Evaluation Question 4 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the construction research planning and the evaluation aspect of my course media technologies have been a vital asset towards me completing my work, and without them I doubt I would have gotten this far.Media technologies enabled me to create two different posters alongside a group project which was to construct a slasher trailer to the best of my capabilities. While constructing my individual tasks that I have mentioned alongside the trailer the different technologies that I used to create them were solely from media technologies such as In-design, Adobe Photoshop,Microsoft word and Adobe Clip/Film-maker thus cutting down on time but also being sufficient in terms of quality.
These are the various search engines that I used in order to carry out my research further developing my knowledge on the slasher genre being limited from the start of the course. These search engines help yield a multitude of results enabling me to apply it to my own work such as when I carried out my primary and secondary research tasks. Carrying out my Primary Task media technologies enabled me to find out exactly what the general tropes and conventions were within the slasher genre as previously I presumed that the Horror and slasher genre were the same no not depicting the difference between movies such as the Exorcist and Friday the 13th apart, however now I understand the different sub textual differences between the sub genres.
Once I gathered a substantial amount of knowledge regarding the genre and subliminal conventions I began looking at pre-existing iconic slasher movies and began analysing them such as my The Shining analysis and Halloween Returns analysis. Through me continually analysing and further educating myself and researching the genre my analysis's and evaluations have become much stronger through the use of media technologies. I was able to test the accuracy of certain information based websites such as Wikipedia knowing that it is not common knowledge the site is run by account holders who may at some intervals upload inaccurate information.
As my task was to create a trailer poster and magazine I used the search engines that I have mentioned to look into pre-existing magazines and posters which led me to come upon Fangoria and Horror Hound magazines. These two magazine brands were crucial towards me establishing an understanding the conventional aspects of slasher magazines which was only possible for me through the access of the media. The reason as to why is that since modern society is quite helplessly reliant on its gadgets and the web there's been a digital divide to where people rarely use old media platforms such as news papers broad sheets and books because they are all accessible through the swipe of a finger. Due to this let alone these traditional magazine styles being unpopular in terms of modern society it would have been almost impossible for me to obtain these by hands by such means as attending a library. However through the access of different media platforms and technologies it has opened up different avenues in terms of accessibility to content that I would have been unable to get my hands on. Through this allowing me to visual analyse aesthetically what my product should look like.
In terms of how I used media technologies in terms of researching my trailer 'Amy' I me and my group decided that the best course of action would be to use the media platform called YouTube. I thoroughly believe that without the diverse amount of media technologies available to me the construction of my trailer would have been inevitable. Without having anything to reference my group nor I would have any inclining towards where to approach the project. So by accessing YouTube and utilizing the vast amount of trailers available we were able to gather a handful of what we thought to be conventional trailers (YouTube Search Results) and use them as a template. By analysing and researching the trailers we were able to see the placements of edits camera work and many media skills involved within the production side of trailer construction, thus allowing to come to the realisation of what our resources were capable and know that since we are tasked with making a low budget slasher movie we have to smart with the decisions that we carry out.
Furthermore in terms of my Primary and secondary tasks I used media technologies to gather information that I couldn't possibly gain access to without spending ample amounts of time going around the globe in search for critical information such as my secondary information displays the differences in the years how trends change. As I don't necessarily have access to contacts who are higher up within the industry critical information such as these are vital in terms of my knowledge of the course. So by using media technologies such as the search engines enabled me to uncover information I wouldn't have access to.
In regards to the planning phase of this course this is the stage that allowed me to thoroughly plan out what I had in mind to do from the results yielded from the different tasks that I carried out. The majority of what I carried out using different media text platforms such as Microsoft Word and power point slides for dialogue scenes such as the broken down version of my trailer (Dialogue). Furthermore using Microsoft Word enabled me and my group to write down important information on call sheets below.
Utilizing different media technologies even mobile phones helped with the planning phase of the trailer as it allowed the production team to pre emptively check up on our cast to ensure that everyone would be available on a certain day to shoot or in a worst case scenario we lost a member during a shoot we could have direct contact to them. I used the media technologies in order to double check for the group if certain days we had the go ahead in terms of weather sustainability. Within the UK it tends to rain quite frequently which would interfere with initial plans that we had for certain scenes to look like as rain has connotations that we may not want to convey within certain scenes. So by checking the weather through my mobile phone it enabled us to shoot more frequently at a more organized pace than what we would have initially. Different aspects of media technologies within the planning phase of this course are vital as it allows me and my group to have a multi-platform approach towards the course grasping onto every opportunity available to us.
