dissolves. This enhanced the viewing for the audience as it made it a lot more interesting and more realistic to watch.

The technologies used, such as; an HD Camera, a Mac book computer - with the programmes iMovie and Garageband, Photoshop, Microsoft word. These media technologies were the base of our coursework tasks, we wouldn’t have been able to make them without it. We were able to use the creative effects on iMovie, such as cutting clips, using transitions, colour correction/adjustments, picture effects, and more, these were the things that helped make our trailer look more professional and realistic. Without the use of this new media advanced technology we would have come to problems such as; not having any effects on the shots, there would be no text over the frames – a typical convention for trailers, there wouldn’t have been any transitions which would have made our trailer jumpy therefore it wouldn’t run smoothly throughout.

We also used garage band to create our music. This allowed us to find ready-made tunes and adapt and combine them to fit to specific parts of our trailer. Because our plot includes three different stories, change of music had to be clear to show a change of storyline in the plot. To combine the music we played around with the tempos making them fit together smoothly.

Using the HD camera in the construction of our trailer was far more beneficial than say a DV camera, they produce far higher quality in the picture, therefore adding to the professional quality we were hoping for. We were able to easily use the manual setting in order to get the background blurred so all of the focus was on one spot, in our case, the women.

Another problem we would have had without new media software, would have been the advertising section for the trailer. Without sites such as YouTube and Twitter (the online software we used to promote our trailer) the word wouldn’t have got out and we would have had to promote the trailer using things such as posters and in cinema, and although these are both beneficial as it reaches out to different audiences, they are expensive and using YouTube to broadcast our trailer is completely free and essentially would be able to make a profit. Using websites such as Twitter and YouTube gives the opportunity to broadcast the trailer to an enormous, worldwide audience, instead of doing a screening to a local audience, it immediately brings more attention to it. YouTube and Twitter are sites which are visited by people all over the world on a daily basis and are the best way to reach an audience. Having around 360 million sign-ups and according to Twitter, there are around 460,000 sign-ups per day worldwide, the evidence is clear that the word would get out. Even though we created a poster as well as a magazine covers both advertising the trailer, the internet provides an immediate and free viewing. Also, it is possible to have direct feedback on YouTube, consumers can ‘like’ the video or comment on it giving an opinion etc, this shows how far new media technology has progressed through time, this method of commenting online is far quicker, easier and effective than say a written questionnaire.