How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the process of my planning, research and evaluation stages, I have used many technologies to help me create my final products. In the making of my products, I have noticed that I have used a lot of technologies to create the trailer I wanted, not just for the making of the trailer, but also for the planning, researching and evaluation stages. Overall I am happy with how my final products came out and will now tell you a bit about each technologies that helped me create my products.
I used new media for my research and planning by watching trailers on YouTube , some of the trailers which I watched for research were Evil Dead, which I took inspiration from and many horror movie trailers based around a school, for example School of the dead. I also looked at Frankensteintrailer, to look at how you can a thriller trailer can be as chilling as a horror movie trailer. Not only did I use YouTube to look at existing horror movie trailers, but I also used it to look at some previous students' work, which I thought helped me quite a lot, as it allowed me to have a bit of an idea of my limitations and the sort of trailer I am able to produce. I also researched scary and haunting sounds and music on YouTube to get a feel of what to include in my trailer. I noted down a few conventions in sound that I noticed and got inspired my whilst watching existing trailers on YouTube. Finally, YouTube helped me at my evaluation stages, as when I had finished my trailer, I uploaded it to YouTube, which allows me to gain feedback from an people who aren't necessarily in my target audience, allowing me to get honest feedback. This allows me to receivepositive and negative feedback and allows people to comment and tell me what I could have improved on and how I can make it better for next time.
Another media technology I used in the construction and research, planing and evaluation stages, was Blogger. I have had previous experiences with this site, as I made my first blog, last year in AS. Blogger has allowed me to organise and maintain all my planning and findings. I continently wrote up a post on my progress, as well as all my planning and production stages of my tasks. This site also allows me to easily make changes to any of my posts if needed to. I also used blogger to evaluate my media products, which I could upload any videos and pictures I needed to put on my blog, showing progress or my final task. This allows my evaluations to consist of clips and images of my final tasks, making them look more effective and successful. sing Blogger helped me also to look at other students in my class and see how they were interpreting videos and this meant ideas could be shared between one another, as we are able to leave a comment on the bottom of a post, leaving our thoughts and opinions. This site was really helpful to me by the fact that I can access it anywhere, from the mac to my phone. This allowed me to be able to post whenever and wherever I was.
A vital technology I used was a Mac and the program installed on it, which was Final Cut Pro. This project meant that I was on the Mac everyday, uploading, putting together and editing my trailer. I have briefly use the Mac before this project, however was still quite new to it but found it quite easy, when I got used to it, and it was something I really got the hang of quite quickly, which allowed quick and successful progress. I spent a lot of my free time working on the mac, perfecting my product as much as I possibly could. To create the trailer itself, I had to use Final Cut Pro, which I hadn't actually used before however, again found that when I got used to it, it was quite easy to use and did feel comfortable with it and was able to create a successful movie trailer, knowing how to put transitions in and how to add an audio to a clip, etc.
The internet was another technology that really helped my research and planning. This is because mostly all of my research was done using the internet. Google was a huge part of it, as a lot my research was done through google, for example, searching for existing DVD covers and Movie posters on google images, used it to search around my chosen genre and google was where I got a lot of useful information to help me create the trailer. Google allowed me to view some of the conventions I had to stick to with the making of my trailer and ancillary tasks. The only problem with using google is that the information isn't always true, which does affect the creation of my tasks. Wiki was another site on the internet that I found useful in the process of making my trailer, this is because I found out some very useful information on this site that helped me create my story line, such as the final girl theory. This gave me the information I needed to help me include it in my storyline. And finally, Pixlr was a technology that really helped me with my project. I used this site for the two of my ancillary tasks, to edit and complete them, giving them the effect it needed to look professional and successful. I was already familiar with the site as I used it last year in AS, which did help as I knew what I was doing and knew how everything worked, allowing my two products to be successful and done to the best of my ability.
The main technology I used was the actual camera itself. To take my photos I used my own camera, Nikon D50, which I do feel comfortable using and know how to use, which allowed me to take some good photos. As this camera had a zoom lens, I was able to capture a variate of different and effective shots, which really worked to my advantage whilst taking photos for my ancillary tasks. For videoing my scenes I used the schools Panasonic camera and a tripod for better quality shootings, which I have used before, so I did know how everything worked. The tripod really helped me during the making of my trailer, as I was able to record smooth and steady scenes. At times I did use the hand held shot to create a dramatic effect, to make the video more intense and more frightening (this was used when the final girl was leaving a message to loved ones). I used this devise to maintain the camera in a steady place, to get the best possible footage I could. The camera's were very easy to use and I did not have any problems with them. The one problem I did have was that because I was using a school camera, I didn't always have access to it, however knowing this I decided to base my setting at school, so I didn't need the camera outside school, and could use it and record scenes in my spare time at school. Uploading the footage off of the camera onto the mac was very simple. I had to get the right chord and plug it into the mac, however the problem that sometimes occurred, was that the Mac did not always read the camera and would not upload my footage. At this point I had to completely shut the mac down and set it up again. By doing this the mac was able to read the camera and allowed me to upload my footage.
