Evaluation: Question Four

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

New media was used throughout my project and gave me knowledge of new ways to construct and research into the best possible ways of planning both independently and within my group.

Research Stage:
Firstly the main aim of my primary research was to understand the concept and roles that each media and advertisement played and the best way to approach this. I analysed a selection of film posters, teaser trailers and magazine front covers ranging in different genres to give me a sound understanding of the importance of mise en scene, layout and the codes and conventions I should follow. To access the teaser trailers I used Youtube which played a huge role within both my primary and secondary research. Two of our members within our group created YouTube accounts so that we could upload our audience feedback and finalised trailer which allowed us to then publish on to our blogs. It was also a way for us to send links out to our audience via facebook to help with feedback. Youtube allowed me to pause and replay the teaser trailers of other films over and over again so that I could thoroughly analyse the conventions they followed and understand the construction. I could compare how the different genres took on different approaches and when I came to do my further research I used it to watch Adulthood and compare the length of the teaser trailer to the finalised trailer and how the amount of storyline and approach differs.

Google and Google images was the main web search I used in finding further research into audience, film posters, film magazine and is what lead me to IMDB were I could access audience demographic breakdowns of films, trailers and added information. I also used this website for research into cross media campaign which was important for me to understand for when we came to produce our final products. I researched into other uses of new media and created a post of evaluation on each of the programmes I would be using further down the production schedule such as final cut, Photoshop and imovie. I got my information from Google again and any previous information or experience I had with these programmes. My questionnaire on target audience was sent out via Facebook because we thought this was the best way to target and get quick feedback because it is new media used daily by the typical audience we wanted to aim our product at. We did print off this questionnaire as handouts around college and another group member used GoogleMail although this wasn't as successful as Facebook.

Planning and Construction Stage:
At the planning and construction stage it was crucial that I used a wide use of new media because I needed to accommodate each area of planning with a specialised new media technology in order to develop on my ideas and the quality of my work.

One of the first things we had to do when we came to do the construction and planning was to create an animatic storyboard, this was done on Final Cut Pro. Ellie sketched our storyboard and the shot types we would be using and then we put them into a sequence alongside the music that Tim and his friend has produced using Logic Studio. By doing this at such an early stage we were able to refer back to it and develop on our ideas and as a group build on what we had and criticise areas that needed improvement. It gave us a basic idea of how our storyline would be constructed and when we printed off the storyboard we could use it for when we came to film so we had a plan that we could follow to prevent time waste.

We used a Sony HUR-V1E instead of the Sony A1E because of availability and also because we were recommended that it was a better camera. It had a wider dynamic range, better colour quality and also produced less noise which showed dramatically in the quality of our film and test shots. Because the majority of our filming was hand held we needed a better quality camera to ensure our filming was smooth, we did however use the tripod for the fight scene and more establishing shots. Before we started our shooting we had spent a few lessons filming test shots so we were comfortable with the camera and had an understanding of how to experiment with the exposure controls and how to change the set the white balance which we had to do by placing a white sheet of paper in front of the lens and manually adjust it. We had to adjust the focus ring to keep our shots in focus and lighting was a major issue especially because we did the majority of filming in the evening or late afternoon to keep in with the convention of our genre and the dark lighting to create the sinister approach we needed. I wasn't familiar with the Sony HUR-V1E and Sony A1E before this project however I now know the basic functions and enjoyed learning how to film and collaborate shots.

For our test shoots, contact sheets and ancillary tasks we used my Nikon D60, a high quality digital camera. The photos were of a high standard and it meant that when we came to Photoshop and edits the photos pixilation didn't occur because of the high resolution. Because of my knowledge of shutter speed and aperture we got some good shots and were able to follow the conventions of our genre. Both myself and two other members within our group have knowledge behind photography and are used to handling Nikons and Canons so positioning, rule of thirds and mise en scene was familiar to use which helped when we came to shoot and produce our ancillary products. As a group we came up with a shooting schedule which worked around both our own and our actor’s timetables, we had two different shots. One in the studio and one on location, here we chose a small alleyway next to the college which has low lighting and is surrounded by a housing estate. For this shoot Ellie was in charge and took photos on her Canon 450D and changed the ISO and shutter speed in order to prevent bleaching or unfocused and dark images. For the studio shoot I was in charge and used the soft box on the main character with a dark backdrop, I then set my shutter speed at 125 and my ISO to 400. Portrait and landscaped photos were taken on both shoots and were used as test shoots and contact sheets so we could see were if any improvements were needed.

We designed our film poster, magazine front cover and edited the majority of our images and fonts using Photoshop. It was probably the program I enjoyed working with the most because it allows you to be creative with the tools available; enhancing, cropping, trimming, and adding text. It allowed us to produce high quality work to a professional standard. Ellie worked on the film poster and we all had our own input. As a group we decided that our mock up was lacking in excitement and finally decided that the background/location wasn't working even after changing the hue and saturation levels. Ellie took photos of urban locations and used the selection tool to cut the characters from the previous location to a new landscape shot of iron fencing. This then allowed us to reposition the characters slightly and move Steon into the foreground more to emphasise his status within the film. This new background also gave use more room to work with on the placement of our film title, production and actors list, film logos and taglines.

We experimented with the title colour and decided that the red was too much of a distraction from the image, we still wanted our cast list to stand out but the main focus point needed to be on the image and the film title which we felt wasn't the case with this colour scheme. In the end we chose blue and white and used a outer glow to look like graffiti. We also experimented with the positioning of the cast list and decided they looked better above the film title and also allowed us to present the production team below spacing them out.

