Question 3) How did you use media technology in the construction of your research, planning and evaluation stages?

The Canon VIXIA HF R20 Flash Memory Camcorder is the choice we made for our film trailer. It is easy to use, has a high performance function and is good value. The advanced video snapshot lets you create 2, 4 or 8-second movie clips. The advanced but simple-to-operate control features of the VIXIA HF R20 help us create high quality video shots.

The simplicity of this hardware made it easy for the entire group to understand and use the camera when called upon to do so. When using the video camera we were able to play around with the scenes we had created and change the image of the storyboard. We were able to do this because of how portable the camera was and the quality of shots it could still pick up.

The Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition software has everything needed to produce spectacular HD movies. We used the Sony Vegas to edit all of our clips in the trailer. We needed to shorten clips and get them in an order that fitted with the storyboard created for our trailer. The quality of this software meant that we were able to play around with clips in the trailer with relative ease.

We needed to upload images that were commonly used in trailers, like the MPAA rating screen. The process was simple and easy to do. With the inclusion of this shot alone, it makes our video appear more valid to consumers because it is what they are used to seeing.

As well as the green rating screen, captions are commonly seen within a trailer and the audience are used to seeing captions to break up shots in the film. This software was easy to use for this process as it is common place in creating a film and Sony Vegas is used for film creations.

Working with footage we played around with the visuals and changed the lighting to work with shots that would fade out towards the end for another clip to fade in to shot. We wanted to have our trailer filled with drama and sadness and having the ability to change the lighting of shots gave us the opportunity to anchor meanings we wanted the audience to feel.

The Samsung PL200 is easy to use and has a large LCD and good photo quality for its class. The Samsung PL200's lens isn't as long or wide as competing models. It also has a pretty short battery life and requires a proprietary cable for charging. A simple ultracompact with a long lens, the Samsung PL200 isn't a standout, but shouldn't be overlooked either.

We used the Samsung PL200 to create our shots for our magazine and poster. With such a small camera it was easy to take whatever shots you wanted with relative ease. However, with no tripod it was hard to get a focussed shot. The camera was easy enough to use, it would have been better if we could have found a better camera with more attachments.

The design power of Corel DRAW offered me content-rich images and fonts, professional graphic design tools and photo-editing capabilities. Plus, the enhanced speed of 64-bit support allowed me to quickly process larger files and images. I used Corel Draw for my ancillary tasks by using the photos I took and creating a poster for advertisement and a magazine for publicity.

For my magazine I was inspired by Empire’s cover of Ewan McGregor so I used the protagonist as the main shot and created a similar layout that I was able to Google. With Corel Draw it was easy to recreate what I wanted but be able to put my own spin on the magazine cover. The only problem was that the colours used didn’t come out clear and when I thought I had purple it was really dark blue. I was able to correct this through Corel Draw and the software helped use the best of both magazines around it.

With my poster I was inspired by both Trainspotting and This is England. Corel Draw worked well because I could create the best of both worlds. I wanted to show the cast together, which was in both posters but with This is England they are all in one shot, instead of divided in Trainspotting. Corel Draw helped me create this poster and my image to get the best of both worlds.

I used Blogger to record all of the important information I wanted. This meant the research, planning and feedback that I considered useful throughout this process went up onto the blog. This website was very useful in recording the information I collected and wanted to refer to.

We used YouTube for research looking at trailers that compared with the image that we wanted of Wonderland. At first we wanted a clash between Alice in Wonderland and Trainspotting; to create a fantasy world within a gritty drama.

Facebook and YouTube were used to get audience feedback, when we created a draft of our trailer we would upload it onto YouTube and promote it off of Facebook. All of the people within my group have knowledge of how to use Facebook and YouTube so it seemed like the obvious choice of what to do.