How did you use media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

ConstructionIn this stage, the main technology used was Final Cut Pro. on Apple Macs. Here, we split, trimmed, cropped, slowed and added in transitions and titles to the footages we shot on Megan’s Canon GPS camera to construct our trailer. We also used Soundtrack Pro., where we created our own music to be included in the trailer as non-diagetic sound and also effects such as gunshots which were meant to be a part of the diagetic sound within the trailer.

For our ancillary tasks, we used Adobe Photoshop CS5, where we used special effects such as ‘Poster Edges’ in order to edit our images in order to give our images an ‘illustrated’ effect as we identified from our research that it was a common convention used in other Western texts. As we used Photoshop only to edit our images, we used Microsoft Publisher to actually construct the whole text.

These programmes were very useful as gave us the opportunity to learn several new techniques in the construction of texts and really allowed us to achieve a high standard of finish as these are programmes that even professionals use.

How did you use media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research & PlanningFor our research and planning, we used Survey Monkey as a method of constructing and sending out our questionnaire to the audiences. By doing this we got responses a lot faster than during our AS productions where we handed out physical questionnaires, so it proved to be a lot more efficient.

We also used YouTube as a platform to find other trailers and full length films in order to carry out research and analysis into the codes and conventions of our genre and also to intertextualise. It was a great way of finding an abundance of material to work with and analysis so that we could clearly identify trends and patterns.

Also in the research and planning stage, Megan made use of Windows Movie Maker as a quick and easy method of putting together her findings of genre research by splitting up a trailer and inserting her analysis in between clips.

EvaluationIn this stage, we again used Final Cut Pro and Microsoft Publisher in order to make minor changes in response to the audience feedback, which we obtained by e-mailing our rough drafts of the poster, magazine cover and trailer to a variety of people who fell under our target audience and asking for their thoughts and responses.

Also, we used Blogger, throughout the different stages as a means of posting updates about the progress of the project. It provided the group a great way to keep in touch and to track what each one of us were doing. It also helped to be able to see for ourselves how the project was developing.