Web 2.0
The web 2.0 approach to showing my work to teachers was very different to previous methods and introduced a new dynamic. One of the weaknesses of the web 2.0 style of evaluation is that not everyone in our group knew how to use these websites straight away; also it can be viewed by anyone at anytime so the threat of plagiarism must obviously be quite high. Another weakness with using this method was that due to the huge amount of multimedia available on the websites it was very easy to get distracted from the task at hand, which was never a problem when the Internet was not used.
Blogger
Blogging was also a new concept that I used during the project and I learnt how to set up and maintain a blog both useful skills in this day and age. Having a blog that is editable and viewable at any time, means that wherever I am, I can work on my coursework, an obvious improvement over old methods. Having it viewable at any time also means that teachers can view and offer tips in real time, thereby enhancing the blog as soon as areas for improvement have been spotted. . Blogger ended up becoming a very interactive style blog towards the end, with hyperlinks, pictures and videos making plain text more interesting
Youtube
Youtube makes it a lot easier for me to do research wherever I am and it has compatibility with the blogging website, making it easy to upload videos too it, this would have been a lot harder using previous methods. When evaluating through audience feedback, I found uploading the videos through Youtube extremely useful to show the teaser in a variety of places and situations. Youtube was really useful during this project as it can be used to view plenty of modern teaser trailers that I could draw inspiration from, before Youtube was around the only option would have been going to the cinema to view them, this would be a lot more time consuming and less effective. Youtube was also used to host the trailer so it could be shown to lots of different audiences, giving the opportunity for lots of audience feedback.
Flickr
Flickr was another new website that I started using during the project. It became very useful for its ability to annotate pictures as well as hosting them, which I found invaluable during the research phase. Flickr, which again works with blogger which is (very) useful, was used to annotate still in the research phase and then analyse my teaser stills in the evaluation phase, Flickr makes annotating very simple and easy to do.
Facebook
During the construction phase, modern social networking websites made it easy for us to arrange when we were free, we used Facebook, which allows us to all communicate freely, arrange shooting times and check other group member’s calendars. This was much more extensive than old methods of meeting up. I also used facebook at the evaluation phase after I had shown it to audiences in my college and got their feedback, I posted it to my friends on Facebook, which made it visible to about 500 people in my target audience, which greatly improved the amount of feedback I had.
Google Images
Not that new anymore but still very useful, Google images proved invaluable during the research phase, easily browsing through the internet to find relevant pictures to be used for research and ideas for the ancillary tasks. It was also used, in conjunction with Youtube, to build my horror mood board, and the amount of results it got back, combined with being able to only search for specific sizes gave me exactly the kind of images I needed. Google images does have a few weaknesses though, in that it cannot search for certain types of pictures eg. Creepy, as it relies on the names of pictures, which is usually named after the source material, meaning I had to know which movies were creepy before starting the search
Camcorder
The camcorder we used was vital in recording our trailer. We made use of the inbuilt microphone aswell, making it possible to record audio and visual at the same time, this meant we could spend less time filming and more time on the other elements. We recorded using a4:3 ratio, as our camera didn’t have traditional wide screen 16:9 mode however we made good use of this, as it meant it could easily be uploaded to Youtube and shown to others. We used some of the features on the camcorder such as backlight and night vision, to achieve some visuals with a darkened mood, and we also used it to make settings that had bad lighting seem more aesthetically pleasing. One of the most useful features about the camcorder was that the viewing screen could be turned to many different angles, meaning angles that would be impossible for a person to view from could still be captured and monitored effectively.