In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For our coursework we were asked to produce 3 products: A film poster, a DVD cover and the horror trailer itself. My research about existing conventions of these inspired me to produce my own products and the development and production of my products would be based on my research. To be more familiar with the convention of a horror trailer, I did a lot of research on YouTube and looked at existing trailers of horror movies, some of which included: Evil Dead, Paranormal Activity, Insidious, The Ring, The Grudge, The Devil Inside, Friday 13th, One Missed Call, Creep, Silent Hill, You're Next, etc. I decided to use my finding from the trailers I watched into my own product. I feel that my media products, both trailer and ancillary tasks develop and challenge conventions of many real media products. I had a look at pre-existing horror trailers to give me guideline and indication of what the typical conventions are.
Conventions:
Isolated setting (woods/dark forests)
Dark atmosphere
Large weapon (axe/saw)
Blood
Gore
Masks (something to hide their identity)
Sound
Suspense music
Slamming doors
Screaming
Heavy breathing
Loud bangs
Children laughing
Camerawork/editing
Fast pace cuts
Over shoulder shots
Low angle shots (for intimidation)
Point of view shots (someone being watched)
Panning (someone being chased)
Cross-cutting (suspense)
Fade to black (frightening effect)
Credits
Characters
Innocent, final girl
Someone running away
Victims (who become hero saving the day)
Villain
Someone pretending to be good, who is really on the bad side
Killing creature
Before starting the initial task of my trailer, I carried out a lot of research and had a few lessons on existing horror trailers, to find out what is conventional and why it is effective. I found out, by my research that most horror trailers are mostly 1 and a half - 2 minutes long, however mine is almost 2 and a half minutes long. Although this is challenging the conventions of most movie trailers, I understand the importance of all the scenes I have left in,I deliberately didn't cut my trailer down too short because I wanted the audience to feel the story line and enhance them wanting to watch it. In relation to real horror trailers, I tried to use most of these generic conventions and adapt them into my trailer. My trailer starts with a handheld camera shot of the last girl (which is another convention), looking terrified, leaving a message to loved ones. By putting this scene at the beginning of the trailer, I challenged conventions, as in existing horror trailers, at the beginning, there would normally be an establishing shot, to allow the audience to be familiar with the scenery. This is normally a shot of a abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and always has some sight of the woods. I didn't use this convention, but challenged it because I feel that most movie trailers show an establishing shot of the scene, makes the rest of the film predictable and that you know what to expect, which in some cases makes the trailer a lot less frightening. I feel that by challenging the convention and having a terrified girl at the beginning, talking in the camera worked towards my favour, this is because it created an intense atmosphere right from the start, and is a way to really get my audience into the trailer, and want to see more.
For my horror movie trailer I wanted to give a frightening vibe to my audience from the very start. Keeping this in mind, I challenged many conventions of existing horror movie trailers. Firstly, I did not create a typical horror trailer where tension is built up further in, as I feel that would bore my audience. An example of an existing trailer where it's not frightening from the start and the tension builds up, it Paranormal Activity. I feel that this Paranormal Activity isn't a very successful trailer, as when I asked a few of my target audience what they thought of the trailer they used words like 'boring' and 'disappointment'. I feel that by challenging this particular convention, it worked towards my favour, as when I showed a few of my target audience my trailer, they gave me some feedback and a few of them said that they really liked how it was scary right from the start and didn't go down hill, it just got even more frightening as it went on. In most of the trailers I watched they didn't show the 'creature' until about a minute into the trailer. Again, I challenged this because I feel that by showing really quick flashes of the 'creature' like I did, really gives off a scary vibe to my audience and relates to my previous point about making the trailer as scary as I can, right from the start. This is exactly what the audience want to see in a trailer and because I only have 2 and a half minuted to see the movie to them, I feel that by showing little glimpses of the 'creature' at the beginning and throughout, I am giving the audience what they want, making them want to see the whole movie.
