Evaluation Question 4

Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Each of the stages of our project relate completely to theory of 'Hanging Around, Messing About, Geeking Out' this theory explains the stages based on the 'digital natives' meaning the young generation  and how they are almost becoming subconscious to the growing dependency on technology as we are using it more and more every day. Some of the most productive experiences come when hanging around and messing about.

Peace/ John - Hanging Around. 

Through out this project, many media technologies were the source in which we have fully taken advantage of in order to produce a successful trailer. We have used many forms of media technology in order to upload, post, edit and for research. Without the use of media technology, this project would not be possible and we wouldn’t have been as successful. As Moore’s law explains technologies are improving at exponential rates, meaning technology is evolving approximately every two years, for example, processors are becoming smaller but double their performance. This shows that we are potentially becoming more capable in producing better quality products with the more advanced technology available to us.

For our planning and research, we have chosen to stick with Blogger, a free and online blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs to upload and share contents. We are all familiar to this website as all of us have used it before during our AS project, which makes Blogger ideal for uploading  and presenting our project work. We believe that sticking with Blogger can give us an advantage because we are all familiarised with the website and this allowed us to present our production much clearer and effectively than using a website that we have not come across before. We’ve also kept in minds that it is very important of us to keep out work presented clearly and effectively, keeping the work attractive and at its highest standards, therefore it is always best to keep to those that we are most experienced in when we have a limited amount of time.

Blogger is very effective and easy to use plus Blogger is very well known and famously used worldwide. What was interesting was that Blogger had updated to become more attractive, effective and even more practical. There are now more templates, design and most importantly, the layout. Blogger’s update has now made everything of its service more human friendly. For example, when creating a new post, the boarder is much bigger and the new utility layout is much more effective. This makes life much easier because everything is spread out including the space for where we publish our work as shown below. This means we can see more of our work as we edit our post and everything is not cramped together which means a less chance for mistakes to happen and a better presentation.

Old Blogger Layout

 New Blogger Layout

The internet plays a very important role on this planet, without it, technology is limited. The internet is worldwide, interactive, massive, in used everyday, available non-stop, and available to us to take advantage. In order for us to gather information for the project we’ve used the internet to gather our research, and to be précised we’ve used a mixture of website such as ‘Google’ and ‘Youtube’ which has allowed us to find images, make-up tutorials, Photoshop effects and brushes, and many more. Google was very important because we’ve collected many images of film posters, which we’ve merged together to form a moodboard to help us plan out our ideas towards our final film poster.  We’ve also done the same when planning for our final magazine front cover and with the help of these images; it gave us the potential to produce an effective and successful film poster and magazine front cover.  Youtube was also very significant since we didn’t have any lessons on make-up, we had no skills in make-up design therefore we’ve taken advantage of Youtube, which is a video-sharing website where we can view, share, comment and upload videos. Form Youtube, we’ve found many useful make-up tutorial that has help us experiment and gain experience to prepare us when it comes to our filming. We have made a couple videos that we’ve uploaded to our Youtube channel so that it can be linked to our blog,  for example, we’ve uploaded the trailer itself, we added a couple of different shots and angel to demonstrate the different shots that were used in our trailer, our initial soundtrack, filming experience and our audience research.

We’ve also used ‘Survey Monkey’ which is a free website that enables users to create their own web-survey and we have used this for our audience research to gather direct opinions from friends and families, other students and even teachers. From using this service, we have collected details on the audience’s interest to help us successful achieve when attracting their attention to our products. We’ve even used other devices such as out phones for our audience research to gather their opinions, for instance, Text Messages and Video record which is shown in our ‘PRE: Audience Research’.

We have been inspired by a film called ‘Dread’ (2010) a horror film directed by Anthony DiBlasi, which is about a couple of students doing a project on greatest fear and character named Quaid had experienced his parents  murdered by an axe murderer as a child. He later on turns this project anticlockwise, where kidnaps Cheryl and locks her in a room with a huge piece of beef. Cheryl, who is editing the project, was abused by her father as a girl, and her father was a butcher which gave her the phobia of meat.  Our team have all seen this film and I, personally have seen this via live TV on channel Film4. Some of our team members have watched this film in cinema and others may have watched it on their iPhone(s) or others.

