RESEARCH & PLANNING
Hamidat Adesina
BLOGGER
Blogger is a free blogging application which is run under Google, and we used this application to create our individual blogs, and post on it whilst working as a team. With the software the automatically states the date and time our work was uploaded, it allowed us to keep up to date with our work, and choose whether our work will be published as private, unlisted or public. Under unlisted or public, we were could receive feedback from others, which allowed us to communicate with an audience. This was a benefit to us as with uploading our work digitally, we could receive feedback at a faster, wider rate than we would if we were to hand-write our work. Furthermore, this application allows you to embed videos, hyperlinks, gifs, and images, allowing us to input our own media product, along with real media texts. This feature allowed us to easily compare our work to already existing pieces of work, to develop our work further. We could also change the layout of our blog to make it fit a desired theme, which in our case, is horror. This meant that when someone would come onto our blog, they would be able to understand what our blog is going to be based on, just by looking at it.
WEEBLY
Weebly is a free online website creator, and as a team we had decided the name of our website, which is related to our production company, www.sinister-studios.weebly.com . Using our Weebly, we had incorporated different different gifs onto every different page of our work, and these gifs are related to horror, more specifically the different sub-genres of horror, for example animated horror, psychological horror, slashers etc. On sections such as our 'Team Log', we had updated that section as often as possible to show the different parts of our media production that we had worked on, and how we all inputted our ideas into every section of our product, which is the trailer, poster, and magazine. Our Crew Profiles shows basic information on the creators of sinister studios, along with an image and a clip of our favourite horror movie. Under the section pre-production, we had uploaded evidence of our audience research, and our research into things such as the moodboard, storyboard, iconography, and the conventions of our magazine and poster and trailer. Under development, we had shown our textual analysis of existing trailers, posters and magazines
PRESENTATION SOFTWARES USED DURING RESEARCH AND PLANNING
When conducting our research and planning, we had used applications such as Thinglink, Prezi and Surveymonkey, to deliver our work in a more aesthetically pleasing, interesting manner. This made it easier for people to access our work, and to keep the amount of writing from becoming tedious for the viewer to read.
ThingLink
Thinglink allowed us to create a moodboard, or collage of images and add buttons which that reveal text when it is hovered over by the mouse. This meant that we were able to explain each image with detailed written information or through the use of a linked video.
ThingLink
Thinglink allowed us to create a moodboard, or collage of images and add buttons which that reveal text when it is hovered over by the mouse. This meant that we were able to explain each image with detailed written information or through the use of a linked video.
Prezi
Prezi is an application similar to Microsoft Word, and creates a canvas where the viewer of the Prezi can zoom in on aspects of the presentation that they are interested in opposed to scrolling through a whole slideshow.
Prezi is an application similar to Microsoft Word, and creates a canvas where the viewer of the Prezi can zoom in on aspects of the presentation that they are interested in opposed to scrolling through a whole slideshow.
SurveyMonkey
Surveymonkey allowed us to create a poll, in order to receive feedback on things such as preferred genres, favourite films etc. this meant that we could gather a data response, which helped us in pre-production. Below is some screenshots of just one of the many Surveys we have created in order to get as much feedback and responses as possible to add to our research. With all of this information we have received from our surveys, it allows us to better our trailers, and find out what the audience would like to see.
Surveymonkey allowed us to create a poll, in order to receive feedback on things such as preferred genres, favourite films etc. this meant that we could gather a data response, which helped us in pre-production. Below is some screenshots of just one of the many Surveys we have created in order to get as much feedback and responses as possible to add to our research. With all of this information we have received from our surveys, it allows us to better our trailers, and find out what the audience would like to see.
DaFont
DaFont is a website which exhibits and distributes fonts available for public use, for no cost. We used this website in order to decide on a font we could use for the magazine, poster and the title slates for the trailer, in order to keep a consistent theme between the three media products. Using this website meant that we could find professional looking horror fonts. However, we had to look through countless fonts in order to found one that we thought fit our theme.
DaFont is a website which exhibits and distributes fonts available for public use, for no cost. We used this website in order to decide on a font we could use for the magazine, poster and the title slates for the trailer, in order to keep a consistent theme between the three media products. Using this website meant that we could find professional looking horror fonts. However, we had to look through countless fonts in order to found one that we thought fit our theme.