Looking at the various different stages that my magazine went front cover elaborates the different ways that I was able to dabble with media technologies to obtain a somewhat professionalised front cover. This magazine front cover to the right was one of the first drafts that I had accomplished and was quite proud of however understanding that there were much lengths still to go. Due to this I began further de-constructing pre-existing magazine front covers to get a textual base for what I wanted my magazine to appear as. By using Adobe Photoshop I was able to create different layer masks and correctly lasso(crop out) my main image to where I could apply it onto the background image for my magazines front cover. Once I had accomplished this I began using different avenues of Adobe Photoshop to acquire the final product. One of the main different media technologies that I used within Adobe Photoshop was adjusting the different saturation and contrasts within the background image. It is visible within the first image on the left and the second
image below it the atmosphere it conveys with the darkened wood thematics applied. Further along the line I began applying the brand identity which I acquired through Google images exporting the photo into Photoshop, then editing it keeping it red after to represent the established brand identity being full aware that my product is a low budget project not having the publicity nor the influence to force the hand of Empire magazines to change their brand identity to cater for my product as they would for an industry such as DC or Marvel who are well established. Another tool that I used within Photoshop is the creation of a camera like flare ricocheting/reflecting off of the killers
weapon to convey many different symbolic meanings. Once I had acquired the desired base of my magazines main image Imported it onto InDesign to where I began applying different layers of text onto it to the point where I had the finalised product. Present below.
In regards to my trailer I used Google to look into different story boards to understand the general layout for which a trailer should follow. One of the main highly detailed story boards that I came upon which heavily influenced some of the decisions made within my trailer was the Exorcist story board.
Even though the genre doesn't necessarily fit the articulated approach that we have been tasked with (slasher) this gave us something to base our story board off of as a template. By utilizing different media technologies it enabled us to finalise configure our trailer in order to acquire an accomplished project. Using certain plate cards along with having it fit alongside our story board helped us aesthetically have the right idea in terms of the construction going along with the plan.
In terms of Evaluation Primarily all of the answers I have given have been from this media platform Blogger. The reason as to why is that I feel that this was the most suited to my way of working as I have shown throughout the course of the year that I have used multiple different media technologies such as YouTube to create analysis's various different other platforms such as Prezi's and Slideshare to create presentations. I necessarily prefer the more basic easier to navigate approach rather than the flashy technologies that can end up confusing me in the process of constructing it myself. The only issue with Blogger I might add is that viewing my blog as a whole starts from the finalised product rather than the bottom up which I have made note of at the start of my blog.
In the end media technologies are vital in the creation of this coursework and I doubt that I could have accomplished any of this without the technological aspect of it alongside the hard working group members that I had alongside me. With the technological media aspect of it, it is very convenient that We as students are able to access it from any location at any time which is a vital bonus towards it.
Research Phase
Before I could even begin the construction side or the planning areas of the project, what was mandatory to complete was the research phase. The reason as to why this was so crucial to my work is that through explanation my teachers could only give me a brief inkling in to what was required of me. However through further research and studying of the course/genre of slasher movies I was able to educate myself in terms of what tropes are conventions through visual analysis's. Some of the various media technologies that I used to aid my research was Google,Bing and Firefox.
These are the various search engines that I used in order to carry out my research further developing my knowledge on the slasher genre being limited from the start of the course. These search engines help yield a multitude of results enabling me to apply it to my own work such as when I carried out my primary and secondary research tasks. Carrying out my Primary Task media technologies enabled me to find out exactly what the general tropes and conventions were within the slasher genre as previously I presumed that the Horror and slasher genre were the same no not depicting the difference between movies such as the Exorcist and Friday the 13th apart, however now I understand the different sub textual differences between the sub genres.Once I gathered a substantial amount of knowledge regarding the genre and subliminal conventions I began looking at pre-existing iconic slasher movies and began analysing them such as my The Shining analysis and Halloween Returns analysis. Through me continually analysing and further educating myself and researching the genre my analysis's and evaluations have become much stronger through the use of media technologies. I was able to test the accuracy of certain information based websites such as Wikipedia knowing that it is not common knowledge the site is run by account holders who may at some intervals upload inaccurate information.
As my task was to create a trailer poster and magazine I used the search engines that I have mentioned to look into pre-existing magazines and posters which led me to come upon Fangoria and Horror Hound magazines. These two magazine brands were crucial towards me establishing an understanding the conventional aspects of slasher magazines which was only possible for me through the access of the media. The reason as to why is that since modern society is quite helplessly reliant on its gadgets and the web there's been a digital divide to where people rarely use old media platforms such as news papers broad sheets and books because they are all accessible through the swipe of a finger. Due to this let alone these traditional magazine styles being unpopular in terms of modern society it would have been almost impossible for me to obtain these by hands by such means as attending a library. However through the access of different media platforms and technologies it has opened up different avenues in terms of accessibility to content that I would have been unable to get my hands on. Through this allowing me to visual analyse aesthetically what my product should look like.In terms of how I used media technologies in terms of researching my trailer 'Amy' I me and my group decided that the best course of action would be to use the media platform called YouTube. I thoroughly believe that without the diverse amount of media technologies available to me the construction of my trailer would have been inevitable. Without having anything to reference my group nor I would have any inclining towards where to approach the project. So by accessing YouTube and utilizing the vast amount of trailers available we were able to gather a handful of what we thought to be conventional trailers (YouTube Search Results) and use them as a template. By analysing and researching the trailers we were able to see the placements of edits camera work and many media skills involved within the production side of trailer construction, thus allowing to come to the realisation of what our resources were capable and know that since we are tasked with making a low budget slasher movie we have to smart with the decisions that we carry out.
