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

Throughout my project of producing three cross media products i have been using new media technology in order to make my work look more professional, presentable and to be able to produce the product to the best standard. In the answer to this question i will explain what new media i have used and why i have used it.

Firstly I have been using blogger a website that allows me to post blogs, i used this in order to present all my work. This technology allows me to upload blog posts containing text, photos, links and videos

Here you can see the page that allows me to write a post that i want to publish onto my blog. I cant edit the types of font i wish to use add links, photos and videos these are shown in the links. I had to set up my own account in order to use blogger.

In order to produce our magazine front cover and our film poster we used the software called Photoshop this allowed us to edit our photos and use different brush types to add special effects.





















As you can see from this screenshot we have used different layers for different features on our magazine cover allowing us to move them about without disrupting the composition any of the other features on the page. The picture selected shows this software allows us to rotate our photos. This software was wonderful to work with for our products we had to produce as it allowed us to use certain tools that other programmes couldn't offer us for example the blue effect over our photo. Photoshop is a worldwide programme used greatly in the publishing world and certain techniques we wished to use were difficult however with the use of tutorials on you tube we were able to produce what we wanted and overall had two professional real like products thanks to using software such as photoshop.


In order to construct our teaser film trailer we mainly used a software called final cut. This allowed us to import our footage, edit it and add any transactions.





















Our main reason for using final cut was to make our editing and overall teaser trailer look professional. Most of our group were using final group for the first time so we did occur some problems however we managed to conquer these problems by working as a team to find a solution. we made good use of all the features the programme had to offer using transactions such as fade out editing the speed of our cuts and adding a soundtrack.



We filmed our footage on a Sony A1E i did research earlier on in my project about this
http://georgiangusmediastudiesa2.blogspot.com/2010/10/sony-a1e.html
Here is an image of what the camera looks like







































This produced our footage with a high quality and we created our own white balance manually with a white sheet of paper making sure the colours aren't distorted in different settings.

This is a link to the research on my blackberry phone i used to capture a focus group and various other voice recordings.

http://georgiangusmediastudiesa2.blogspot.com/2010/10/blackberry-bold-9700.html


This new media equipment was used due to being convenient however it didn't pick up sound as well as we had hoped and therefore we should have used a new media equipment such as a zoom recorder. Also the images produced from this equipment were of a low quality


We used Imovie in the beginning of our product in our research and planning section this was in order to produce a treatment using new media












































I found imovie was easy and simple to use and it is extremely user friendly including a feature that allows you to publish your film directly to YouTube. Also it allowed us to record sound and image at the same time which was useful for what we were trying to achieve.


we have used Live type in order to produce the title of the film and import it to final cut here is a screenshot of our progression

























There were so many different animated types of text we could have used from live type which we all experimented using however we had to keep in mind the genre of our film and how professional we wanted it to look. By choosing a simple and basic bold font we stuck to what we had found in other conventions of thriller film genres. we did have a problem that occurred as we found on the Internet the perfect font animation we wanted to use called sheen however we couldn't find this font and would have had to down load it and due to working in college we weren't authorised to download fonts onto the software. This was a shame however we picked a similar looking font with a metallic effect.

We used a software called sound track pro to produce the diegetic sound we wanted to hear in our teaser film trailer





















We used soundtrack pro to produce sounds that didn't capture as effectively as we had wished on the day of filming this was mainly ambient sound such as the background noise, footsteps and the gun shot towards the end of the teaser trailer. These sounds we used were pre recorded samples that we could edit on that software such as make the sound in slow motion higher pitched or louder. The foot steps we used fitted in exactly with the timing of the character including a scuffed sound towards the end when he stands over the character. once we had edited our sounds to make them suitable to be in our teaser trailer we then exported it from the software as a mp3 file and imported it into final cut this was simple and easy to do.


Hotmail e-mail was used in order to communicate with our group.





















This is a good way of backing up any of our work and sending different members of the group files. We also used this form of new media communication to talk to people about car parks. As you can see earlier on in my blog.


We used social networking sites such as Facebook. This allowed us to get audience feedback by uploading our teaser trailer and asking questions for people to answer this was a successful use of new media and didn't take much time to do. This social networking site is public to everyone allowing us to ask our target audience and also other people.


In order to gain effective research we used new technology such as Survey Monkey
However this was unsuccessful this could be due to not being a very well known website. Also there was a lot of information that we asked the user to fill out this could be off putting and people may not want to use up so much time however using facebook we learnt from this mistake and made it simpler.




Finally in order to upload a voice recording for my evaluation part of my product i used a website called AudioBoo

















This acts like a social networking site and allows you to upload blog posts as a voice recording rather than typing which saves time this was fast and simple to use and i inputted links to my voice recordings onto my blog in order for people to hear them.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to gain audience feedback we worked as a group, we have focus group, asking people from our target audience about their opinions on our products. We also upload our teaser film trailer onto Facebook and left a few questions for people to respond to. Our target audience for our feedback was mainly males aged between 15 and 25.
Here are some of the interviews and focus groups member of our group have conducted















The Teaser Trailer Feedback: Stacey uploaded the teaser trailer onto her facebook page. This was a less bias way of audience feedback and aimed mainly at our target audience due to Stacey's facebook friends being mainly ages between 15 and 25 here we receive opinions from real people and find out whether our products were a success Here's a link to the facebook page http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/video/video.php?v=1286179132207


Also below is a print screen of our responses to our teaser trailer.

