Social Networking Platforms
The research and planning was conducted through methods that varied but all of which were in some type of technological format, the reason for this was because technology is something that allows data to be displayed in specifically formatted fashions that are useful during analysis. In addition to this technology was used for the planning and presenting of the data because the research was collected through technology also. A large majority of the research was collected through second hand research conducted on website platforms that have years of research and data stored at them. Al of which could be accessed at any moment for our own personal use, this includes such sites as YouTube (this is the site that we mostly used for researching things such as secondary hand research, and collecting evidence of the conventions typically used in the media texts that we wanted presented in a text format.) we also used sites such as YouTube (this was used to gather visual evidence and research upon the conventions that are within the real media texts.)
Youtube
Youtube was used during all stages of our development work. Youtube is a social media platform which allows for video sharing worldwide which is used by millions of people around the globe on a daily basis. By creating a free youtube account, we were able to upload our own work onto our page, and we were able to view real media examples, to help with the research of our trailer. This helped us with the creation of our trailer, as we easily took inspiration from existing horror trailers.
Youtube was used during all stages of our development work. Youtube is a social media platform which allows for video sharing worldwide which is used by millions of people around the globe on a daily basis. By creating a free youtube account, we were able to upload our own work onto our page, and we were able to view real media examples, to help with the research of our trailer. This helped us with the creation of our trailer, as we easily took inspiration from existing horror trailers.
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For our research and planning, we had created a practice trailer beforehand, to try and plan out what our film would like like before shooting it professionally. Uploading this to youtube allowed people to view our video, and give us feedback on what was good, and what we could improve on.
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A large majority of the research was collected through second hand research conducted on website platforms that have years of research and data stored at them. Al of which could be accessed at any moment for our own personal use, this includes such sites as YouTube (this is the site that we mostly used for researching things such as secondary hand research, and collecting evidence of the conventions typically used in the media texts that we wanted presented in a text format.) we also used sites such as YouTube (this was used to gather visual evidence and research upon the conventions that are within the real media texts.
In conclusion, using all of these applications for our research & planning had helped us to be able to receive feedback from other people, and to look at existing works to take inspiration from, and add to our work.
CONSTRUCTION
Lewis Wilkinson
We were also able to create an effective conventional logo by merging our horror font, sourced from Dafont, with a blood stain effect. we did this through flattening the font against a coloured background, using the magic eraser tool to remove the colour from the text, allowing the blood stain texture to be seen, and then flattening the image again and removing the coloured backdrop with the magic eraser tool.
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Adobe Photoshop CS6
We used Adobe Photoshop CS6 in order to produce our poster design, animate text transitions for our trailer and edit the imagery and layout our magazine cover. this software is used in the industry to alter and manipulate photos at a professional level. while photoshop isn't conventionally used to construct posters, magazines or to animate, we believed that using this software would benefit us due to our level of experience within the field of this software. I for one, have used this software in my other subjects, which is where I learnt to animate and edit videos in the software, and have used this software in the production of my own projects outside of this course. This software was readily available to us, both inside the school on the Macs/PCs and at home. Photoshop is however, commonly used to adjust and manipulate imagery. for example, on our poster we have adjusted the colours of our victim, adding a greenish tint, which can be applied through the hue/saturation option (Image > adjustments > hue/saturation). Using tipsquirrel.com, we manged to find a photoshop template for an authentic feeling billing block. this provided us with a suitable font and with the text pre-formatted, allowing us to simply relace the pre-set names using the text tool.
Photoshop also played a role in the image adjustment of our magazine's dominant image. for example, we applied a smoke effect by downloading a transparent smoke png file, and then editing the opacity of the layer in order to add a sense of realism to the smoke. however, we then proceeded to adjust the hue/saturation, leaving us with a red tint, which we were satisfied with as it reflects our house style. Trailer
In our trailer, I utilised Photoshop's inbuilt video editor to create our animated text transitions for our trailer. while the industry typically uses ToonBoom harmony or Adobe Flash/Animate to animate digitally, I felt comfortable with using photoshop due to my expierience with the software from my other subjects and outside school projects. I am already familiar with all of photoshop's available tools, and the editor is much more simplified than final cut pro or Adobe premiere. |
Magazine
Masthead : I created the masthead for this cover by downloading a suitable font from dafont.com and removing the colour from the text, allowing a metallic backdrop to come through and create a metal texture which is used to represent the iconography of a knife (conventional weaponry in slasher films) which is suitable considering our film, which the cover focuses on is part of the slasher sub-genre.