A convention I stuck with was, fast pace cuts. This made my trailer very effective, as it gave good rhythm to the trailer and is an aspect that I feel has to be included in a horror trailer to make it successful and frightening. The one existing trailer I took inspiration from was 'Evil Dead'. I noticed that in that trailer there was a lot of fast pace cuts that really worked in their favour and made the trailer more dramatic which gave me inspiration to add that to mine. In the Evil Dead trailer a nursery rhyme is used, which, to me made the trailer much more exciting and really frightening. I noticed that in many horror films nursery rhymes were used so I decided to stick to conventions and use a nursery rhyme for mine too. This really worked for my trailer, as not only did it fit nicely and had a nice and slow beat to it, which was exactly what I was going for in sound, but it is about a school, so it really goes well with the trailer itself. In the Evil Dead trailer the scenes were filmed in both light and dark settings, which I feel worked really well and created a really tense atmosphere, even though some of the scenes are not necessarily shot in a dark setting, it still worked to their advantage. I did the same, taking even more inspiration from this movie and filmed my scenes in both light and dark settings, which again worked really well for me.
Another convention I stuck with was my camera work and angles I filmed the scenes in. I noticed that in a lot of existing trailers recorded at least one of the scenes in a low angle shot. This creates a really intimidating look, which is good, as it belittles the characters as well as the audience watching, making them feel intimidated. I used a low angle shot in one of my scenes, for the exact same effect, to get the audience to feel intimidated my the zombie. I feel this worked really well for me, as it got the exact effect I wanted and actually turned out much better than I expected. I noticed, while watching existing trailers, that Panning is often used, for a scary effect, normally used for when someone is running away. I stuck to conventions, and used this camera work when a character was on the floor, backing away from the 'creature'. This again worked really well for me because it created a realistic effect and allowed the audience to feel frightened for her and feel as though they were backing away from the 'creature' too.
In every existing horror trailer I watched, there were cuts and the effect, fade to black. I stuck to these conventions and decided to include both of these editing techniques in my trailer, which turned out to be really good effects and they created a very frightening vibe and I feel it gave my trailer more of a professional look to it and made it a lot more successful, as before hand, I didn't add the cuts and fades and it didn't really strike me as a trailer but more as a short film and wasn't very frightening at all. So I feel that by sticking to these conventions, it helped me produce a more successful and a much better horror movie trailer.
Sound is very important in a horror trailer and can make or break your product. When choosing the right sounds and music to add in, I firstly did a lot of research, listening to the sounds of other horror trailers. I noticed that in most of the ones I've watched there were a lot of loud effects, mostly bangs, that are really frightening and give the trailer a really good and scary effect. I decided to stick to this convention and added the effect into my trailer, which turned out really well for me, as it did create the exact effect I wanted it to and really does create a frightening vibe. I also notice that most of the trailers I watched have a sound bridge with the main music they use in the trailer, which is exactly what I included in my trailer. The main song that I used, I made it roll on to most of my scenes, although sticking to the conventions with this, I also challenged conventions, when I made the song quiet down on scenes that the audio sound was important in, and just left it quietly playing in the background, which I didn't see a lot of in existing trailers, however I feel it still did work out for me and gave my trailer a positive effect and did create a tense and scary atmosphere.
Another popular convention of a horror movie is a 'final girl'. The Final girl theory (see post 19) is in most typical horror movies. for example, The Shining and Friday 13th, and I feel that,by having a final girl in a movie it gets the audience thinking whether or not she is going to survive and defeat the killer, as she has come a long way and is the last one and the only hope left. In my trailer, I did use a final girl, who is holding and speaking to the camera, frightened, leaving a message, shaking and looking really stressed. Having a final girl in my trailer, I feel is really effective and works hugely in my favour, as the scene where the final girl is talking to the camera, really gives off a positive effect and shows that she has been through and seen so much, and it really makes the audience want to see what she has witnessed and watch the full movie.