With the film magazine cover both me and Ellie produced our own basic mock ups were we focused on the layout and design rather then the article types. This allowed us to get together as a group and analyse the pros and cons. My previous research into film magazine taught me the extremes between Empire magazine and the large amount of text to Little White Lies which was more creative and imagery based. I also found an article in the Media Magazine which I scanned in and published on my blog, this gave an analysis on the importance of design layout and the techniques we should be looking at.

http://gracereohorn.blogspot.com/2011/01/magazine-design-layout-analysis.html

Photoshop was the programme we used for our magazine cover. We decided to challenge the convention of typical cross media campaign and used a different photography of our main character this time taking on a more intimidating role with the gun aimed towards to audience and his body language being far more tense. To get the dim and grey tint to the image we experimented with the levels and curves which gave more dimension to the image. It also created the idea of hardship and depression which is often portrayed in this genre and emphasised by the lighting used in both the film and the advertisment products.

Ellie experimented with a tool that I wasn't familiar with called radical blur, this gave the impression of movement surrounding the character and could also be used as emphasise on the action of the gun being fired or aimed towards the audience because it makes them feel uneasy which is what this tool achieves. The eraser was used to ensure the main character remained in focus whilst his surroundings distorted. By using layers we were able to achieve different levels of saturation and keep the main character sharp and in colour whilst the background was darkened with the black and white colour tool. When we were satisfied with our final image as a group the image was transferred to a new age and we started to create the magazine front cover around it by adding the mast head and articles. All of our fonts came from dafont.com because of the range of fonts and the easy access of transferring them from the internet to our work. We used the colour scheme of red and white which we experimented with on our film poster but chose against. It worked much better with the magazine cover because we wanted the cover to look busy and attract a wider audience; this was achieved by using a variety of articles and cover stories.

We used final cut pro to edit our filming on and because Tim has had more experience with this programme he was responsible for the main production whilst as a group we worked on the collaboration together. We selected the shots we wanted to use and sequenced them along the lower section of the programme, once we were satisfied with the sequencing and it followed close enough to our previously animated storyboard Tim dragged the music and fitted in alongside the shots so that the pace of the music was in time with each shot. We wanted to create excitement and thrill so the fast pace of the music was important. Timing was one of the most important aspects of our production so we spent a lot of time getting this right. Title cards were added were necessary for the tagline and the film title, if we had more time and had been quicker on deciding the font for our film title we would have also included this in our trailer so that there was continuity throughout however we used a similar font and it still worked well even if it was slightly basic. Transitions and edits were added and a theme of fading was significant throughout our trailer because it allowed smooth transitions through to each scene and was the most effective with keeping the shots in time with the soundtrack. We did use some edits to create discomfort for the audience and to enhance the action but the majority of the editing was dissolves and fading which are commonly used through the teaser for Adulthood too. 

I took my fonts from dafont.com and used a series of font tests for both our film title and magazine title, this way I could compare the fonts together and test them on our final ancillary products using Photoshop CS3. The font we decided on for our film title was called 'distorted and scratch' and is similar to the font used in 1 Day. Dafont.com was easy to use and the fonts are already sectioned into genres and categories which was useful for when we came to do our font test.
http://gracereohorn.blogspot.com/2011/01/magazine-font-test.html
http://gracereohorn.blogspot.com/2010/11/possible-fonts.html

Paint was a much easier program to use compared to Photoshop for the more basic of tasks, I print screened and copied and pasted any images or screen shots I need and it allowed me to save all my work as a jpeg unlike Photshop were you have to convert the file into a jpeg yourself. Paint is a simple program with a much more simple layout and selection of tools to Photoshop which made it a nice easy program to work with.

Google search engine was my main source for pictures for our prop list, mock up plans and as a way of accessing sites to gather the information I needed for both research and planning.

Blogger was compulsory for this project and even though I wasn’t keen on this at first because I’m used to filing and doing more written work I actually enjoyed using my blog. It allowed me to keep my work organised and presented my work in a creative manner. However one down side to blogger/blogspot is when you come to write on your posts you don't get corrected on your spelling or grammer so to ensure my work was fluent and correct all my written work was written up on microsoft word document and copied and pasted onto my blog once it had been proof read.

Evaluation Stage:
For the evaluation stage we needed audience feedback on our products and we decided that because of the impact and media surrounding Facebook today especially the impact it has on the daily lives of teenagers that we would use it as part of our audience feedback. We used it for our research too and because of the success of this process we used it again for our product feedback. There are many ways we could use Facebook to our advantage, this was by sending out our questionnaires via wall posts, groups or over message, all of which we included a link to Youtube so they could access our teaser trailer.

To gain more feedback we conducted a series of interviews using my Blackberry Curve 8250 and Ellie's LG Optimus One and recorded them. Ellie then set up an account on Audio Boo were we then transferred our recordings too, this then allowed us to copy the links to our blog for comparison and product feedback research.

Overall we used a range of new media techniques and have developed an understanding in which programs are most effective for each area of production. It has allowed us to use a variation of media and helped with the production of our work and prove that we can use of range of programmes to create professional products across different types of advertisement and media. As a group and individually we can identify which new media works in the research stage and what works best for planning, construction and evaluation. I am happy with the outcome of my coursework and the feedback we have been given, there are areas in which I would have improved on but overall I think our products were a success.