Evaluation Question 4 - Seyi

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

Filming

When constructing our media trailer our filming was the main aspect that helped create our sixty second teaser trailer. First of all we had a high definition camera at our disposal in order for us to film, the intelligent ways we used our camera was more involved with how we went about shooting certain shots, we utilised unique items such as a member of the group’s car to create a tracking shot from the side and from behind. Firstly we positioned Ella in the passenger seat of Mollie’s car and made her hang the camera slightly out of the window. As the car began driving, I began running next to the car acting as the protagonist, as a result we had a very effective tracking shot with the protagonist running away from something that is hidden from the camera. The other tracking shot we filmed from behind the protagonist with the car driving behind the protagonist to make it seem as if the protagonist was being chased by a car as you can see the headlights following the protagonist as he runs away from the car. Other ways we utilised the camera is by doing close up shots of the protagonist attacking the lens of the camera, this comes across as a point of view shot from the view of the victim that the protagonist appears to be attacking, we did this with other shots such as the low angle shot of the protagonist stomping on the lens which is another point of view shot just from a low angle.

Editing

Using Final Cut Pro X we had a wide range of effects and transitions at our disposal within the construction phase of our teaser trailer, which meant that we could utilise a lot of these factors in order to create a very good Urban Drama trailer. Planning the editing was the hardest part as this was what would shape the construction phase of our trailer so we took to researching the editing techniques used in previous Urban Dramas to see how they edited their trailers in accordance to aspects of the trailer such as the music and the shots that are shown on screen. When we found out how we would be able to edit our media product in a way that all parts of the trailer would come together to make one final piece we began to use Final Cut Pro X to its full potential. As we had decided to use a fast paced song we planned the pace of the trailer around this, with a series of shots transitioning into a montage where many jump cuts were used in order to create a disorientating effect. Some of the effects utilised were a black and white static effe
ct which was extremely effective according to our audience feedback.

Sound

As Urban Dramas sometimes use diagetic sound within the trailers we thought that this would be an option that we would consider, however, due to the camera we had available to us we knew that the sound wouldn’t be very clear, therefore within the planning phase we used YouTube to research how voice overs were used within trailers in order to create an effect. After reviewing many different trailers we came to the conclusion that we were going to use the recording studio that we had available to us in order to record someone saying our tagline, this tagline was then going to be edited into our trailer as non-diagetic sound, as a result we had an extremely clear voice recording due to the technology within the recording studio and when this had been put within our trailer it sounded extremely effective.

Photoshop

We utilised Photoshop to create our film poster, our research stage was extremely important as many tutorials from the internet were needed in order to learn how to use Photoshop effectively, when all we had all the skills needed to create a film poster we began this task. Using the photo we took within our small photo shoot in front of a high rise block of flats we had a good starting point for our Urban Drama poster, so we began to use photoshop within the construction phase to edit around this photo. We incorporated a London skyline in the background behind the block of flats using a cut out of the image that we took on the photoshoot.

Wix

Wix was the platform we used to construct our website, first of all we deconstructed past A2 media websites, to see first of all how effective wix can be used by new users.

For example we viewed this website and liked the layout as well as other aspects such as the position of the title, the position of the video and the size that the image takes up on the website allowing the viewers to clearly know who the protagonists are.







We moved onto making multiple plans of our website, ranging from making the first draft to multiple other drafts trying to give us a projection into what we wanted our website to look like, our website depended on the background image that we were going to use, therefore it was highly important that we had an effective background image, in the end we opted for the use of a time lapse, which changed the overall layout of our website completely.

By using a tripod, our SLR camera we created the time lapse by positioning the camera in an appropriate location, and letting it record the movement. By taking the footage to final cut we sped up the footage making the movement faster and much more noticeable.

As a finished product, with the different aspects of the website all put in place with the time lapse behind the final product was effective.