Before starting my ancillary task, a movie poster, I did a lot of research to find out what the important conventions were. As you can see by the picture on the right hand side, I stuck to many conventions and tried to make my poster look as realistic and as close to a existing professional one. I noticed, whilst doing my research that on horror movie posters, they usually have one picture in the middle, of the 'killer/creature' and really think this gives the poster an edge, as its simple enough not to give the movie away, however still look really effective and gives off a frightening vibe, especially as the 'creature' in my poster is looking directly into the camera, making it more personal and that even more scary. I feel that sticking to that convention made my poster successful as a whole and really gave it that professional look. Another convention I stuck to was having the title of the movie just above the bottom of the poster, not disturbing the main image in the middle, which was a great effect, as again it gave the poster a more professional look to it and by making it the biggest text on the poster and in a bright red, really gives off a sharp look and makes the title stand out so the audience can't miss it. To make my poster look as realistic as possible, I decided to stick to conventions, again and add the directors names, the people who star in the movie, etc. which certainly did make the poster look realistic and gave it a positive effect. Over all I feel that I have made a successful horror movie poster that I am proud of and by doing my research and sticking to the conventions of a existing movie poster, I was able to make mine look realistic and gave it that professional look to it.
I did the same with DVD cases. I did a lot of research around existing ones and tried to make one as realistic as I possibly could. As you can see by the images on the left, I have tried to stick to as many conventions as I could, however still challenged a few which really worked out to my advantage. The conventions I stuck with include: a synopsis of the movie, which is an important part of the case, as it tells the audience what the movie is about, trying to sell it to them, not giving too much away but enough to make them want to watch it. Another convention I stuck to was adding a tag line on the front of my case. I noticed that every case that I looked at and took inspiration from had it's own tag line, which has a huge impact on the audience as, if you have a good and catchy tag line, then you automatically grab their attention and hook them in. I created two tag lines, one being 'What was once trapped is now unleashed' and the other 'The lucky ones die first'. I feel that by sticking to the convention of having a tag line, really did work in my favour, as the two tag lines that I made up, really does make you want to watch the movie and find out who the 'unlucky' ones are, who effectively have to battle the 'creature'. More convention I stuck to was making the back of the case look busy, by adding a few images of what is consisted in the movie, the ranking of the movie and a bit of information about it, a barcode, copyright terms and conditions, a little description of the company releasing the movie, which I again made up, a bit about the directors and editors, etc. All of these factors that I added in have allowed me to create a successful case and really does make it look more realistic. I did, however challenge a few conventions, as I have noticed that on most cases there tend to be images of only the main characters, however I decided to merge a few images together, a couple of them were the zombie, however some of them were objects and things to do with the movie. I feel that by challenging this convention, it has worked well for me as I have created a unique case that still has that professional look to it gives the audience more of a feel to what the movie consists of. Another convention I challenged was that I adding the amount of stars the movie got rated. I noticed that the existing cases didn't include this feature, but I feel that by adding this it grabs the audiences attention on how good the movie is and makes them want to watch it. Overall, I was pleased with the way our horror trailer, DVD case and movie poster compared to those made by professionals as I only had few resources and very little in terms of hi-tech equipment. All my media products, predominantly fit into the conventions of other existing trailers, posters and DVD covers. This is great because it means my media products look authentic and realistic.
"I would say it's a quite modern Horror/thriller film This is because of the Mise en scene elements that have been used, i.e. the clothes that the zombie is wearing (scarf, black long coat and black wedged heels) which suggests to me an new fashioned era and you wouldn't see a old movie with a zombie wearing these clothes. Also, there is a tinge of bright and stand out colours used on the poster which again gives a feeling of a modern photograph, this is an effect you often see with modern films. The thriller genre stepped out to me as I feel the expression on the actress holding the camera's face looks somewhat disturbed. She looks shocked and scared which automatically stands out to me as a some kind of thriller."
2. What would you say the storyline is about? "From simply looking at the poster, it's difficult to tell exactly what the film is about. This builds up mystery and intrigue, urging me to want to see the film. I think that the tag line gives away the fact that this is a film about a zombie coming back to a school, killing those she had missed last time or something."
3. Do you think the image has a professional or an amateur look about it? "Professional, it looks sophisticated and it follows all the conventions of a film poster, with the image dominating the page, the title and tag line being present and so on."
"All elements of mise-en-scene are just perfect!"
4. What do the uses of color tell you about the film? "The red titles on the poster tells me that, there is going to be a lot of blood and violence involved." "The overall uses of colour compliment one another, the bright and heavy." 5. Do you think I have chosen a suitable model to star in and promote my film? Why? "Yes, she has the acquired look that anyone would need to have when creating a modern horror film. She looks frightened and vulnerable, which is what most victims should look like when appearing in a horror film."
6. Do you think I could have made any improvements with this image? "No, I think that the image is perfect."
7. Does the tagline spark a further interest in the film and persuade you to want to see it? "Definitely, it’s enticing and exciting and doesn’t give away a great deal which makes me want to find out more." 8. Do you think the use of colours/ fonts for the text are effective in standing out? "Yes, less is more. by using one stand out colour, it really catches our eye due to the brightness of the colour as well as the positioning and size."
