How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

I decided to present mt research and planning and my evaluation in the form of a blog. I set up a Blogger account to present the information, a Soundcloud account to post audio files and a Youtube account to present video files.

Using a blog proved very useful as I was able to display my research and planning in an orderly manner and illustrate it with audio files, videos and images. This ensured it was 'easy on the eye' for a reader. Uploading images proved extremely easy and gives an artistic edge to my blog.

I used a Panasonic HDC TM900 (camcorder) to film my teaser trailer. This proved very useful as I was able to shoot multiple takes of each shot when something went wrong. With the accompaniment of a large SD card, there was no problem with how much footage I could take at a time. The camera also enabled me to instantly erase shots I did not want which saved time later in editing.

Before I began editing, I uploaded all my shots, audio files and images onto the software (Avid Media Composer) in separate bins which also saved time during editing.

As I discovered in my research, taglines are a convention of teaser trailers. I used Adobe Photoshop to create and edit my taglines so I could upload them to Avid Media Composed and put them in my teaser trailer.

Now that all my components (shots, images, audio, etc.) had been organised into bins, it was straightforward for me to start piecing together my teaser trailer. Due to my shot list and provisional running order, I knew exactly which shots I wanted where and when I wanted the taglines and titles to appear. I opened the shots I wanted, trimmed them down and then added them to my 'timeline'. The multi track feature allowed me to have my shots on one layer and taglines, titles and billing on another layer. Similarly with audio, I had my main music on one layer and sound effects on another.

During my research, I found that another convention of teaser trailers were fades. In order to add verisimilitude, I used fades in many of my shots. This gave my teaser trailer a real feel of authenticity. In the pictures above, the little purple boxes before and after the audio and shots are fades.

I used Adobe Audition to edit music, voiceovers and sound effects I found and recorded for my trailer so that I could just add it on to my Avid timeline. 

With the use of Adobe Photoshop, I was able to create both my poster and magazine front cover. Photoshop enabled me to manipulate the colour schemes, fonts and placements of things so I could make my poster and  magazine front cover as realistic as possible. I used tools such as the magnetic lasso tool (to cut out and crop images) and the smudge tool and eraser to clean up the rough edges.

These are the various stages in the making of my magazine front cover:

I used the link tool to link layers of my poster together, so when I moved them, they all moved together. For example: I linked the issue number, date and prices together so when I resized and moved them, it all happened together. Another tool I used was to create a shadow effect on writing. This made the writing stand out, which was especially useful as the writing is white and so is the protagonists t-shirt.

These are the stages of production for my poster: