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

The media technology I used to discover a selection of real media products was a software called YouTube. The following Software is an international platform which includes a large sum of videos ranging from vlogs to comedy. However, in order to ensure that I found exactly what I was looking for, I specifically went on the account ‘Movieclips Trailers’. The following channel contains a total of more than 200 videos from different film genres but because of the channels collection of videos, this meant that I had to be very precise on what I wanted the trailer to include. And because of this, I searched ‘kids’ in the search engine, which gave me multiple options to choose from. For example, I came across trailers such as ‘Insidious’, ‘Orphan’ and ‘Case 39’ however, trailers which stood out to me, was obviously ‘Sinister 2’, ‘The Boy’ and ‘Before I Wake’ since I started to analyze them in order to find inspiration for my trailer. Once I watched a list of real media products, I then began to construct my trailer.

One of the main forms of construction was sound and by continuing to use YouTube, I discovered a variety of horror sounds ranging from ambient noises, to sound effects such as scream. Looking back on my survey, when I asked my sample group what the main features of horror trailers, 10 out of 17 people said that Music was the main feature meaning that it was twice as important to find the right sound for my trailer. In addition, by looking at my first draft for my trailer, you can see how music has a large contribution to adding pace to the trailer meaning that I also had to be very specific when searching for music, and did this by typing key words such as ‘scary rock music’, ‘scary piano music’, ‘child screaming’ and ‘cinematic booms’. By combining all four sound effects together furthermore foreshadows the jump scares in the trailer as well as mystery between the characters.

Another media technology I used for the form of construction in my trailer was the software Photoshop. I have had previous knowledge with the software since I have used the same technology to create my AS magazine. In addition, I have developed my knowledge of Photoshop through the use of color since the software had different options to change the tone and vibrancy of an image as well as changing the style of font. This therefore means that the software allowed me to edit my images to a high standard that would fit the codes and conventions of horror magazines and posters.

Thirdly, I used the editing software Final Cut Pro to create my audience research, auditions and most importantly, my trailer. The following software was very easy to adapt to since each effect, transition and text format were put in to a separate folder and had small previews on top of the name. Because of this, I was able to experiment with a range of effects in order to create my tone cards. For example, for my first trailer, Foster Me, I created the images for the tones cards with the use of Photoshop before using Final Cut Pro to experiment with effects such as: ‘Projector’, ‘Directional Blur’, ‘Rain’, ‘Aged Film’ and ‘Vignette’. In addition to this, the variety of options meant that I

was able to edit my tone cards in any style I believed would transition well with my trailer. The same applies with my tone cards for my official trailer, Fostered, since my trailer included a lot of glitches and flicker effects, and because I was able to apply the same effects to my tone cards, therefore meant that I did not have to worry about the transitions between different scenes or tone cards. Also, despite the fact that Final Cut Pro, allowed me to apply different effects to my tone cards and videos, I also had full control of when and where to compose a layer of sound to layer the music overall making the production of my trailer simple to edit.

Finally, the most important technology I used for the construction of my trailer was my camera. For the sake of my trailer, I upgraded my camera lense from a 18-55mm standard lense to a 35mm wide-angle cinematic lense. By doing this, this instantly upgraded the quality of my trailer since the lense clearly added a strong depth of field towards the actors and actresses causing them to be the main focal length in each scene.

In terms of planning, I used word document to plan each schedule I made and shared this on another media technology called Slideshare. The following software allowed me to compile all of my written work in a format that was suitable for the site, Blogger. This is another software I used to present the stages of my trailer.

On the other hand, similar to my last evaluation, I have continued to use Photoshop to create every single word and highlight the stages of my trailer. Finally, with the use of Final Cut Pro, I am able to sync the images with my voice and overall, hope that you have enjoyed my evaluation.