Evaluation activity 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

This is a video of my final version of my teaser trailer and both of my ancillary tasks; I have recorded a commentary on top of the video to talk about how the different media texts complement each other and the similarities and also the differences between them

Evaluation Activity 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

For the third task my class filmed my co-worker and I talking about our media texts and then got back feedback from the class on what was good and what could have been improved from looking at the different media texts.

Another comment that I received from a person on facebook about my teaser trailer was:

"My only criticism is that at the very end the swords do not appear to hit properly. apart from that, everything was great. I especially liked the bits where George was blacksmithing and the section where Joe is being stuck, it made it feel more like a real media text."

This feedback could show many different strengths and also weaknesses in my media studies video. The major points that people have picked up on are:

Positives:

• That the use of different locations is very interesting which makes it more entertaining. 
• That the music fits well with the video that is being shown. 
• The use of sound to create a mood at a certain point during the video.
• The cross cutting between the different scenes is good and builds the story up.
• There is a good match on action throughout the teaser trailer.

Negatives:

• That the sound of the anvil being hit was out of time with the music.
• The swords at the end do not appear to hit properly.
• That the cutting could have been made faster to give a faster pace to the video.
• The church scene filming was uneven as camera shake occured.

Evaluation Activity 4: How did you use new media technoligies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?

Computer

For the majority of my I.T. work I used one of the dedicated media studies desktop computers in our classroom. This computer had most of the software that was useful in uploading and editing all three of the media texts that I have made for my coursework. Some of the programs that I used were Adobe Premiere elements and Photoshop.  

Filming Camera

This was a DV based camera that used miniature tapes to record onto. Each tape had enough space to hold around an hours worth of footage. These cameras were relatively easy to handle and use, as they were of a basic design which is meant for armature filmers. It had both a fold out LCD screen but you could also use the eye lense. The cameras had a variety of effects that could be applied to the footage whilst filming was done but I choose not to use them as they did not look as professional as the ones available from Premiere elements.

Mike

Through out filming our teaser trailer we used a electronic mike to capture the diagetic sound that was created by the actors in our video. This mike gave the video a much better sound quality than the film camera could, this meant that we did not have to use further methods of improving the sound quality in the editing faze of our production, or to recreate the sounds or find them on the Internet.

Tripod

This piece of equipment was used to steady the DV camera which we filmed with and was also used to elevate the position of the camera which was useful in filming static shots. In one of our scenes it was also used to get a low angle shot by holding the tripod by its feet and moving along a corridor. But for most of the filming using this piece of equipment we were in the Forrest's for the running scene. The use of the tripod is invaluable as it allowed us to vary the shot types and made them seem stable and controlled. This made it look more professional.

Sony H9 camera

This still frame camera was used mostly for our poster and for our magazine front cover. This camera has a 15 megapixel resilution, which makes it very suitable for getting high quality photos for both of the ancilory tasks. This camera has many built in features which would allow the photo to be edited or modified, for example you could put a septa filter on a picture or black and white. There was no trouble in storing the photos on the camera as there was a large memory card which was installed, so this meant that I could take as many photos as I wanted when photographing the characters for the ancilory tasks. Also the interface for uploading them onto the computers was relitively simple so this again shows it is suitable for novices.

Adobe Premiere elements

Adobe Premiere Elements is the programme that I used to edit and put together my coursework piece. This programme is not as novice friendly as some other programmes like windows movie  maker, this meant that it took a longer time to get used to the programme, but this programme has much more in the way of advanced editing tools such as time stretch and visual effects. This meant that I could make it seem very professional as I could edit both the visual and the audible sides of the video.

Adobe Photoshop

This programme was used primarily to edit the still photos that were taken for the ancillary tasks. This programme was useful in editing the different layers of the magazine and the poster together. It is not very novice friendly again as it is main mostly for professionals or for people with good I.T. knowledge. This means that it took a significant amount of time to find out how to edit photos and learn the fundamental apects of how to use it. But once you have learnt how to use it, it is very effective and you can create very artistic creations. The most useful tool that I used in the making of our ancilory tasks in photoshop was the magic wand tool which allowed me to cut away the background behind the characters, and then move them onto another layer to show the text above. 

SIBELIUS 6

This programme was used to write the music for our teaser trailer. This programme was very useful due to being able to hear the music you are writing as you create it, this means that you can create it and also hear it from the computer and not just have to imagine what it will sound like.

LOGIC 8

We used Logic to create a digital orchestra as it would have been difficult to get a real life one to play our music. This programme allows you to put together a group of instruments and the notes you want them to play. This allowed me to change the instruments characteristics throughout the piece of music.

Youtube

I used this programe to upload my videos and voiceover onto the internet. The site is very easy to use as it is meant for novice internet users, but at times can be tempermental as the upload process can fail or take hours depending on the computer that you use.

A2 Media Studies final video

This is my final A2 media studies teaser trailer for my coursework. This video is based around the genre of fantasy and action. For some aspects of our teaser trailer we got Inspiration from multiple different films which could include "Final Fantacy Advent Children",  or From the "doctor who series". This teaser trailer took about 3 months to make. This was due to the many different locations being used. This meant that we had to constantly change location to film which lenthened the time it took to finish filming my video. After we had finished filming I started editing the raw footage and narrowed 40minutes of footage down to one and a half minutes. After this I used both Logic and Silebius to create the music for the video which needed to be made after the video was edited to make sure that the music fitted to the different scenes for the video.

A2 finished Magazine cover for coursework

This is the Magazine front cover for our teaser trailer. It is mostly based around the popular mainstream magazine called Empire. This allowed me to get the basic template for the design of a magazine front cover and allowed me to make it seem more professional and real. The magazine front cover was made in photoshop and paint.net. I used different layers to put the figure on top of the forest background, and then put the different text boxes on with the different headings on them. Then after all of that found a bar code on google images and pasted that onto the various layers. Then finally I Edited out the empire writing from one of their previous magazines and pasted it into the photoshop, and layering it behind the main protagonist.  

A2 Finished poster for our treaser trailer

This is my finished teaser poster, it was again made in photoshop where the different layers where combined to allow the background to not obscure the video characters. The two main characters were taken out of a photo that was taken at a photo shoot. And then I cut the background out to only leave just the figures there. I then used a background that I found on google images to use for the background, which encapsulates the two characters. I then added the title and due date, I though tthat it would look more profetional if the due date overlapped the title as it is seen in many different posters for famous Holywood films. Finally I added the names of the actors and the Director. Then at the bottom I have put a internet link so that the target audince can access the movie in detail (link doesnt work :) sorry).