9. Would you say I have followed the codes and conventions of film posters? "you have included a main image, a tagline and a film title, you have successfully followed the codes and conventions of a film poster." 10. Does this poster persuade you to want to see the film? "Yes, it is a very effective poster in that it grabs my attention and draws me in and really makes me want to see what happens in the movie, well done."
The Film Trailer
1. By watching the trailer, what genre of film would you say this is?
"By looking at the trailer, I would definitely say it was of a horror genre. In the trailer, you see the zombie sinking its teeth into a victim, which was mostly what gave it away.
"I would say the genre of this film is a horror meets thriller film."
2. Do you think the use of camera/ editing/ lighting, elements of mise-en-scene were successful? Did the piece look authentic and professional or not?
"I really enjoyed the uses of camera angles and shots and the elements of mise-en-scene were constructed beautifully. For example, the opening scene, showing a close up of the frightened girl holding and talking into the camera, I really liked as it really did show how frightened she was. I loved the use of lighting in the middle of the trailer, where the camera pans, following the zombie, in broad daylight. However, the editing might have let you down a bit, it's not as extravagant as the use of camera, lighting and mise-en-scene, although, you used good amounts of cuts, fades and cross desolves. Overall, I thought in parts the piece did look authentic and extremely representative of a modern horror film."
"My favourite aspect was definitely the mise-en-scene! The costumes, props, settings and locations were just perfect. Well done!"
3. Which parts of the trailer do you feel were most successful?
"The use of music was so successful, as it really highlighted the fact that it was a horror and made the traler even more scarier than it is. The soundtrack selected was brilliant, I loved the fact that the music at the end was different to the one playing throughout the trailerand was very thrilling, which I thought was brilliant! I also think the use of mise-en-scene was particularly good, you made everything look very authentic and styled it very well."
4. Name the areas that you believe I could have improved on:
"Perhaps a bit of dialogue and more sound other than music would have been nice!"
"The structure of the trailer is a little loose towards the end, in order to excite audiences more, you could have included a fast pace montage of clips."
"Maybe shorten your clips down a little, I think that the dark scene went on for too long."
5. Does this trailer persuade you to want to see the film? "Yes, it is a very effective in that it grabs my attention. teases me and makes me want to watch."
IMPROVEMENTS
Person 1: Lower the contract in the scene of the classroom
Person 2: Turn down the audio and make the music louder
Person 3: Improve on your outro, maybe add a screen of everyone who's in the movie.
WHAT'S GOOD
Person 1:
The camera work (intimidating low angle shot)
The sound really fits with the theme
The story line is good and quite frightening
How realistic the zombie looks
Person 2:
The transitions make the trailer look really good
The picture and camera work is good
The DVD case and poster really fits in well with the trailer and look quite good
Person 3:
The beginning, with the handheld camera makes the trailer look more intense and really good
Main task - Horror movie trailer.
This is my finished main task for my coursework. I feel that this has been successful for me and am happy with the trailer I made and feel as though I have achieved the goal I wanted in the process of making this trailer, which was to create a scary vibe, making my trailer as frightening as possible, however not giving too much of the storyline away, just the basics that my audience need to know to get familiar with what happens in the movie.
One problem that had, was that the scenes in my trailer were too long and there wasn't much rhythm or fast pace involved, which is a important part of a trailer, especially if you want to create a frightening vibe. Because my trailer wasn't quite frightening and gave too much of the storyline, I decided to cut down a lot of it and, even though I wanted to use all of the scenes I filmed, I did actually only used a few and really cut them down and mixed them up throughout my trailer, for example, the final girl in the beginning of the trailer speaks to the camera, then there will be a cut to another scene, then back to the girl talking to the camera. I feel that by doing this, it creates more of a successful and a more realistic horror trailer. This is because it is keeping the trailer short, in a fast pace and not giving too much away to the audience, which would spoil the movie for them. My plan of action was, just to give them a feel of the movie and really want more.
