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

The first step that we used was by doing our research by looking at other horror trailers that have been succesfull, this way it could give us clues at to what are most successful points to use in a horror trailer this also helped by looking at horror trailers where the movies done well and also had a similar storyline to ours. Once our group had a rough idea for our horror trailer we then started looking at producing a questionnaire, this is because we could see what our target audience wanted to see in our horror trailer. As the the trailer wouldn't be any good if we produced something that our tagret audiendce wasn't interested in, so we created a questionnaire in Microsoft word that was a page long as having a questionnaire too long would put our target audience off in answering the question. Once we had recieved our questionnaire results we could then by used as useful data by using Microsoft excel to put the information into a graph, this way we could see which answers was most popular and come to a conclusion on how to create our horror trailer. In doing this research we got to see our target audiences interests in horror movies, instead of just the opinion of the people in our group.
We used a wide range of media when creating our horror trailer, poster and magazine cover. It started by firstly using a camera to record our video footage that we then uploaded onto the computer, once this was done we used final cut pro and garage band to create our movie trailer. Other programs we used are photoshop to make our poster and magazine cover, but we also used online programs to upload them such as blogger and flickr and youtube this was especially useful for doing our research.

This image here shows the different ways in which we could make our music for our horror trailer, this software is called garage band. By using this we could create the differet sound effects in our trailer, we did this by using a heart beat getting quicker and quicker as the trailer becomes more intense. I thought this was a useful program as we could upload any tracks we wanted even from a internet website and then edit the track in garage band. This could include changing the pitch of the track, once we had then finished with the track we could then save it and import it into final cut pro.

This image shows us editing our movie trailer in final cut pro, this program allows the user to import a video clip and edit it. The effects used in the program improve the video effects, what helped our team in producing the trailer was being able to shot the trailer clips during the day instead of at night. And then by using a filtering affect on final cut pro we could make it look dark like the footage was shoot during the night instead. This made is easier to complete the work as it gave us more time to work on the shooting of the clips, and also for us to get it right as some of the footage needed to be filmed in Fritton forest. In final cut pro we learnt more about the features that we could use, a new technique that we used was by fading the frames in and out this made the trailer look more affect especially when we was swtiching frames. We also learnt that we could shoot some of the footage during the day as on final cut pro we could adjust the colours in the video to make it look like it was dark. This made it a lot easier for us to get our work done more quickly, as it would not be easy trying to shoot a horror movie in a forest as it would of been completly dark as we wouldn't of been able to get as good frames and angle work. We did this by using a action on final cut pro called "Brightness and Darkness" and also "3 way colour mixer".  Another thing that we learnt to do was by changing the pitch in the music so that we could add clips, to make the music fade in and out gradually this was really useful as our music doesn't stay the same through out the trailer. I really also liked how we could change the different affects on the title so that they didn't look as boring, and also how to position the text on the screen in different ways and how we could inlarge the text or make smaller in the time line. Another thing that I liked is that using final cut pro we could add a action to the text, we decided to add a earthquake affect which shows the text jumping about. I think this works really especially with the party scene as it fits in with the music and the actions of the characters, it also was a way for us to develop our intertitles as before hand they was very plain and boring and needed different font and a affect.

This images shows me editing my poster in photoshop, by having the selection options on the right it enabled me to add different effects that i liked onto the image and then i could select the intensity that looked best on the image. This is how i applied the layer on top to the image, this way it adds a illusion to the image of some one being maybe not stable the image makes you think its slightly supernatural especially with the double lining of the teeth. The photo shop that I used was photo shop elements 8, I really liked using this program as I could select the images on the right hand side and add a layer on the top to make the protagonist look scary making it cohernet with the horror trailer.

To get the sound effects that we had in our horror trailer we had to use online websites where we could have samples of sound effects, that added the extra tension and emotion to make the key coneventions of a horror trailer. The website that we used was http://www.freeplaymusic.com/, this was a very good website to use for adding a lighting sound affect that we used at the begining of our trailer although one negative point about this website that it isn't very easy to find the exact sounds that we wanted and so took a bit of time to do this. Though we did also use this website for the music that is played through out the trailer, as the tone of the music sets the atmosphere for the viewers and help to keep that tense moment which is key to any succesful movie of horror trailer as it keeps the audiences focuse on the screen. Once we had saved the sounds to the computer we could then import the sounds into final cut pro, or garage band if we wanted to edit the sound of the music though this is not a option that we used. Once we had the sounds saved on to the computer we then imported them into final cut pro, where we could see if the video clips matched the pace of the sounds. I think that on the begining of our trailer where we used the lighting sound affects along with the flashing of the lights in the frame of the house worked really well, this is because the sound affects and the flash are both in time with each other this way it looks like a proper lighting storm is occuring. So i think this makes the entrance to a horror movie very good as straight away we can tell it's going to be a horror movie, and this is a main key convention to a horror trailer.

 And when we statred capturing our footage for our horror trailer we had to take many things into consideration, this would be things like camera angles e.g. high or low angles, or cantered this is a good technique to consider as camerawork often especially when the protagonsit is in the frame to make the audience unaware that the monster is emerging. This is important becaus it keeps the audience unware and also is part of the technical code of horror movies, the camerawork can make something look superior or maybe in danger and so can have a big impact on the audience.

When we looked more into the horror trailer and different techniques that they used for example one of the lastest horror movies out which is the "Devil", we could see what camera angles we could possbile use and also develop into our trailer, we did this by looking on http://www.youtube.co.uk/ this way we analyse any trailers that helped in progressing with our ideas for our teaser trailer. Youtube is a website that is very easy to use and consists of the lastest technology and high definition movies, and before we started on our horror trailer we need to find different horror trailers that we could analyse and say about different things we liked and disliked. Another website that we used was flickr this is because I needed to analyse some of the posters and magazines that I had collected, this was done very simply just by uploading a picture that was saved to the computer and then adding notes describing why I thought these items made the poster or magazine cover sucessful. Once this had been done it could then be shared to blogger, this was another program that I used to create my work as it is the website that I can upload all my work onto to be marked. This was also used for typing up our orginal ideas for our horror trailer, it shows how all my work has developed so that we came up with our final product. When it came to adding the final touches to our horror trailer we used our Apple iphones to record sounds, these sounds where the screaming and then we used garage band to record some of the heavy breathing when the hero is running through the trees  this was also the same for the protagonist deranged laugh at the end.

When doing my evaluation work I found it easy using flickr and blogger, this was because I could access my work from home meaning I didn't just have to do it at college. The only problem that I found with blogger was that some times the website could run slow when I wanted it to do a action with blogging, and from home I recieve standard text when I changed the format of the text called crafty girls I changed the text to make it look more interesting and so would be less boring and standard.