 Ryan - Messing About 

Before we began filming for our teaser trailer, we went through many practice sessions. We did test shots for dollying, crabbing, tracking, steady cam...etc whether that be on our own cameras or college cameras. We also familiarised setting up tripods and other equipment to save time when the filming day came and also to be aware of any safety rules. The most important thing we practiced was lighting. We went through many experiments with different lighting and angles to see the different outcomes of each one. Lighting is one of, if not the most important elements when filming, especially for a horror related film. 

When handling the camera and its technologies, the most important aspect was getting the focus on point whilst moving the camera at the same time. It was also very important to count in and out when shooting footage so that the actors/actresses knew when to begin acting and when to end. Also, it sometimes takes a moment to begin filming, therefore if you pressed the record button and began shooting the scene instantly, there is a possibility you may miss a second or two at the start. 

 Eilish - Geeking out

Here is a video of the uses of Final Cut Pro, we initially created a rough cut which was simply an order of shots according to our storyboard. which is the line that you see at the bottom of the screen. As you can see in the video, there are loads of different effects which you can add to your visuals to create the best effect possible. Final Cut Pro is a very simple software, once you understand how to import your footage, cut it to how you want and compose it in the order you want you have the basic outline for you to actually start editing. There is the option of adding text, transitions and all different types of effects. The only negative comment would be rendering which is also shown in the video. Once you have changed the length of a shot or added a filter to it, in order for you to see the outcome you have to render which can take a little while depending on what you are rendering. Once you have added filters/effects to your chosen shot you are also able to edit them pretty easily, you can edit or even delete by clicking on the shot itself. As none of our team were accustom to Final cut Pro and how it worked, one person took charge of actually editing while consulting with the other team members. 

The Information age means that Digital Technology is essential to the young, the old and everyone among today’s Society, at home and at work; at least that is what expected. Many people don’t realise there are people who are limited to the Digital Technology they are able to access and others are non-existent and are unknown to this new Information Age. Depending on the surroundings of an Individual would decide for them how much access is available. The Impact of this huge divide from all different walks of life, also how much the Digital Divide has enhanced change in the society? As stated, the Digital Divide is the difference between people and their availability to Information and Communication Technologies, referring to the Internet also. The Digital divide creates economical and social consequences, how far these go is debated thoroughly. The Digital Divide is debated constantly, which means that it’s hard to section off the problems and put them to different peoples, which contrasts to the reasons why it exists. Some countries are information rich such as the UK and then there are countries which are information poor such as somalia who are unable to advance along with those who are able. 

But what is Digital?
Digital is the storage of information with the use of codes and numbers. In reference to media, the technologies which we are working with are ultimately surrounded by codes. With the use of numbers its all or nothing, with 1 being all and 0 being nothing, there are 256 colours which all have their own code to create the transition from the taking the image onto uploading it on this blog as evidence of our work. As we are working with loads of numbers there are calculations constantly taking place which we are subconscious to.

In terms of our media coursework, we have had the privilege of working with some of the more advanced technologies which has implemented our outcome immensely. Without being the age we are and within the generation in which we are, we have grown up and have a head start when it comes to some of the new technologies although there are things that we have to learn and become accustom to in order for us to use the technologies effectively. We were able to create our work using a mac and we were then able to share it also on a mac. From taking a single picture and editing it, we were then able to share it with hundreds of people on a social networking site such as www.facebook.com  for them to view our work. We are also able to share them on websites such as www.youtube.com which is also a  worldwide website meaning that people around the world are able to view our work.

We, as a country are transferring from push technologies to pull technologies. A few years ago, we only had Analog radio, Newspapers and VHS video players which have been transformed into Sky Boxes, DVD players and the Internet which means that we are now able to select what we are watching and reading about. This might have a negative impact as if we created a VHS then it would be the only option on the video although we wouldn't be able to show as many people al over the world. The negative with using the internet is that not everyone is interested and they can easily just dismiss it or never even see it at all although its there for people to see.