I also had a bit of a problem with the title of the movie, as I wasn't quite sure what to call it. I knew it had to be relevant to the storyline, but really couldn't make a decision, so I got my audience involved. I made a chart of the four possible title I came up with, one being 'INVASION', and the others 'TRAPPED, THE ATTACK, ZOMBIE AT SCHOOL'. They all agreed that 'ZOMBIE AT SCHOOL' was the most relevant and would fit best with the storyline, however they all thought that it wasn't a really scary title and thought that it made the movie sound more like a parody. Most of them voted on 'INVASION' as they thought it had a edge on the others and gave a more scary touch to it and was quite relevant and fitted the storyline really well. So in the end I overcame the problem I was having, by asking my audience for their opinion and giving them a say in important decisions such as the title.
Overall, I am quite happy with the way that the main task turned out and feel that I have made a quite frightening and successful movie trailer. I stuck to most conventions, making the trailer look more realistic and professional. A few of the conventions I stuck with included: credits, sound bridge, final girl, a killer creature etc.
After months of editing, uploading and filming, I have finally finished my final horror movie trailer, which I have asked peoples opinions on and did keep editing it, when they mentioned a fault or something I could improve on, however there was somethings the picked up on that I couldn't change, for example the camera was a bit shake at times in a scene. Overall I feel my trailer is successful and I feel that I have done a good job with sticking and challenging where I thought was possible, conventions of a horror movie trailer. I will now upload it to youtube then put it up on a post and will write a bit about it.
I will also write up peoples comments, thoughts and opinions on my trailer.
I am now finishing up my editing, tweaking the little imperfections, adding sound in all the right places, making it look and sound like a professional trailer. As you can see in the image below, although I had so much footage, I cut it down to around 2 and a half minuted, including credits, during and at the end of the trailer. As you can also see, I have included a lot of transitions and editing techniques that were a vital part of m trailer. This image shows how I did the news report room too. As you can see, I added the image on top of the green screen footage and made it overlap to get a great and realistic effect.
Overall, I am happy with the progress I have made and am nearly read to upload it onto youtube then post it onto my blog.
Another media technology I used in the construction and research, planing and evaluation stages, was Blogger. I have had previous experiences with this site, as I made my first blog, last year in AS. Blogger has allowed me to organise and maintain all my planning and findings. I continently wrote up a post on my progress, as well as all my planning and production stages of my tasks. This site also allows me to easily make changes to any of my posts if needed to. I also used blogger to evaluate my media products, which I could upload any videos and pictures I needed to put on my blog, showing progress or my final task. This allows my evaluations to consist of clips and images of my final tasks, making them look more effective and successful. sing Blogger helped me also to look at other students in my class and see how they were interpreting videos and this meant ideas could be shared between one another, as we are able to leave a comment on the bottom of a post, leaving our thoughts and opinions. This site was really helpful to me by the fact that I can access it anywhere, from the mac to my phone. This allowed me to be able to post whenever and wherever I was.
A vital technology I used was a Mac and the program installed on it, which was Final Cut Pro. This project meant that I was on the Mac everyday, uploading, putting together and editing my trailer. I have briefly use the Mac before this project, however was still quite new to it but found it quite easy, when I got used to it, and it was something I really got the hang of quite quickly, which allowed quick and successful progress. I spent a lot of my free time working on the mac, perfecting my product as much as I possibly could. To create the trailer itself, I had to use Final Cut Pro, which I hadn't actually used before however, again found that when I got used to it, it was quite easy to use and did feel comfortable with it and was able to create a successful movie trailer, knowing how to put transitions in and how to add an audio to a clip, etc.
The main technology I used was the actual camera itself. To take my photos I used my own camera, Nikon D50, which I do feel comfortable using and know how to use, which allowed me to take some good photos. As this camera had a zoom lens, I was able to capture a variate of different and effective shots, which really worked to my advantage whilst taking photos for my ancillary tasks. For videoing my scenes I used the schools Panasonic camera and a tripod for better quality shootings, which I have used before, so I did know how everything worked. The tripod really helped me during the making of my trailer, as I was able to record smooth and steady scenes. At times I did use the hand held shot to create a dramatic effect, to make the video more intense and more frightening (this was used when the final girl was leaving a message to loved ones). I used this devise to maintain the camera in a steady place, to get the best possible footage I could. The camera's were very easy to use and I did not have any problems with them. The one problem I did have was that because I was using a school camera, I didn't always have access to it, however knowing this I decided to base my setting at school, so I didn't need the camera outside school, and could use it and record scenes in my spare time at school. Uploading the footage off of the camera onto the mac was very simple. I had to get the right chord and plug it into the mac, however the problem that sometimes occurred, was that the Mac did not always read the camera and would not upload my footage. At this point I had to completely shut the mac down and set it up again. By doing this the mac was able to read the camera and allowed me to upload my footage.
