Evaluation 4

http://youtu.be/D6IXCeYyzh8
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Planning and research required multiple media platforms to allow to dive in-depth into our genre of Social Realism . We used he internet as our main source of information. We began our research  by using Google search engine to gain a greater understanding and broader background on social realism. From here we viewed mood boards and learnt characteristics of our genre.  It built on our knowledge on previous social realism genres which we already knew about and wanted to incorporate into our own production such as Skins. By using the internet we found some of the films that acted as a bases to gain inspiration for our own, especially the film Fishtank. We felt that Fishtank had the exact look we were going for and similarly dealt with perplex social issues.

 Our next step was using sharing websites such as IMDB and YouTube to watch similar genres and be able to identify codes and conventions used and work out how we could effectively apply tees to our trailer. We aimed to watch trailers that were from independent, smaller production companies, this is because we can see how these utilised their resources on a small budget. We looked at both the ratings and comments to assess whether these trailers had been successful and if the audience had identified the codes and conventions used. It also allowed us to see what the audience liked and silkier and identify potential viewers for our product.

 We used Blogger in order to present the inspiration that inspired us and track our journey from beginning to end. It allowed us to each individually share our experience and track our progress, it was effective because went down different avenues with our research and planning and therefore when we came together we created a more diverse trailer. It was an extremely simple, but effective tool to use and allowed us to embed other mediums like Prezi's and videos. 

By using Blogger were able to create an archive in which we could access any previous work over the course through the use of tags. We could also communicate and articulate schedules and timetables for instance filming and all be informed of she and where.  We could also customise the layout and design of the blog to match the brand appearance and style, this strong brand cohesion makes Chrome Pictures and Inertia easy to spot.  We could also create polls, which was extremely helpful as it allowed us to have direct contact and feedback from potential consumers, we did this when our group could not decide between ‘DR10’ and ‘Inertia’ as our trailer title.

 Audience feedback was crucial for us to create a successful trailer and ancillary texts. AtIn AS we only used fellow Media students to gain feedback and thereof had a small demographic and limited range in opines and feedback.  However this year we used Survey Monkey, this enabled anyone worldwide to watch and respond on our trailer with open-ended questions. This allowed more room for opinions and detailed elaboration. Social networking sites such as  Facebook and Instagram were also helpful in feedback and improvement, we were able to get more likes and views on our trailer by sharing it with friends. We could see by shares and likes who was our target audience.

We decided to use an iPhone 5s for the shooting of our trailer. We needed a device that was portable and could shoot in cramped locations and slow motion.Although other devices like Nikon's and Cannon's have better quality, n social realism handheld and shaky footage is seen as humanising and realistic and allows the viewer to feel as though they are involved.  

Instead we used a photography camera for the material on our ancillary texts, this enabled us to alter images by zooming in and cropping without changing the quality of the image.

 Once we took practice shots of our trailer, we used Photoshop, which was a first for us, to adjust the colour, saturation and fade of the photos, allowing  us to layer them to reflecting each feature of our narrative, for example, the relationship between Ross and Emma, use of the car and a police sign, then transfer these onto a Word Document to arrange the text.

 Once we had finished with out filming and were satirised with out shot we began to edit our footage on iMovie, which is a free editing software on Apple Mac devices. We had previous experience with this technology from AS and our preliminary , this made our editing more efficient and technically challenging yet more aesthetically pleasing  . With our drafted storyboard, it also made it easier for us to know in what order we wanted our shots. 

From the offset we did not wish t use Garage Band and relied heavily on our soundtrack,  but as we developed our trailer we realised that there were some sound effects we wanted were not available online, royalty free or the quality was not satisfactory. We had never used this programme before, but by watching video tutorials we were enabled to understand the necessities. We recorded our own voices and used a muffled setting on the clip to create a '999' emergency phone call sound effect.

In conclusion, I can see a greater use of technology recourses used in order to create a more educated and professional product.