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

These are the new technology programmes i have used to create my media products (as numbered):

1. Youtube: I was already very familiar with Youtube however it is very useful for a number of reasons. I was able to use it to find pre-existing horror teasers as part of my research and to see other peoples uploaded video's for inspiration. It also allows me to watch my own trailer at home when evaluating it and makes it possible to show to an audience, which also ties in with research and feedback.

2. Blogger: I was first introduced to an online blog last year for my AS coursework. As i had not ever blogged before, it was new to me. Fortunately it is very simple and a good way to produce work as it is very modern and I can access it at home. It is definitely an advantage to writing an essay, as blogger can show a large number of posts in just a click, keeping them well organised under titles and labels, whereas sheets and sheets of paper are hard to keep track of. It is also easier to show visual aspects of creating our trailer due to printscreens and copy and pastes. It is simple to access Flickr through Blogger, which shows my annotations of images, compared to a lack of space on paper. This is not successful however if technology fails and either a computer or internet is at fault, as you cannot access Blogger in any other way.

3. Final Cut Pro: This was the main programme we used to create our teaser trailer. It was difficult at first but easy once I had grasped how to use it. It consisted of a timeline which could be zoomed in and out on and slotting in inserts of shots before editing them. It was used to edit footage (which was shot during daytime) to adjust the colours through brightness and contrast- to connote moonlight as it was not always possible to shoot in out of college time. We could insert text as intertitles, fades and dissolves between shots as editing and the timeline aspect allowed us to easily link sounds to images, through two timelines. It is not possible to do any of this through the camera itself and the programme gave us a huge advantage to working without these aspects as it looked more professional. In image 3, the timeline for our trailer is shown. The timeline consists of two- the top one being image and the one underneath being sound. Each soundclip can be inserted by lining it up where you want it to go which is why the sound does not start at the time time as the footage. The two lines above the first timeline show fades which we have created to be a specific length and to show between two clips.

4. GarageBand: I tried to use this programme to create a soundtrack for my groups Horror trailer, however i found it very difficult as you have to work from a timeline. I tried my best but other members of the group also tried to do some to extend our range of programme knowledge. We tried to use it as a way of creating an original soundtrack, rather than a previously existing one however it is time consuming and complicated- but shows creativity and extending technical knowledge.

5. Photoshop: I was familiar with this programme from the AS part of the course although it was nice to reafirm my skills and to learn more technical skills. I used Photoshop to create my ancillary texts as it is possible to edit images and create texts on different layers to create one large image. This, very much like Final Cut Pro, allows us to edit images, join many together to create a montage, adjust the colours to give a certain effect and to play around with many different things possible. I think it is very advanced and my knowledge on the effects are limited however it makes changing images simple.
6. Flickr: This has been an effective way to analyse still images as it is possible to add notes over a certain aspect of a photo. A photo has to be uploaded before adding a note and typing into a text box for people to see. When this note is scrolled over, the text shows outside of the image to inform the spectator. It is very simple to use and shows annotations in a neat, organised fashion. This contrasts to annotations on paper as there is no limited space on Flickr, as the notes can overlap- showing one note at a time.

7. Music Search Engine: This was a specific search engine on Google which our group used to search for the type of sound effects we wanted on our horror trailer. By simply typing "horror" or "creepy", it would show a list of websites which could provide us with what we wanted. The website we used was Creative commons which is a copyright free website. It is a corporation which provides free licenses (the creator decides the freedom and license it recieves) so that others can share. In some ways i think our soundtrack did succeed as it gave a very creepy feel however i think that there is not enough of a build up of tension and therefore it fits in some places and not in others.

8. Uploader Camera: I learnt how to upload our groups footage using an uploader camera. I was able to plug it into the Apple Mac and log and capture it very simply, just entering the description of the shot. Without this we would be unable to transfer footage from our tape to the computer.

9. Tripod: I used a tripod to keep the camera very smooth and still during filming. A tripod was very simple to use and just required the legs to be extended and the camera attached. It is unhelpful if you want to create a shaky, disorientating feel as the camera then has to be unattatched again and handheld instead.

10. Camcorder/ Still Camera: I was already familiar with how to use a this however i had to adapt to learn where everything was and the certain features on the camera as they differentiate in make.
11. Livetype: This was a more complex way of creating text rather than on Final Cut Pro. We used font from Livetype as our trailer intertitles as it looked like blood seeping. It is a simple programme to use, consisting of a text box and a list of possible texts to apply. It is more advanced than simple text programmes such as paint and microsoft word as it allows you to add moving text for your own time limit, at a certain size, colour and shape.