Question 4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

•I used bubbl.us to make a mind-map on generic conventions. It was very simple to use and helped me have a clear understanding of generic conventions of horror films overall.

• Youtube proved to be extremely useful throughout the whole of my coursework. I used it in the research stage to watch different trailers and upload any work

that I felt was best to present through video. I also used it to find different sound effects and scores, as

well as tutorials on editing photographs on Photoshop. Any work produced on youtube was

hyperlinked on to my blog.

•I used IMDb to find different trailers online as

well as any extra information about the

films such as cast, locations and other

bonuses. This website was extremely useful and

allowed me to understand the generic conventions of horror films clearly.

• Powerpoint allowed me to effectively present my work through text and images. I used this during research of generic conventions of mise-en-scene and camera-work. I would then upload these documents to slideshare, which could then be hyperlinked to my blog.

• I used Microsoft Word during research to create my plots, design my questionnaire and other documents that required a simple text-edit

software. I wrote the plans for my evaluation questions in Word and developed them on to

other technologies such as Prezi and Windows Movie Maker. I also developed my storyboard in word as it was simple to use the grid layout with

images and text.

•Prezi was extremely useful when trying to present my ideas through a mind-map-type structure. I could include images, videos and text, and it was very simple to add different pieces of information into my work. I used Prezi during my evaluation, as well as

• Whenever I needed to download videos or sounds from youtube I could simply copy and

paste a youtube link into onlinevideoconverter.com and click download.

This was very quick and provided me with trailers, different sounds and scores and other

video clips required for my trailer.

•I used Photoshop to edit different pictures such as my poster’s main image. It was extremely good at removing the background of my main image so that the protagonists could stand out. I also used Photoshop whilst editing some of the text work (specific fonts). I used the selection and rubber tool as well as the burn tool to make my image darker, making it more horror-like.

•I used Wix to create my horror-film website. It was extremely simple to use and had several different handy tools, such as the ease to add images, text and music. It was also great for creating different pages, with the ease of including links between each page. I then shared the link to my website on my blog for people to see.

•I used iMovie to create my trailer. I used this over windows Movie Maker as it had a template for trailers, and was very easy to edit different clips and add sounds/score. I then shared my trailer onto youtube for everyone to see. I movie was extremely helpful as it also enabled me to edit lighting and other filters within movie clips.

• To film my trailer I used Canon camera with 3 different lenses. This gave me a wide range of zooms with opportunities to easily alter focus during shot. I then connected the camera to my laptop to send the clips over so that they could be edited into the trailer. I also used a stand and hand grip for different shots. The stand enabled me to take pan and tilt shots, providing a wider range of shots overall in the trailer.

•A huge generic convention of horror-film trailers is the low-key lighting. It was important for me to keep the shots dark, whilst enlightening the important aspects of each shot. As we didn’t have the opportunity to use professional lighting we used an app called flashlight, and placed it where we felt was best for each shot. This captured the important features of each clip whilst keeping the theme of low-key lighting.

•I used flash during the production stage of my coursework. It was extremely

beneficial when creating an animatic logo to be placed on my website and trailer. Of course, we couldn’t have an animatic on

our poster so decided to use a still shot of the completed logo.

•I used Windows MovieMaker throughout the whole process of my coursework. I used it for analysing generic conventions of the 4 main subjects of media (lighting, editing, camerawork and mise-en-scene) and also during my evaluation. I felt that displaying my understanding of different subjects through video with text or voice over was a great way.

I stored all my completed work on Blogspot as I felt it was very

easy to navigate to different work and you can upload

almost any file to your blog, whether it be video, text or sound. It also gave me the option to edit the date and

keep my work organised, so if I ever needed to edit some work,

it could still go back to the correct location.

•I used 1001 fonts to find different fonts that I felt met the generic conventions of horror films. These were mainly placed on the poster as well

as my website. The advantage of using 1001 fonts instead of other font website is that it is automatically a png file, meaning there is no

background. This makes it very to add the fonts to my products and edit them without having to

worry about a background.