All of the people answering guessed the correct genre and some even realised the sub genre we were aiming at. Showing a success straight away. Tension, atmosphere and curiosity is created in our teaser trailer and we also received constructive criticism about adding a directors name in order to grab more peoples attention and to add the wow factor. The majority wanted to go and see the rest of the film however one person thought it would be suitable for a bit more of the plot to be revealed. The target audience was pretty much spot on and the zipping up of her dress intrigued and attracted our male audience. We received some criticism about the font animation, didn't look as profession as we would have hoped and this costume and make up of our main character.
















































We also used the technology of using facebook for our feedback on our magazine front cover. due to it being sucessfull previously. Instead of asking various questions for the audience to give answers to and feedback we let them give thier own opinion freely. All of the comments gave positive feedback, which is a great feeling after putting all the hard work in. The colour scheme of our magazine is mentioned. We kept this simple but bold to make it eyecatching to the audience and this seems to have worked. We had to set a striking colour scheme in order for our magazine to stand out from all the rest and to attract the reader to make them purchase it. The image on the magazine cover has been liked by some and disliked by others. Some one didnt like the fact we could see him face and he is smiling. I agree that the cross media campaign would have had a strong link with each other andthe character would have kept his myseriousness> however the convention of the character on the magazine front cover having a direct mode of address with the audience is extremely popular and therefore we also followed this to make our magazine look like real media. Overall i think our magazine front cover was successful.

How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of my teaser film trailer, magazine front cover and film poster all come together to create a cross media campaign. This is a link to my blog post about the research i found out about cross media marketing and my opinion on it.

http://georgiangusmediastudiesa2.blogspot.com/2010/10/cross-media-marketing-definition.html

If i could give my own definition about cross media advertising it would be advertising using different types of media for example in my project i would have used the television, poster and a magazine. You could also use the Internet, the post or the radio to advertise your products through the media. In order to cross media you cant just use one of these techniques you would have to use three or four to make it effective.

Advantages

• Not everyone may see a certain type of advertisement for example, if somebody didn't watch the television or missed the teaser trailer on the television their are other types of advertisement that can promote our film we are producing.

• Certain types of advertising are more expensive than others therefore by combining the different types of media we are using we aren't using all expensive advertisements therefore saving costs and still getting our product out there to its target audience.
  
  

Disadvantages

• All media advertising costs therefore needing money to fund it, for example the printing costs of posters.
  

The purpose of my teaser film trailer is to show clips of the film in order to intrigue the customer and leaving them wanting to see more. The purpose of the magazine front cover is to show that the film we have produced is a main feature in a magazine and allowing our target market to hear reviews about our magazine. Our film poster is to advertise our film and its release date in the cinema letting people aware of when they can go and see our film this would be placed in a public place for example outside the cinema.

Below is a screen grab from our teaser trailer as you can see in this mid shot you cant see the main characters face, this is due to us trying to keep our film secretive and leaving the audience wanting to find out more. This links in well with our cross media advertising as we haven't shown the main characters face in our long shot image on our poster either which could be seen as challenging the convention however it works well due to relating to another part of our cross media campaign.

Next screen grab you see the title of our film, this appears near the end of the teaser trailer in a large white bold font. We decided to use the same font type throughout our cross media campaign as it stands out to the audience and is noticeable and not confusing to the audience if we keep it the same. However we did change the font colour slightly to make it fit in with the individual products we were producing.

Next you see the prop of a gun this is also shown in our mid shot of our front cover page on our magazine front cover. However it is pointing directly at the reader on the magazine making them feel involved in the film and causing a direct mode of address.

After the name of the film appears we then get told the release date and the website address. The same font has been used to tell the audience the film date when looking at the poster causing no confusion and showing a professional consistency throughout. Furthermore you can see the text hierarchy again here showing that the release date of the film is more important compared to the website address. This is the exact same format as our poster with the same composition with the release date above.

My poster and magazine front cover combine very well together. They have the same character as the same image however a different image has been used with the magazine front cover revealing more about the character. The white font stands out well on the dark background on both of the products and the colour scheme is consistent on both of the products only using a grey scale and red this shows darkness and the representation for the colour red as blood or anger which fits in well with our genre and storyline.

Overall by combining all of our groups products produced they create an effective cross media advertising campaign. We have linked all our products together in various ways, for example, the colour scheme, props, images, main character and fonts. This is an effective technique in media advertisement as the audience will link certain features with your product and therefore be able to see that certain prop and know its for that film ect. A poster is a flexible type of advertisement as you can place it anywhere in the public eye however you may have to think sensibly about this as you will need to place it where your target audience will be able to see it. The teaser trailer would be shown on the television and therefore would need to decide a time of day when your target audience would be watching the telly in order to make sure they notice it. The magazine front cover is for people that are more interested in films and therefore by getting a good review on our film it will make people want to go and watch it. Promoting it well.

