The student used a variety of media technologies throughout the construction, research, planning, and evaluation stages of their project. They relied heavily on search engines like Google to research horror and zombie movie conventions by finding trailers on YouTube and Wikipedia articles. PowerPoint was used to analyze real media texts and presentations were uploaded to blogs using SlideShare. Photoshop and Premiere Pro were used for image and video editing. Photoshop was used to design a movie poster and magazine cover while Premiere Pro was used to edit footage and add effects to create a film trailer. Research was also conducted by viewing actual magazine covers online.

1. EVALUATION - QUESTION
1

2. How did you use media technologies in the
construction, research and planning and evaluation
stages?
 I used a wide range of media technologies throughout the process from the re-
production to the post-production stage. The main tool in use was the internet and
specifically the search engine www.google.com as a starting point for me to progress
from. The reason why this search engine proved invaluable was that it allowed me to
efficiently search for specific items such as ‘Horror movie trailers’ or ‘Zombie movie
posters’. Without such a search engine, finding the individual websites that provided
assistance during the planning stage would’ve proved difficult. The technologies that
allowed me to research trailers can be linked to the emergence of media 2.0;
websites such as www.youtube.com and www.dailymotion.com allowed me to find
trailers related to my genre that had been uploaded either by companies, movie
institutions or individual users. This was all part of a rather easy process that allowed
me to search and view trailers relatively quickly.
 I also used Google to find websites such as www.wikipedia.org and
www.monstermania.net that allowed me to see the kinds of conventions that were
typically found in a horror, zombie movie. I was able to find information about what
kind of shots, location and editing should be used in movies of the horror genre.

3.  I have uploaded an
example of YouTube's
interface. As you can
see, the interface is
extremely easy to use and
simple to adapt to.
Also, you can see the large
number of results that I
received during each
search highlighting the
reason why it was my main
source in researching
trailers.

4.  One of the main programs I have used throughout the process has been
Microsoft PowerPoint. I have used the software to analyse and compare all
of the real media texts I have researched including 28 Days Later, Dead
Set, Total Film, Empire, The Expendables poster, Anonymous Poster and
the Thor poster. Microsoft PowerPoint was already a program that I felt at
ease with and having known the controls I was able to quickly to create
slideshows to upload to my blog.
 The website that allowed me to incorporate all of the PowerPoint's into my
blog on www.blogger.com was www.slideshare.net . Uploading
presentations to slide share was, like the other websites used for
research, very easy and efficient. I preferred to use presentations on my
blog to keep the look professional and clean.

5.  In the production process of my development cycle I used two programs; Adobe
Premiere Pro the video editing program and Adobe Photoshop CS3 a photo editing
program. In my AS production I had already used Photoshop and although not
proficient in its usage, I believe the products produced (Film magazine cover and
movie poster) are of a higher quality than my previous work which shows good signs
of progression.
 Photoshop allowed me to manipulate the image I used for my movie poster in a
manner of ways. I used the contrast and brightness adjustment to edit the contrast
level of the original image as it was far too bright to be used as a convincing
representation of my genre. I also edited the picture using the paint tool, editing the
eyes of the actors playing the zombies to make the shot look convincing. I also
added the text that made up the rest of my movie poster in Photoshop. With the use
of Photoshop, I was able to transform an ordinary image into a hopefully convincing
movie poster that represents the horror genre.
 In the construction of my magazine, I was able to use the internet once more and go
to the actual magazine website to find and compare past issue front covers. This
allowed me to see conventions used in magazine production and the variation shown
in producing a front page. This research would influence my design choices.

6.  Adobe Premiere Pro was the main technology used in the post-production
stage and allowed me to construct my final trailer. As the editor, it was my
task to select the required clips from the raw footage we had earlier shot
and organize them into a fully complete trailer. Premiere also featured
different options that allowed me to modify certain aspects of my trailer.
These included adding video and audio effects and video and audio
transitions. A transition that I used, ‘Fade to Black’ faded the designated clip
in and out of screen and could be shortened or elongated. I also used a
‘greyscale’ and a darken video effect to edit certain clips. The darken effect
was used especially to give the trailer a scarier, darker, dangerous feel that
would induce feelings of fear in the audience. Examples can be seen
above.
 I believe that Premiere Pro was yet another program that I adapted to
quickly thanks to a quick tutorial from my tutor. The interface was simple to
use and allowed me to select the shots, clips and add sounds and effects to
construct my completed trailer.