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

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

Throughout these stages of developing my media texts I used a number of types of technology, these included Television, Digital SLR Camera, Photoshop, IMovie. Technology has been one of the most important part of produces this project. It has allowed us to be able to improve are Trailer in many ways and also create a magazine cover and a poster to an effective and eye catching way. Technology has helped us to anchor images to the text in turn meaning we can effectively aim are media texts at our target audience.  YouTube was also used as an important site to upload our trailer. Facebook was also used to upload our trailer to; these are great sites as they allowed us to receive audience feedback the media texts.

When producing these media texts I needed to do a lot research before hand to understand the most effective way of filming a trailer. The Internet was a huge resource for information. I used the Internet to view other trailers and clips from movies to give me a greater understand of the codes and conventions of our trailer. Without the internet and YouTube clips I would have struggled to know what needs to be involved in our media trailer, and how to make it a successful trailer which appeals to our target audience.

When making our trailer there were aspects which I found challenging such as the use of software to edit our trailer but other aspects which I found a lot more second nature. For example the camera was very simple to use. The camera was touch screen, which made it a lot easier to move through videos and track down the right clip from the many on the SD card.  The stand, which we used, was a very simple but effective tool. It allowed us to film shots from a steady angle and improves picture quality compared to if you were using the camera free hand.

When filming we used the Nikon D3100. This is a very good camera to use for what we wanted to do as it had all the important technological aspects to it such as touch screen, fast shutter speed and many others. Also we were familiar with this camera as we had used it before for our practice trailer Big Fat Sweaty Coppers. 

We didn’t use the camera only for filming our media trailers. It was used to take photos for our magazines and posters. We did this by organizing a photo shoot which took place in various places inside and outside of school.  We managed to get some very effective photos for what we were looking to portray.  In our front covers and posters. For my magazine front cover I wanted to have a strong image on the front to attract the audience. There is three pictures of Jeremy razzell, (the main protagonist in the trailer) he is holding a gun in one of the photos, this emphasizes that the genre is action/ thriller and lets the audience into a taste of what the movie is about and how much action is in the movie without viewing the trailer. But I had to make sure not give too much away from the magazine. The poster is expresses different things compared to the magazine. I have used a gun wheel and added a screen shot from the trailer into each bullet holder. I believe this Is a good design for a poster as it not only looks eye catching and interesting it makes the decoder want to take an interest in the film as it gets the decoder imaging what the storyline is about.

When constructing my magazine cover and poster I decided to use Photoshop rather than the recommended Corel Draw. This is because I have more experience with using Photoshop and it is a lot simpler to use as importing images into the software is a lot easier, adding text to images in an attempt to anchor images to the text is a lot easier and finally, the editing of images and enhancement of images is much more effective in Photoshop.

Blogger is the website we used to display all our work, I found this a very helpful site to use as it kept all your work organized and available to be looked at by anyone. This made it easy for my teacher to mark and evaluate my work. It also allowed other students to give feedback on our work for example our film trailers.  The website is a very modern website which is easy to use and to set up. All you need is a email address and password and the majority of people used there school email which made this very simple. 

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

It is very important to complete some sort of audience feedback; this is because by receiving audience feedback it is helping to create a successful media text, which your decoders would want to purchase.  By holding a number of audience feedback sessions, I was able to gain advice about how to improve my work from start to finish.  Audience feedback is even very important at the highest level of producing films. Producers hold small cinema screenings to small audiences to gain feedback and ensure audience interest within the specific target audience.

We showed our draft to the class and received feedback on our basic outline of what our trailer is going to be based on. We received feedback on setting, plot, costume and characters. As we hadn’t fully developed our ideas at this point the audience feedback helped us edited are plot as it was said to of been “done a lot.”

We have an interview from Betty giving us feedback on our initial idea. This was a benefit to us as we could take the advice on board. We had changed are plot because of this feedback to his (Mark Steele) son being kidnapped and the challenges he has to go through to get his son back.  Also to receive some audience feedback we did a presentation of are idea to the class. The presentation including any clips we had shot for our new trailer and just our ideas we had come up with.  This helped us with things such as characters costumes. 

Social network sites allowed us to be able to receive audience feedback from a wide range of people mainly between the age of 16-20 as this is the average age group of my friends on Facebook meaning this group of people were able to view and comment on our trailer. We had feedback from many people saying "i would definitely watch that..... if the ending hadn't been revealed by the trailer." This is a fair comment as in the trailer it does show Mark Steele being reunited with his son. 

Click this link to view the comments made on our early footage 

Also we had uploaded this trailer to YouTube, this recieve 224 views and numerous comments. by having on this website it allows people to like and dislike the clip giving us a good indication of how popular it is and weather the  quality of filming and acting was of a higher enough standard. 

Film Trailer Magazine Cover

Film Trailer - Betrayal and Retribution

Locations

This shot was taken in the abandoned house in pembury, it was the perfect place for this particular scene to be filmed as it is quiete a dark, eerie, and depressing setting which was ideal for this clip. The house and the way in which the scene was filmed it all signifies how the character is feeling.

We had to be careful which classroom to use in school as we wanted the room to look more like an office than a classroom. Even thoug we have a shot from the school area we are trying to avoid using to much filming within the school as the area is very familiar and limits you to what you can express in each film clip and scene.

Locations

The first shot i am going to describe is the first shot to be showed in our trailer. The shot was taken from a hot air balloon looking over the countryside. The reason this clip was used is because it is the perfect scenary for where are main character lives. We where very lucky to be able to have this shot at our disposal, the reason is, is because earlier on in the year Jack Welch was in a hot air balloon and manage to film are openign shot.

Many of our shots were taken at Jeremey Razzells house, this is because it set the perfect scene for where we imagined are movie to be set. There was also other places such as the woods which was idea for further filming. In the shot on the "right" it expresses well that the area is secluded. Also by there being a worn down old garage in the shot that also helps to portray the emphasis that it is meant to be a really isolated and secluded home.

Betrayal & Retribution Poster