evaluation (essay form) – how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?.
I found that i have improved greatly since year 12, i feel more confident using media technologies and have developed my own ideas and concepts more. In my year 12 coursework i did not do so well, and this is partly down to the blogging devise we used last year (on the VLE). It was far too simplistic and i found it difficult to express my ideas in much detail. The lack of technology was evident. I did however, gain confidence in using photoshop when developing my music poster and magazine front cover. I learnt how to structure a believable poster & cover, by creating titles and text using different forms of fonts and titles available on photoshop. I learnt how to enlarge specific texts, such as making sure the title was large and bold - indicating it’s importance and attracting the target audience. I also learnt how to embed photographs on to photoshop and how to edit them effectively, using such tools are crop, drop shadow and blurring. In year 13 i developed this skills even further, by using different forms of media technologies, such as the introduction of filming, using youtube and the new blog. As i found last year difficult, i was apprehensive about having to learn to how to use cameras for filming – i decided to use my own camera for filming, i used a digital Kodak camera, which was benefital for me, firstly because i already knew how to use the camera – it was also useful with the fact that i needed to use a hand-held camera for my work anyway, and this was the most suitable choice. After the filming i then had to develop and edit these shots into a believable teaser trailer. I used the programme adobe premiere elements 2.0 and was relieved to find it was easy to work with. After uploading the original un-edited shots from my camera, i then had to cut shots, making sure they linked together and demonstrated a teaser trailer. Luckily in my research and planning i decided on creating a very simplistic and old fashioned trailer, so i did not have to use and devlop on any of the difficult tools on adobe premiere elements 2.0. I dragged my shots to the timeline tool, where all of the editing is done. After cutting the useless or not needed shots i decided that i wanted text in between each shot. To do this i used the tool labelled ‘title’ and selected a preferred font style, size and colour etc. To fit into my trailer i decided that simple was the best choice, that way the text would link with the genre and overall appearance of the trailer. I decided on ‘arial’ font and size ’32′ large enough to notice, but not so large it becomes overbearing. The colour of the font was white, behind a black background – the colours linked with the overall ‘look’ of the trailer aswell as relating with it’s horror/thriller genre. Putting it onto my trailer was simple enough, similar with embedding the shots i had to drag the texts onto the timeline, then selecting where i wanted each text to appear on the trailer. i wanted my text to run into a sequence, with each text following after the other. For example, the first shot including text stated ‘do you ever get the feeling?’ the rhetorical question is deliberate, by creating integrity from the target audience, resulting in tem wanting to want to watch the rest of the trailer, to see the conclusion of the text. As mentioned before i kept the shots fairly simplistic, although i did want the text to fade out as the shots appear and to get this effect i used the ‘fade in/out’ tool. I feel that this worked well. The one overall aspect i wanted from my trailer was to create an old/fashioned ‘classic’ vibe. From the beginning i knew that i wanted my trailer to be in black and white. To achieve this on adobe premiere elements 2.0 i used the ’extract’ tool to alter the colour levels and to change it to Desaturate. I however, purposely left the last few seconds of the trailer in colour – just after the hand extends towards the boy – to simply that create more effect and demonstrate the change that has occurred from the rest of the trailer – the fact that part of the stalker has been revealed. Doing this was simple, i cut the ’extract’ tool from the last part of the trailer on the timeline, and the affect was created. After some initial thought, i decided that i did want diegtic sound for my trailer instead of diegtic sound. After some research using the internet i came across a ‘sound effects’ website and find a whole category just for horror/thrillers. I wanted my sound to fit into the conventional aspects of a horror, therefore i finally decided on using a simple heartbeat that would play throughout the trailer – suddenly stopping just before the ending of the trailer – to create an eiree silence and anticipation from the audience. After importing the sound onto my ‘D’ drive i simply embedded the sound onto adobe premiere elements 2.0, then dragging it onto the second timeline labelled ‘audio 1′ then embedding it with the shots i cut/ selected where needed to. That’s what i initially liked about adobe premiere elements 2.0 , it was very easy to use when i had grasped the basic concepts. What else was new this year was using the internet engine ‘youtube’ to be able to import my trailer onto my blog. This was another new concept of technology, although similar to adobe premiere elements 2.0, it was easy to use. After setting up an account on youtube i then had to export my trailer off adobe premiere elements 2.0 and then save it to ‘pal’ and my ‘d’ drive. After that it was a simple transfer and upload onto youtube, and then embedding the URL onto the blog. Compared to last year, the new blogs on ‘wordpress.com’ was a vast improvement compared to blogs using the ‘VLE’. WordPress blogs offered so much more, from putting work into different categories such as ‘research and planning’ – this was it was much more organised and easy to read up on previous work. On wordpress.com i also got the chance to view the work from other media students, this was extremely useful, from observing how much work they have done, to using some of their ideas as inspiration for my own work. Similarly to last year, i also used photoshop for my poster/magazine front cover. This year however, i could clearly see how much i have improved from last year. I learnt how to use new tools such as the ‘magnetic lasso’ tool to select separate parts of the photograph, to then alter the level separately – as well as developing the skills learnt from last year- Being a photography student also helped, due to being on photoshop in those lessons too. The photographs (taken from the same camera/video camera as my filming – my digital Kodak -) were a huge improvement from last year, as well as being more relevant to my trailer etc. Other than that i did use photoshop in a similar way to last year, although this time having more knowledge and input when using photoshop. When researching particular posters/magazine front covers for inspiration for my own work, i found the internet to be very useful. Using the search engine google i managed to find enough research to not have to find any other media alternatives.