Dominant image : Using photoshop, I adjusted the hue/saturation of my dominant image resulting in a green tint to give off a similar feel to our group's poster. I also faded the mask into the darkness by implementing the gradient tool. a faint smoke effect was also included by lowering the opacity of a smoke cloud png, which helped amplify the unsettling atmosphere of the image by obscuring details of the antagonist's body, shrouding them in mystery.
Secondary images : To create these circular crops, I used the circle select tool around my chosen imagery.
Blood graphics : Maade by taking a black and white blood splat vector, and recolouring them to the magazine's house colour shade of red.
Dominant image : Using photoshop, I adjusted the hue/saturation of my dominant image resulting in a green tint to give off a similar feel to our group's poster. I also faded the mask into the darkness by implementing the gradient tool. a faint smoke effect was also included by lowering the opacity of a smoke cloud png, which helped amplify the unsettling atmosphere of the image by obscuring details of the antagonist's body, shrouding them in mystery.
Secondary images : To create these circular crops, I used the circle select tool around my chosen imagery.
Blood graphics : Maade by taking a black and white blood splat vector, and recolouring them to the magazine's house colour shade of red.
Apple Final cut pro
Apple final cut pro is an industry standard video editing software which we used to edit our film's trailer. before this project, we were unfamiliar with this software, so we produced a recreation of the 'Conjuring 2' trailer using stock footage within this program in an attempt to pick up skills. By using this software, we were able to join imagery and audio together through cuts/fades and other transitions, apply colour gradients, overlay text/images, adjust brightness and contrast and alter speed/timing of clips. We were also able to apply captions, which we took advantage of in our trailer's text transitions. Colour correction gave us the ability to keep a consistent tone and suggest continuity between the footage throughout the course of the trailer. this can be seen through our trailer's consistent red tint. The software's inbuilt timeline menu was of great convenience as we were able to ensure footage was cut accurately, and in correlation with the correct timing, resulting in a professional/accurate feeling final outcome. Final cut pro was also used in the construction of our trailer's soundtrack, which was made possible through the ability to cut, overlap and adjust volume of sound clips on the timeline, and match the sounds with the corresponding footage. |
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As at the beginning of the year we were unfamiliar with the software, we took advantage of YouTube tutorials for the various effects we planned to use in our trailer. These were essential in the process of learning skills such as colour gradients and speed adjustment.
When taking out the camera, we were also provided with a tripod. this heavily supported our ability to produce a professional high quality result, as by utilising this accessory, we were able to prevent the camera from shaking, which is inevitable through handheld shooting.
It also benefited us during our photoshoots for the magazine/poster as we were able to rotate and adjust the height of the tripod, allowing a varying range of angles. |
Camera
In order to shoot our footage and imagery for the magazine/poster, We were able to borrow HD cameras from the college whenever we needed to film any footage, and ensuring a high resolution result. As these provided cameras have a 10x optical zoom, we were able to take our shots from a long distance when necessary in particular shooting locations. The Camera's SLR allowed us to manage to capture a clear image, even in dimly lit/crowded environments. We were able to adjust the camera's lighting by Utilizing the camera's ISO. This prevented footage from becoming blurred/out of focus. We utilized the light kit to adjust and enhance the lighting for the imagery of our magazine/poster. As many of our locations were dimly lit, we were heavily advantaged by our access to this equipment, as it allowed us to easily control the illumination of our various shooting locations. various symbolc effects were made possible through this equipment, and it also allowed us to easily produce shadows.
