How have you used different technologies and new media during the planning, researching and production of your products?

1. Chloe Spears & Chelsea Ripley

2.  During our research and planning, it was crucial to use a range of
technologies in order to gain the highest, professional and accurate
forms of research we could, in order to reflect our planning and over
all production of our products. In the following slides, a selection of
technologies used in our research will be present, how and why we
used them and what benefits they gave us in
production/researching and evaluating.
Some of the technologies we used in our production/planning and evaluation's:
Photoshop Elements, Final Cut Pro, Apple
iMac’s, YouTube, Facebook, Photobooth, ‘Grab’, Blogger, SLR digital
camera’s, Cannon HD Mini-cam, Tri-
pod, dafont.com, Prezi, Powerpoint, Microsoft
Word, Slideshare, Google, Garage Band, iPhoto.

3. In order to create our magazine front cover and
poster, we carried through our skills gained at AS in
Photoshop to create a highly professional product
that fitted conventions of our horror genre, whilst
matching standards of professional practises.
Using tools such as;
text, grab, magic
wand, brush, selection, crop we
were able to edit the overall
products. We also edited
contrast, brightness, shadows, imag
e control, hue/saturation to
determine how our photographs
would look and fit our specific
genre, moreover the overall effect
we intended them to create on our
intended audience.
Photoshop offered us a broad, convenient and
contempory device to create our products, which we
were trained in using confidently, allowing our skills to
be progressed further through-out our production
process of our project.
Photoshop is a advanced form of editing and creating
visual images of high quality, which is used in professional
practises within the media industry. Our research showed it
was an product used to create professional products, so we
decided to use it for our own products.

4. Final Cut Pro is an exclusive
feature of using an Apple
iMac, which we were able to
transfer our skills from the
evaluation process of AS into
editing our film trailer.
Final Cut Pro was our main editing tool for our main task, as
we were able to import our footage filmed directly onto it, using
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nPUSWld-
DM&feature=related
transfer and logging. We could then easily cut, edit and
The video listed illustrates Final Cut’s capabilities to create transitional effects between our clips and adding overlay
professional standards in film production. We used these effects to ensure our film carried out similar conventions and
techniques, along with a selection of YouTube tutorials to teach on-screen visuals that a professional film trailer of our genre
ourselves the available effects on Final Cut. would.

5. Garage band allowed us to take control of the
Garage band was the sound and audio technology we
soundtrack we wanted to create, allowing to edit our
used to make our soundtrack. It enhanced our
awarement of industry based products regarding film trailer footage alongside the musical
soundtracks and sound effects, and encouraged our compartments of the soundtrack. We could import a
enthusiasm for producing our own soundtrack for our movie track to edit the sound to fit the editing pace
film trailer. of the film footage.

6. The Apple Mac was our key
production tool, which had installed
the majority of our technologies
which we used for our project. From
our research we also found that
most companies and business’s
within the media industry would use http://www.youtube.com/w
high advanced computers such as
Apple Mac’s in order to create highly
atch?v=h_8Mrpg5z4I&featur
advanced and technological e=related
products, using their full features
and effects to maximise potential Along with an intelligent
and profit. computer, it gave us the essentials
in our researching – Safari, which
was a search internet browser
which allowed us to conduct both
primary and secondary;
It allowed us to: research the textual, audience and product
internet, produce and edit our research.
products, record and update our
progress, store our; products, research +
findings and ancillary products and
integrate ourselves into a different
dimension of contempory technologies we
which have used through-out our
coursework project.

7. Safari was our internet browser, which
was a curtail and necessary component
for our research and planning. It allowed
Google was our main internet search us to surf the internet and find the
engine, which allowed us to search
and research into data and websites
necessary data we were researching
we found necessary for our research for.
and planning.
We used Dafont.com to research into
different fonts used by professional
practises, which then allowed us to
download and use on our own products.
This website was useful as it allowed us
to progress our basic skills in editing
futher, allowing us to install and use
downloaded media counter products
from the internet.
We used Facebook in our audience feedback, in which we used the social
networking site to engage with our main target audience, by uploading the
final version of our poster. It allowed for direct feedback from our main target
audience, which was in a raw form, counting as primary audience feedback.
We were then able to analyse our feedback and what improvements that
would need to be made to our products, in order to fully satisfy the needs of
our audience.

8. Prezi was a online technology that allowed visual
presentations of our research and findings, which
we could present similar to that of a slideshow
Blogger is an online site which but more interactive and
allowed us to record our process Included the use of visual aids. It allowed us to
throughout planning, research, explore different ways to present our work and
production and evaluating. It was forms of research, which would possibly be used
a key tool into keeping our within the industry.
findings together, which we could
refer back to and organise our
products.
YouTube is an online broadcasting site, which
allowed us to upload and store any visual material
we had created throughout our research, planning
and evaluation of our project. It was also a key tool
Slideshare is an online device that allowed us to
into research into techniques on Photoshop and
publish documents made on powerpoint (including
Final Cut, where we could discover online tutorials to
this) guide us into finding and using new effects on the
which could then be embeded onto our blog or software. Overall it was an educational tool which
other pages on the internet. It also allowed our enhanced our knowledge of industry standards, but
work to be used as an education tool for also familiarised us with the importance of
others, along with allowing others powerpoints to copyrighted material and how to upload our own.
be used in research for ourselves.

9. Photobooth was a camera operated recording
device, which allowed us as a group to make quickly, high
quality video’s and photos to record our progress. Being
built into the computer, it acted as a convenient method of
recording our progress and saved automatically to the
desktop, so images/video’s were easy to upload straight
onto our blog or YouTube. It enhanced us into the
importance of recording progress, which would be
expected of us in an industry based position, along with
evaluating our own and others products. An example of a
photobooth photograph to the right.
The ‘Grab’ application was another form of print
screening, but also allowed us to grab particular
sections of what was on screen. This was a useful
technology during textual analysis, as we could
break down products and evaluate particular
sections with the use of visual aids.
The finder application is a storage workspace for the user of
the mac, which allowed us to store all of our
products, research and findings, along with a vast capacity
space for images and video’s, which we used during our
research and planning.

10. Microsoft Word Microsoft Powerpoint
PowerPoint is a presentational device
that allowed us to create more visual
presentations of our research,
planning and evaluating. Like Word, it
Microsoft Word is word processor in which we was easy referable and could be
used to construct documents such as; film stored and re-visited.
script, blog post, video guidelines, audience
questionnaires and audience research findings.
It was a useful package that allowed us to
return to later and could be stored on a hard
drive.
Word was also an easy tool when creating
documents for our actors, such as; Model Release
Forms, Call Sheets and Hazard sheets, as we
could produce similar documents on a large scale.

11. SLR Digital Stills Camera
Panasonic Mini HD video camera
Using a SLR camera allowed us to take Using a HD camera allowed us to
photographs that were high quality and used a create high defined quality footage that
quick shutter speed in order to capture was of industry standard and
photographs that were of high industry standards. familiarised us with equipment that
It also enhanced our photography skills by would be used in professional practise.
learning how to take a photograph We could then log and transfer our
properly, steady shots and learn about focal footage into final cut pro where we
lengths and the shutter speed. could edit our footage to create a well
edited and of high standard trailer.