Evaluation Activity 4

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

We used many different technologies within the research planning and evaluation stages. The camera we used was the Sony CX405 Handy-cam camera to film our trailer as it is has high definition image and high quality sound recording facilities. We believe it is very important to have a high quality camera because the trailer will look high budget and professional. Whereas, last year my footage was at low quality and did not give off the full effect of the audience as I intended. When we were filming we found that the camera was very good as it could adjust to some of the lighting, there are certain effects that allow us to make the images stream together seamlessly as the camera adjusts the lighting depending on the time of day. We also used a tripod with some of the shots in order to make sure the shots were steady and professional looking. Last year I did not use a tripod and so some of my shots were shaky and were facing the opposite direction and therefore found it hard to create the high budget feel that would endorse the audience to be gripped to the film opening. 

In terms of the editing format, our group used adobe premiere pro. We were given the opportunity to use the school's computers and the format of adobe premiere elements, however we found the format hard to use and didn't render the footage as fast as we wanted. The editing format that we used instead was premiere pro which allowed us to become very experimental with the footage. We also used transition tools such as the fade to black etc, it allowed us to create a high budget effect for our trailer. On one of the days of editing, we prioritized the titles. We spent hours looking through the fonts and different shadowing effects for the titles. We found the software extremely effective when achieving our titles as there was a wide range of choice and styles and colours, which gave us the opportunity to test them our in our trailer and see which one fit the conventions of a horror film the best. 

When making our poster, we spent a lot of time, learning how Photoshop works and how to create a professional look for the poster. We wanted to fade the picture into the back ground by creating a black blur around the picture. Once we had found out how to blur the edge with the paint tool, we wanted to change the contrast and colour of the image, making it appear darker and adding intensity to the image. This effectively overall made thew final poster appear much more high budgeted than before and made it appear much more professional.