Evaluation Question 4

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

 

Research and planning

(Via 'Haiku Deck' presentation software).

There were many useful websites which gave me insight into planning a successful movie trailer. For example, this one https://www.slideshare.net/jazzyprince/codes-and-conventions-of-film-trailers-26226759 gave me some information on what conventions are used in movie trailers and what their purpose is. This link gave me an overview of the importance of trailers in general. I learned lots about the different types of trailers, their huge budgets and how they play a big part in the success of the film. I found it interesting how there's lots of controversy about spoilers and misleading trailers. Because of this, many people have stopped watching them, or they just stick to the teasers so that they don't feel like they've been shown the entire film already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailer_(promotion)
There are plenty of videos on YouTube which show beginners where to start when filming and editing their trailers.

For example, this one gives advice on what editing software to use and how to incorporate sound and music into the file. The presenter tells us what effects he set out to achieve and how this would effect the viewer's impression of the film.

I watched lots of amateur trailers to see what other people my age had could achieve with the same budget and level of experience.

 

I used social media (Facebook) to discuss my ideas and see if other people thought they were good or not.

This was useful because the actor (my brother) goes to Uni, so during the weeks when he wasn't around, Facebook was our way of discussing things for the project.
I also talk to my friends on a group chat, where we discuss how our trailers are progressing.






I used Microsoft Word documents to record all of my ideas and to draft the trailer scripts. I prefer typing to writing because it's quicker and you can easily change or cut out ideas.
This is the second rough draft of the script. Many parts were changed and never filmed.
(Via slideshare)
The internet was a useful source for providing me with up to date statistics for my secondary research. For example, these website https://yougov.co.uk/profileslite#/, http://business.pearlanddean.com/films_guide helped me to understand my target audience better and to adapt my product in order to make it more appealing to them.
Here are some examples of my results.

Microsoft Excel helped me to compile my data from my primary research and organise it into various charts (like below).

                                                      

 

Another useful internet source was 'Weeworld' (http://www.weeworld.com/). I used this to create a character representation of a typical member in my target audience.

Animatic: I made my animatic on Premiere Pro, after drawing and uploading a series of pictures which show the appearance and chronologic order of my scenes. The purpose of this was to plan the length of each shot and see how the storyline ran smoothly. I could check that it all made sense, visualise the angles and camera movement and ask people what they thought of my trailer. This helped me get some valuable feedback so that I could change certain parts before its construction. The animatic was made on 'premiere pro'. It's a professional, yet simple editing software which I used because I didn't need to add any special effects. It was simply a case of dragging the picture files in and choosing the transitions.

Construction
The camera I used was the Canon EOS 1300D DSLR and a 36GB SD card. It has zoom options, an 18-55mm lens and records in 18 megapixels.
I also used a tripod to keep the shot steady for many scenes and images. I didn't use a microphone because the camera picks up sound pretty well and I planned to edit voiceovers in. We also recorded them on the camera.
I uploaded the footage on to my laptop with a USB cable.



When it came to editing software, I wanted my trailer to look the best it could, but I had to consider that I didn't have skills, knowledge or experience to achieve professional results.
So I weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of some of the most well known programmes.

Other editing programmes include; iMovie and windows movie maker. But these are too basic and I wouldn't be able to achieve the desired effects with these limitations. So I eventually went with After Effects because experts seemed to agree that it was better at producing more impressive visual effects. I had to watch lots of YouTube videos to learn how to use it and to ask experienced people for their advice.

I used Photoshop CS6 to make my magazine cover and poster.
Photoshop is the most popular photo editing and manipulation software. I chose it because it offers a full range of tools to create various effects and because I have some previous experience using it.



I uploaded my finished trailer to YouTube, which took over 2hours. The advantage of uploading it is that now people can view it and give me their feedback (see Evaluation Q3).