Tripod
. Tripod was used consistently throughout the filming and photography process. We sued it to maintain steady shots, and avoid blurring the pictures, although we did use a lot of handheld style filming, the tripod meant we could add a level of professionalism to the footage, always very important in trailers. We could also use it to film from areas that would not be possible with out the added height of the tripod
Camera
. I used a ancillary tasks and made great use of its flash function to capture dark scenes. While filming I bought the camera with us, so when we were filming a shot that would also work great as a still, I could capture it, straight away, this is how I got my poster image. Using a digital camera was really useful, as it is cheap to use on a budget, and pictures can be viewed instantly, which is extremely useful in dark situations where it is very easy for the picture to become blurred or unviewable. Also it can be easily transferred to computer and stored, without threat of deterioration, we made use of this by trying out many different images with the other elements of the ancillary tasks in Photoshop to see which fitted best
Garageband
Garageband was very useful, as it allowed for a lot of creativity and can deliver high quality recordings on a budget. It saved a lot of money compared to recording the actual instruments and routing effects units through them. It comes with a wide array of instruments and most have a modulation and pitch shift function, adding a sense of dynamics. For a music production suite, it was relatively simple to use, obviously I was at an advantage, having done music tech and understanding it, but even the people in my group who had never tried something like this before found they understood it within a few minutes. The keyboard function, which allowed you to use a qwerty keyboard as a midi keyboard was put to good use, since we didn’t have an actual midi keyboard to use, we recorded all our stuff using this method (in most music production suites such as Cubase and Reason, this is not possible). Its compatibility with Finalcut pro was also very useful as it meant we could watch our trailer alongside our track at any stage through the music making. This was obviously very useful for keeping the music in time with the shots and following the mood.
Photoshop
. Photoshop was obviously one of the most important tools for the ancillary tasks, and has enough effects to achieve a high level of looks. Aswell as the ancillary tasks, I also utilized it for my moodboard, extracting stills from trailers and the montage above. It allowed me to import many different layers and text fonts, aswell as work from a semi transparent drawn template. The main things I used it for, editing wise, was sizing, positioning, colour changing and contrast/brightness changes, all of which made it appear more professional. It basically has enough effects to achieve any kind of picture you want, and its editing functions make it very easy to see how certain parts would look differently, and then change them back. The effects also make it easy to make pictures look great even if they are slightly out of focus or blurred, they can be edited to look great. Without it my ancillary tasks would of looked a lot less professional. Text can also be made to look a lot better using effects such as outer glows and shadows to create something interesting and eye-catching. When I got feedback from my audience on their reactions to the poster and magazine I found it very easy to change any element they didn’t like.
Finalcut pro
Final cut pro was new to me for this project and I have learned a lot about it, how it can be used to give a seamless finish to a film. It was the editing software we had to use, and this type of editing is vastly superior to the older methods, using glue and tape, and saves a lot of time and allows for more creativity. The capture function saves a lot of time, as it allows shots to captured straight off the tape, which I used to give myself more time for the other parts of the trailer. One of the weaknesses of this method is that it is not a simple to use program unlike programs such as Garageband. However favouring function over ease of use means it has a wealth of different effect that I could use in my project and is also used by many media professionals. There is so many effect in this program, which is so useful for horror, where shots are more expressionistic than naturalistic so all the effects can be used to connote moods and atmospheres. One of the main effects I used was a sudden flash that I inserted between shots to surprise the audience and keep them engaged. Cross fading was also used a lot in my trailer and helps set the mood for it and look professional. The timeline makes it very easy to cut between shots, and the audio channel is simple to use. This program has compatibility with Garageband and Livetype that I used to decrease the time spent working around different program formats etc.
Livetype
This was a program that I used for the text in the trailer. It gave me a lot of text effects and font, and could be edited quickly and pretty simply. It was useful for achieving the distorted kind of font and old projector style shaky text, both great horror conventions, and added to the atmosphere of the teaser. It compatibility with Finalcut pro meant I could easily insert text in-between shots or on top of shots without trouble.
Dafont.com
Dafont proved invaluable during the ancillary tasks as most of the stock fonts available on todays computers look alright for smart documents, but aren’t really suited to creative and genre specific needs. Dafont has a useful preview function where you can see your title, heading, bullet point etc. in all the available fonts in each category, this saved a lot of time. This also saved a lot of money, as traditionally these fonts would have been created by a graphic designer at a high cost, but Dafont allows you to use a as professional looking font for free. Its font formats were also compatible with photoshop, which obviously made things a lot easier and meant I could apply all the photoshop effect to them and edit them quickly.
Creative Commons Sound Sites
These websites helped us find free sound effects to use via creative commons rights. Make things a lot cheaper and saved a lot of recording time, was mostly used for banging, slams and heartbeat sound effects, just to heighten the tension.
The web 2.0 approach to showing my work to teachers was very different to previous methods and introduced a new dynamic. One of the weaknesses of the web 2.0 style of evaluation is that not everyone in our group knew how to use these websites straight away; also it can be viewed by anyone at anytime so the threat of plagiarism must obviously be quite high. Another weakness with using this method was that due to the huge amount of multimedia available on the websites it was very easy to get distracted from the task at hand, which was never a problem when the Internet was not used.
Blogger
Blogging was also a new concept that I used during the project and I learnt how to set up and maintain a blog both useful skills in this day and age. Having a blog that is editable and viewable at any time, means that wherever I am, I can work on my coursework, an obvious improvement over old methods. Having it viewable at any time also means that teachers can view and offer tips in real time, thereby enhancing the blog as soon as areas for improvement have been spotted. . Blogger ended up becoming a very interactive style blog towards the end, with hyperlinks, pictures and videos making plain text more interesting
Youtube
Youtube makes it a lot easier for me to do research wherever I am and it has compatibility with the blogging website, making it easy to upload videos too it, this would have been a lot harder using previous methods. When evaluating through audience feedback, I found uploading the videos through Youtube extremely useful to show the teaser in a variety of places and situations. Youtube was really useful during this project as it can be used to view plenty of modern teaser trailers that I could draw inspiration from, before Youtube was around the only option would have been going to the cinema to view them, this would be a lot more time consuming and less effective. Youtube was also used to host the trailer so it could be shown to lots of different audiences, giving the opportunity for lots of audience feedback.
Flickr
Flickr was another new website that I started using during the project. It became very useful for its ability to annotate pictures as well as hosting them, which I found invaluable during the research phase. Flickr, which again works with blogger which is (very) useful, was used to annotate still in the research phase and then analyse my teaser stills in the evaluation phase, Flickr makes annotating very simple and easy to do.
During the construction phase, modern social networking websites made it easy for us to arrange when we were free, we used Facebook, which allows us to all communicate freely, arrange shooting times and check other group member’s calendars. This was much more extensive than old methods of meeting up. I also used facebook at the evaluation phase after I had shown it to audiences in my college and got their feedback, I posted it to my friends on Facebook, which made it visible to about 500 people in my target audience, which greatly improved the amount of feedback I had.
Google Images
Not that new anymore but still very useful, Google images proved invaluable during the research phase, easily browsing through the internet to find relevant pictures to be used for research and ideas for the ancillary tasks. It was also used, in conjunction with Youtube, to build my horror mood board, and the amount of results it got back, combined with being able to only search for specific sizes gave me exactly the kind of images I needed. Google images does have a few weaknesses though, in that it cannot search for certain types of pictures eg. Creepy, as it relies on the names of pictures, which is usually named after the source material, meaning I had to know which movies were creepy before starting the search
Camcorder
The camcorder we used was vital in recording our trailer. We made use of the inbuilt microphone aswell, making it possible to record audio and visual at the same time, this meant we could spend less time filming and more time on the other elements. We recorded using a4:3 ratio, as our camera didn’t have traditional wide screen 16:9 mode however we made good use of this, as it meant it could easily be uploaded to Youtube and shown to others. We used some of the features on the camcorder such as backlight and night vision, to achieve some visuals with a darkened mood, and we also used it to make settings that had bad lighting seem more aesthetically pleasing. One of the most useful features about the camcorder was that the viewing screen could be turned to many different angles, meaning angles that would be impossible for a person to view from could still be captured and monitored effectively.