Furthermore in terms of my Primary and secondary tasks I used media technologies to gather information that I couldn't possibly gain access to without spending ample amounts of time going around the globe in search for critical information such as my secondary information displays the differences in the years how trends change. As I don't necessarily have access to contacts who are higher up within the industry critical information such as these are vital in terms of my knowledge of the course. So by using media technologies such as the search engines enabled me to uncover information I wouldn't have access to.
Planning phase
In regards to the planning phase of this course this is the stage that allowed me to thoroughly plan out what I had in mind to do from the results yielded from the different tasks that I carried out. The majority of what I carried out using different media text platforms such as Microsoft Word and power point slides for dialogue scenes such as the broken down version of my trailer (Dialogue). Furthermore using Microsoft Word enabled me and my group to write down important information on call sheets below.
Construction
The construction side of my trailer magazine and poster was solely reliant on different media technologies as the completion of it would have been impossible. In regards to the photography for both my magazine and poster the main images photo was taken through the lens of a digital camera. Even
through testing the cameras capabilities with various different shot types to be able to get the acquired contrast in terms of the cameras visual capabilities became a huge asset in the construction phase. By adjusting the lens's flare and ratio's it enabled me get the acquired main image that is that of my magazines main image along with my poster.
Looking at the various different stages that my magazine went front cover elaborates the different ways that I was able to dabble with media technologies to obtain a somewhat professionalised front cover. This magazine front cover to the right was one of the first drafts that I had accomplished and was quite proud of however understanding that there were much lengths still to go. Due to this I began further de-constructing pre-existing magazine front covers to get a textual base for what I wanted my magazine to appear as. By using Adobe Photoshop I was able to create different layer masks and correctly lasso(crop out) my main image to where I could apply it onto the background image for my magazines front cover. Once I had accomplished this I began using different avenues of Adobe Photoshop to acquire the final product. One of the main different media technologies that I used within Adobe Photoshop was adjusting the different saturation and contrasts within the background image. It is visible within the first image on the left and the second 
image below it the atmosphere it conveys with the darkened wood thematics applied. Further along the line I began applying the brand identity which I acquired through Google images exporting the photo into Photoshop, then editing it keeping it red after to represent the established brand identity being full aware that my product is a low budget project not having the publicity nor the influence to force the hand of Empire magazines to change their brand identity to cater for my product as they would for an industry such as DC or Marvel who are well established. Another tool that I used within Photoshop is the creation of a camera like flare ricocheting/reflecting off of the killers 
weapon to convey many different symbolic meanings. Once I had acquired the desired base of my magazines main image Imported it onto InDesign to where I began applying different layers of text onto it to the point where I had the finalised product. Present below.
In regards to my trailer I used Google to look into different story boards to understand the general layout for which a trailer should follow. One of the main highly detailed story boards that I came upon which heavily influenced some of the decisions made within my trailer was the Exorcist story board.
Even though the genre doesn't necessarily fit the articulated approach that we have been tasked with (slasher) this gave us something to base our story board off of as a template. By utilizing different media technologies it enabled us to finalise configure our trailer in order to acquire an accomplished project. Using certain plate cards along with having it fit alongside our story board helped us aesthetically have the right idea in terms of the construction going along with the plan.
Evaluation
In terms of Evaluation Primarily all of the answers I have given have been from this media platform Blogger. The reason as to why is that I feel that this was the most suited to my way of working as I have shown throughout the course of the year that I have used multiple different media technologies such as YouTube to create analysis's various different other platforms such as Prezi's and Slideshare to create presentations. I necessarily prefer the more basic easier to navigate approach rather than the flashy technologies that can end up confusing me in the process of constructing it myself. The only issue with Blogger I might add is that viewing my blog as a whole starts from the finalised product rather than the bottom up which I have made note of at the start of my blog.In the end media technologies are vital in the creation of this coursework and I doubt that I could have accomplished any of this without the technological aspect of it alongside the hard working group members that I had alongside me. With the technological media aspect of it, it is very convenient that We as students are able to access it from any location at any time which is a vital bonus towards it.
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