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is our teaser trailer we produced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srqqYjOWxo8&feature=player_embedded
This is a voice recording about our teaser trailer.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/264282
















































Above are just a few examples of the conventions we followed on the magazine front cover. The first set of images show the '+' sign, ours is on the left hand side this is to advertise more features to be found inside the magazine. The second image shows the issue number and the website for the magazine again ours is on the left hand side, We have also included this on our cover and in a similar size font. We then added a bar code, the one on the left to make our product look realistic when looking at magazine front covers we noticed they were placed on their side rather than horizontally. Next we have used right justified writing, the image on the left this fitted in well with our composition and layout of our magazine. A convention of a one word exclamatory is used to grab the readers attention. ours is on the right saying 'FREE!' in capital letters. Finally we have used

























Overall we followed many forms of conventions in our front cover of our magazine however there could be slight improvements eg. Masthead under the actors head. However in my research i did find a magazine front cover that also puts the masthead on top of the photograph. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrzVwkmxY16It6Fw-3_JpPkU4L-niiIo5YgI1A99-auGQUx3U4FkQAHsJlKDvPG2PcMVt1qGr0UNtBRSx7n8a8wRHOyTB78sK1MFq0ILnXV-wjb8E3cde4a_Y9T3_AAspTNQxf0fkm0oQx/s1600/film+magazine+2.jpg
























Overall i believe our group have met many codes and conventions on our film poster and it looks like a real media product.

Magazine

























Poster



























Overall i have gained many skills and experiences throughout my A2 media project. In both filming, research and editing. I have used different pieces of software depending on which products i was producing. I used final cut for my teaser film trailer this made editing simple and easy to use. We were able to add audio and transactions to make our teaser film trailer look more realistic. I will remember these editing skills i learnt as they may help me in the future if i decide to fulfill a career in filming and media. However stressful and hard work this project has been i have also enjoyed it working as a team and producing high quality products and the end of it all, showing an achievement. However if i could for instance, I would improve on my time management as that ruined a lot of my project; so back and alter a few things i would. for instance, In my magazine front cover and poster i would have like to have used more varied camera angles as this would look more professional and stand out more. Also i wish i had took more photos when we were filming that we could have used for our magazine and poster as we would have had more choice and made sure the correct photo was chose for our project. Also I'm not keen on the yellow effect lighting used in our teaser film trailer and would have much preferred to use professional lighting however this would have been to expensive and hard to get hold of. Fortunately our yellowish lighting fits in well with our teaser trailer as it is meant to look secretive and erry looking. I also felt my time management was rushed and i wasn't always able to produce my work to the best of my ability. Finally due to working in a group i believe some individuals put in more work than others making others work harder. My favourite part of the project was filming the teaser trailer as i don't believe i will get the opportunity to do that again. I believe our teaser trailer was a success as i believe that you can tell straight away which genre our film is for and the text and sound effects at the end of our trailer make it sound realistic. If i had more time i would have learnt more about the video camera as i feel our group didn't have much knowledge on how to use the camera to the full of its ability effecting certain shots in our teaser trailer. Our group did a lot of planning and we had in depth discussions about all of ideas i believe this helped as we were all happy with the outcome and very organised making everything run smooth. We gained positive feedback and by using conventions all of our products were individually effective.

FINAL FILM MAGAZINE FRONT COVER

Hayley Magazine Mock Up

This is a mock up of a front cover of a magazine that Hayley produced. With my idea of circles as focus points on the page in order to grasp the readers attention at those specific points, the masthead and the title of the film. Hayley also made the circle look like target marks fitting in well with the genre of the film.

Magazine Front Cover Mock Up

Here you can see the magazine mock up that myself and Connor produced. We used photoshop and have used a text hierarchy to show which text is the most important on the cover. We also know it is a convention to place the main photograph over the masthead so we applied this to our cover to make ours look more professional. Our circle with text in is used on lots of magazine covers to stand out to the audience and grab their attention. In the real magazine front cover i would use a banner at the footer of the front cover of the magazine rather than just text to ensure it stands out.

FINAL HUNT POSTER

Created on Photoshop by all of our group.

Film poster in progress

Here we have experimented with the colour scheme of the poster and the text fonts that we wish to use. We have the date the film will be released and a website which will be informative to the reader. The slogan is placed above his head and this quote may be consistent throughout our cross media campaign.

Film PosterMock-Up

we have experimented with the background colour and decided a grey colour fitted in best with our genre. We made this fade to black to make the background look more interesting. We then have a mid shot of the back of the main characters head, we have done it this way to make sure the full identity is not revealed. We have added a shadowed effect to the outline of the actor to make him stand out more from the page and give him a 3D effect. We used a simple font for all the text on the page and placed a quote from the film in the header and the date the film will be released in the footer. The text hierarchy shows that the most important piece of text on this page is the title of the film, 'HUNT'

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