Tripod
. Tripod was used consistently throughout the filming and photography process. We sued it to maintain steady shots, and avoid blurring the pictures, although we did use a lot of handheld style filming, the tripod meant we could add a level of professionalism to the footage, always very important in trailers. We could also use it to film from areas that would not be possible with out the added height of the tripod
Camera
. I used a ancillary tasks and made great use of its flash function to capture dark scenes. While filming I bought the camera with us, so when we were filming a shot that would also work great as a still, I could capture it, straight away, this is how I got my poster image. Using a digital camera was really useful, as it is cheap to use on a budget, and pictures can be viewed instantly, which is extremely useful in dark situations where it is very easy for the picture to become blurred or unviewable. Also it can be easily transferred to computer and stored, without threat of deterioration, we made use of this by trying out many different images with the other elements of the ancillary tasks in Photoshop to see which fitted best
Garageband
Garageband was very useful, as it allowed for a lot of creativity and can deliver high quality recordings on a budget. It saved a lot of money compared to recording the actual instruments and routing effects units through them. It comes with a wide array of instruments and most have a modulation and pitch shift function, adding a sense of dynamics. For a music production suite, it was relatively simple to use, obviously I was at an advantage, having done music tech and understanding it, but even the people in my group who had never tried something like this before found they understood it within a few minutes. The keyboard function, which allowed you to use a qwerty keyboard as a midi keyboard was put to good use, since we didn’t have an actual midi keyboard to use, we recorded all our stuff using this method (in most music production suites such as Cubase and Reason, this is not possible). Its compatibility with Finalcut pro was also very useful as it meant we could watch our trailer alongside our track at any stage through the music making. This was obviously very useful for keeping the music in time with the shots and following the mood.
Photoshop
. Photoshop was obviously one of the most important tools for the ancillary tasks, and has enough effects to achieve a high level of looks. Aswell as the ancillary tasks, I also utilized it for my moodboard, extracting stills from trailers and the montage above. It allowed me to import many different layers and text fonts, aswell as work from a semi transparent drawn template. The main things I used it for, editing wise, was sizing, positioning, colour changing and contrast/brightness changes, all of which made it appear more professional. It basically has enough effects to achieve any kind of picture you want, and its editing functions make it very easy to see how certain parts would look differently, and then change them back. The effects also make it easy to make pictures look great even if they are slightly out of focus or blurred, they can be edited to look great. Without it my ancillary tasks would of looked a lot less professional. Text can also be made to look a lot better using effects such as outer glows and shadows to create something interesting and eye-catching. When I got feedback from my audience on their reactions to the poster and magazine I found it very easy to change any element they didn’t like.
Finalcut pro
Final cut pro was new to me for this project and I have learned a lot about it, how it can be used to give a seamless finish to a film. It was the editing software we had to use, and this type of editing is vastly superior to the older methods, using glue and tape, and saves a lot of time and allows for more creativity. The capture function saves a lot of time, as it allows shots to captured straight off the tape, which I used to give myself more time for the other parts of the trailer. One of the weaknesses of this method is that it is not a simple to use program unlike programs such as Garageband. However favouring function over ease of use means it has a wealth of different effect that I could use in my project and is also used by many media professionals. There is so many effect in this program, which is so useful for horror, where shots are more expressionistic than naturalistic so all the effects can be used to connote moods and atmospheres. One of the main effects I used was a sudden flash that I inserted between shots to surprise the audience and keep them engaged. Cross fading was also used a lot in my trailer and helps set the mood for it and look professional. The timeline makes it very easy to cut between shots, and the audio channel is simple to use. This program has compatibility with Garageband and Livetype that I used to decrease the time spent working around different program formats etc.
Livetype
This was a program that I used for the text in the trailer. It gave me a lot of text effects and font, and could be edited quickly and pretty simply. It was useful for achieving the distorted kind of font and old projector style shaky text, both great horror conventions, and added to the atmosphere of the teaser. It compatibility with Finalcut pro meant I could easily insert text in-between shots or on top of shots without trouble.
Dafont.com
Dafont proved invaluable during the ancillary tasks as most of the stock fonts available on todays computers look alright for smart documents, but aren’t really suited to creative and genre specific needs. Dafont has a useful preview function where you can see your title, heading, bullet point etc. in all the available fonts in each category, this saved a lot of time. This also saved a lot of money, as traditionally these fonts would have been created by a graphic designer at a high cost, but Dafont allows you to use a as professional looking font for free. Its font formats were also compatible with photoshop, which obviously made things a lot easier and meant I could apply all the photoshop effect to them and edit them quickly.
Creative Commons Sound Sites
These websites helped us find free sound effects to use via creative commons rights. Make things a lot cheaper and saved a lot of recording time, was mostly used for banging, slams and heartbeat sound effects, just to heighten the tension.
Rather brief. Go into some of the specifics of using this technologies/software. For the evaluation stuff it is worth considering the strengths and weaknesses of a web 2.0 approach compared to more traditional methods of evaluation.
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