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

These images above illustrate all the technologies we used to produce our teaser trailer.

The advantages of Web 2.0 technologies for low budget/no budget film makers are that with the availability of the websites and software such as the ones above, own media texts can be made, distributed, researched and promoted.

These technologies enabled me to learn new things and create using more complex programmes. For example, learning and becoming confident using the different tools on Final Cut Pro. Which could now become useful to me in other areas of my education.

PHOTOSHOP: Photoshop enabled me to create my ancillery texts, which include my film poster and magazine cover. This programme means I could upload images of my choice and edit them using the different tools and effects. This was helpful when creating these texts to make them realistic. A text tool was also used so I could layer my writing over the top of the images to stick to the conventions of a usual poster and magazine.

GARAGEBAND - Garageband is music composition software which we used to create original sounds and also to distort rights-free music and voices. It enabled us to create an effective sound track by adding reverb and mixing instruments. 

YOUTUBE: I used YouTube while reasearching for our main product. This was to view old and current trailers to gain knowledge of the conventions, analyse them and recognise the camera work/techniques used. We also used this website to upload our first draft of our teaser trailers and then our final trailer. This made it easier for us to then upload to our blog.

FINAL CUT PRO: After filming our first footage for our trailer using a video camera we connected it to a Mac computer and transfered it onto a programme called Final Cut Pro. This enabled us to edit and add sound effects to our footage and bring it together as a trailer. With a timeline style format it makes the shots easier to rearrange and edit. Effects we used on this programme include an old TV, to make the picture look distorted and a flash between shots which messed with the footage. Final Cut also enabled us to add our images from photoshop, for example, our title which we put on the programme to edit the colours. To begin with Final Cut seemed quite a complex programme but the more I played around the more I got to know it and understood the editing process.

DIGITAL CAMERA: We used a digital camera to photograph the girl we used in our trailer for images to create our ancillery texts.

MY FONTS.COM: This is a distributor of digital fonts. We used this website to find the font we used for our 'Alice' title.

FLICKR: This website gave us access to upload photo's and annotate them using tags. This task could then be linked straight to our blogs so when viewing the annotations on the blog it links you to flickr. I used this when reseaching ancillery texts before it came to creating my own.

MAC COMPUTER: This is the computer we used to create our trailer. It has the appropriate programme (Final Cut Pro.) to edit our footage and complete our main product.

IPHONE: This is the mobile phone I have. I used this to contact members of the group to arrange filming time and create schedules for completing work.

VIDEO CAMERA: We used this device to record all our scenes and footage to create our teaser trailer. When filming for some of the scenes we used a Tripod to keep the camera steady if the character was moving. Other than this most of our usage was handheld because of the way we were responding to a conventional low-budget, britsh film and this is what it expected. Another feature we used was nightmode, it had an shadow effect on the girl in the shot and helped with the conventions of a horror genre.

GOOGLE: Google is a popular search engine used worldwide. I use this daily to search anything I'm willing to find out. This included searching for images and particular posters and magazines for when reseaching and creating my ancillery texts. This also helped me gather the logo's for this post.

BLOGGER: This website was useful because we could upload and produce posts to record our work and show development post by post. When creating the blog a choice of background is available to create a taster of your identity and the genre of work. An advantage of Blogger is that it enables you to record and evaluate word without it seeming in essay format which helps me personally to stay focused and become more keen on completing the work.