Mac: Without a mac this trailer would not have been possible. We used a great deal of footage to construct our trailer and memory from the mac and the programs we used were only available on the mac. The wide screen and sheer size allowed us to see each effect we added very clearly whether it be changing the colour of the scene to adding 'Bad TV' effect.
Facebook: Facebook allowed us to carry out audience feedback by posting the youtube link on our walls and allows all of our friends to watch it and tell us what they thought. We were also able to post the surveymonkey URL on there so that they could fill out our questionnaire which gave us our beginning research.
Photoshop: This is what we used to create both our ancillary products. We could layer, add effects, rotate and, well, pretty much anything on this program, the limitations are endless. I depended on use of layers for both my poster and magazine as I could overlap and add textures to the background/foreground.
LiveType: For the first couple of inter-titles in our trailer we used ‘LiveType.’ This program allowed us to create different effects in a massive range of fonts for different effects. For example, the very beginning of our trailer sees a tilt up on the silhouette of a building and over this we see ‘Wicken production presents.’ This is in a very gothicy style of writing which relates to the theme of the complete trailer. There are many more effects for instance ‘Live fonts’ which is moving fonts which you can place on footage if you pleased.
Blogger: This is where we blog our entire coursework. Its ability to let us post/link and organise all of our writing, add colour, links and pictures is a really good way to show what we are capable of. We could access it at all times and our teachers are able to see if we met deadlines too!
Camcorder: We used this to film our trailer. We were able to get canted angles, weird framing and to help us we could use a tripod.
Camera: As we went along we took pictures to show the process of us filming but we later realised that none of them were suitable for our ancillary products so we had to go out and shoot again!
Garageband: Using garageband I found really hard to use in the beginning but when I got my head around the concepts of it we were able to figure out how to add tracks and we put our soundtrack, which I thought was ok but not perfect, together with the trailer and created a few effects that remained in the trailer itself.
Google/The Internet: One of the most significant and revolutionary things known to man. I was able to undertake extensive research into the horror genre, different movies, posters, magazine covers and get sounds. This trailer would not have been a tenth as good if it was not for the internet.
Final Cut Pro: This program allowed us to put together our raw video and add effects to the footage a good example of this would be turning a daylight scene into a night scene. We were able to layer different scenes which allowed us to create horror conventions. For example, increasing the contrast and lowering the brightness we were able to increase shadow opacity and make them really stand out. We could also place one scene directly on top of another created the illusion of a ghost (because both clips were identical we decreased the opacity of the clip with the moving person on it and only the movement is visible. We could add effects such as 'Bad TV' and changed the footage like Photoshop allows us to change a still image. This is a superb program and worth the time and effort to get to use because the time really paid off as you can see in our trailer. To begin with it was hard but we found out how to import the footage. There was a timeline at the bottom which allowed us to put on certain clips, we could choose how much or little we wanted of a clip and then we could fade it in or out or just directly cut it in so it just appears. Changing the hue, saturation, contrast was a piece of cake for this program and after a while the shortcuts were much easier to use.
The evaluation for this project was helped massively by the use of the blog and computer software. Instead of handing in an essay for the justifications and other elements I was able to illustrate my thoughts and ideas of why my group chose the outcomes. Final Cut Pro allowed me to put into detail what I thought of evaluation point 2. I was able to do a voice over my trailer and add in visuals so the audience could see what I was talking about and how it was relevant. I prefur doing a blog to writing an essay because where I am not so good at writing essays, I can use pictures, colourful writing, links and videos to demonstrate my knowledge and understanding.
Throughout this project I have used a number of different programs which allowed my group and I to achieve a great range of styles and conventions.
This is good on production. You need more on the processes of research and planning, and how the technology helps you in those areas, and particularly on the evaluation. What difference does it make doing an evaluation on a blog compared to say writing it as an essay? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Which do you prefer? Why?
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