Blogger has been a great use to me as it is a free online platform that meant I could upload research and planning, whilst also being able to publish my poster, magazine and film cover. Blogger also meant that I was able to have a digital/ online presence which was useful in communicating ideas and during the production process.
I used Google to research the different methods there are in
creating a horror film trailer, magazine and poster. This helped me to get a
better idea of what the audience look for and the general conventions of this genre.
When researching, it was important for me to find other film trailers that are
in the same genre and analyse the elements that are similar and differ. I also
used Internet Explorer to research different aspects related to the
psychological horror films. Doing this helped me with the planning and
development stages of the entire promotional packaged. By searching key terms
such as horror poster/magazine or trailer on Google images, I soon realised
that I was able to find and identify the key conventions of a horror poster and
allows these to help me form my own idea of what I thought was necessary to
include in my own ancillary tasks and what was not.
YouTube was another research tool, which helped me study
existing trailers in the horror film genre. When researching the full genre of
horror I looked at many different trailers from Hollywood produced films to
independent ones. When we chose the type of trailer we wanted to do YouTube was
very useful to find trailers and get information on what makes a good horror
trailer. It also helped me to develop an understanding of sounds. We realised
once we started putting together our trailer that looking back over the soundtrack
made a huge effect on how effective it was. When we began to add suspense music
which we found on sites such as YouTube, we realised they actually played a
bigger role then what we first imagined. I personally studied music associated
with horror trailers using YouTube as I found this formed a basic idea, which
we could then construct and personalise to our own requirements. Without sites
such as YouTube I would have struggled to have a point of reference throughout
the making process of my Film Trailer.
In the planning stages of our film we used Prezi to our
storyboard and find out what the main story line of our trailer would be. This
was effective in the way that Prezi allows you to add different images and
effects to it, so it was easy to make our pitch horror themed and build tension.
We could easily insert a stream of pictures to our Prezi early on in the
filming process, as we knew this was necessary in building our foundation ideas
of the trailer. I also found Prezi useful when it came to showing how I had
researched different conventions of the horror genre. By having an animated way
of conveying my ideas, I felt encouraged to constantly improve and look more
formally at the different conventions.
To take the footage we had and edit it we had to look at
software, which allowed us to do so. Although our school offers serif
programmes as editing software, we opted to use iMovie as I have it readily
available on my laptop and phone. This was also more familiar software, which I
have used previously to edit feedback videos etc. iMovie allowed us to cut the
scenes down to a perfect time, to re-order them and add sound, giving us the
trailer that we had planned. One of the most interesting parts of editing the
trailer was using software, which had all the functions we needed and ones we
were more unfamiliar with. IMovie definitely allowed us to construct the
trailer we had imagined whilst also allowing us to add effects we did not think
we had access too. I used effects from IMovie such as ‘Fade to black’ that
meant transitioning between clips could be slower and more intense during the
beginning section. As well as this, we could insert music files and sound
effects, which were saved on a USB stick or available on the iMovie software.
The other advantages of this software were that we were able to use settings
such as colour corrections and brightness of some of the clips. It was
difficult for us to get the lighting right to film in the dark for some of the
scenes as our camera quality was limited, however, by using the clip effect
labelled ‘Night to Day’ we could adjust accordingly the colour of the
background within the clip. This added eeriness to some of the scenes we
originally found unusable.
There were then more obvious uses, which the system has such
as adding subtitles and film titles, which were animated. These are all new
skills that I learnt through the process of editing the trailer.
Comparing my skills from the start of the year to the end I
would say that my knowledge of the software has got better and as I used the
programme more, I got used to the technology and became more confident with my
editing skills. This allowed me to be more creative when I edited stages such
as the montage.
For the filming of the product we used one camera and a microphone.
The camera we used was a Sony NEX-5ER. We found this camera was useful as it
had high quality and was easy to carry when we were filming in locations such
as the woods. Unfortunately the sound quality was not as good as we had hoped
but we insured that we used a microphone when possible. This was used for all
the voiceovers in the trailer so that these had a clearer impact. Due to the
camera being a photography camera as well, I also used this to take the photos
of my magazine and poster. This gave the perfect picture quality and made the
pictures look professional enough to go on my magazine.
The ancillary tasks photos had to be clear as they were
going to be a selling point of the trailer. By having a camera with such high
quality imagery, I was able to edit the magazines using an online application
called ‘BeFunky’ whilst keeping the scary tone of the original photos.
I used a serif programme when editing work previously but
found it limiting so I again decided to venture out and take advantage of
software available to me on my laptop. This year I have used a lot of the
elements on the Internet to create my magazine and poster, using a Photoshop application
also allowed me to make my product original and unique.
For my evaluation questions I have used a number of
different ways to present them. I have used Prezi to present two as I found it was
the perfect presentation software. It is easy to navigate to the correct
section and can be embedded into my blogger easily. I used my blog to present,
which allows me to add pictures and videos easily through a YouTube link. I
created a PowerPoint presentation with audio as I also felt this would be a
more unique and interesting way of showing the evaluation questions. By creating
videos and editing them together, I was able to be more creative in every stage
of my project.
By using these different pieces of technology I was able to
create the perfect film trailer for my genre and sub-genre. Doing the right
amount of research and planning and the equipment used was a massive
contribution to how well the film turned out.