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EVALUATION
Grace Payne
Introduction
For all of our evaluation questions, we have used a range of different medias and apps to creative innovative ways to present our evaluations but have also used these softwares since they are the best choice for this kind of work. For example, apps such as Emaze, Padlet, Thinglink and Prezi all allow our information to be shown in a more visually engaging way; which ultimately helps with the aesthetics of our blog. Other possible softwares that we may have used could be Final Cut Pro and/or Photoshop to edit images and trim down possible clips out of our trailer we may have needed shown.
Emaze
The app Emaze can be seen in our evaluation question 1, where we discussed the Magazine character types and explained why we chose to do what we did. The app allows you to create a visual presentation as a slideshow where you can include gifs, sound, moving images, videos and still images. You can also adjust the background depending on what your Emaze may be about. Therefore, instead of typing up a paragraph for our evaluation questions, Emaze lets us present this in a creative manner, which is much more interesting to engage with and look at.
An example from Evaluation Q1
An example from evaluation 2
Youtube
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Another software we have used within our evaluation is YouTube. When comparing parts of our trailer to other real media texts YouTube is the most appropriate as our final product has been uploaded onto there. But also, we are able to find other similar aspects in different trailers and give a side-by-side presentation of this as it makes it easy for anyone viewing our site to simply click on either of the two videos; which would be clearly demonstrated. What's more, it also allows audiences to see what real media texts have influenced our trailers and how we have stuck to their structure or developed it to make it our own.
Also, to upload any videos we had produced using softwares such as photobooth for our reaction videos in evaluation question 3, Youtube made it extremely easy for us to turn those videos into links that we could then further embed into our blog. Without this programme, this would be a lot more difficult and it additionally allows people to view content on our Youtube page, therefore leading to more views, more subscribers and more fans of horror being able to interact with our brand.
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Thinglink
Another important app that we have used a lot within our evaluation is Thinglink, Thinglink allows you to create a mood-board or use one simple image but then have lots of mini paragraphs on the image which helps keep all your relevant information in one space but present it so it looks visually intriguing. As seen in the images above, we used Thinglink in Q1 in regards to the inspiration we took from the two different sub-genres present in our film. Again, this is another way in which our weebly can look much more aesthetically pleasing, since it adds to the creativity and allows us to present how evaluation questions in multiple different media outlooks.
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Social Media
Particularly for Question 3 of our evaluation social media played a very important part, this is because we had to use all different platforms to retain audience research. Since our target demographic was the teen age range, using all of these socials was perfect to get our product out to them. Through direct messaging on Instagram we could ask people about our poster and magazine, through twitter we could also do the same. Posting our trailer up onto Facebook to enable teens to engage with it and like, comment or share it also helped in giving us feedback. Since social media is an instant way of communicating with people from all over, we could gather our results extremely quickly and were able to reach a huge number of people.
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Since Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular social media apps with our demographic today, we decided to ask our questions to various different people on here as the response can be instant and there are loads of different ways we could receive feedback about our product. We are able to post stories on both platforms to get our product out there and we can ask audiences to respond with what they thought of each of our magazine, poster and trailer.
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Here is a clear representation of how we advertised and got our questionnaires out to our audience through the social media apps I have listed up above. The fact that we were able to use so many different types of media allowed us to reach a wider audience and one that specifically fitted our chosen demographic of young teenagers. Also, since I was able to send these links out to people it means that our questionnaires were easily accessible and therefore did not cause people to have to go through a hassle to find it or answer it; which is all thanks to the newer and better improved softwares these apps use.
Giphy
In order to make each of our evaluation questions more visual and animatic we added in many gifs so that on each page there is not just still images. The first two gifs we had made ourselves which feature as title slates in our official trailer and the other two gifs were to help make our evaluation question 2 more interesting. The gifs used help to give a small and quick insight into what topic we are addressing by including a few key images and a title or caption; which draws attention since it is constantly moving on the screen.
Photoshop
Particularly in evaluation question 2, photoshop was a key software program we had to use in order to help us create our own branded products related to our film franchise. From creating theme park rides, to sequel posters, to album covers, we helped make our brand become global and showed how we would make our franchise a well-known name. Photoshop allowed us to transform ordinary images into our own and helped them become a lot more noticeable as a part of the horror genre, since we were able to use loads of layers, textures and we had the tools to perfect our products.