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

Using new media technologies within my research and planning stages:Firstly, to create our coursework we have used Blogger, an advanced way to keep a diary for others to see and comment on. This gave me the tools to keep organised and up to date with my work, to record everything I have done, to upload all my work to and also to be marked through. Blogger is easier than traditional paper coursework as it is hardly ever lost or damaged, it is also easily saved and stored. It enables you to use videos, voiceovers, screenshots, sounds and do endless research. In the research and planning stages I mostly used computers and the internet, with websites likeYouTube, IMDB and official film websites to explore film trailers and gain ideas for our own promo. The disadvantages of this is that it might constrain originality, the information isn't always relevant or reliable, as well as our area S.W. learning grid often blocks us our of Blogger and other websites. The benefits of the technologies is that they are mostly convenient and we can access a wide range of genres very easily.

Besides this, we did audience research using Vox-Pop, a visual device which gave us instant feedback, was easily and creatively presentable, and for planning on the blog, we used the presentation tools bubbl.us and slide.net which are also creative. For our animatics and storyboard we used transitions, continuity and added titles to keep it interesting. Lastly in the planing and research we used casting and location shots to show extra detail in our work.


Creativity: This section involves thinking and behaving imaginatively, so for this side of our project, we chose to do the genre 'social realism' which i think was an interesting and thought-provoking choice, when compared to a horror or thriller. We have shown this genre by using ordinary, eye level shots, everyday situations and realistic settings and lighting. We used the software GarageBand for our soundtrack with the non-copyrighted range of music that has many options for any feeling or mood you wish to create, and we wanted our music to look and sound professional. It also allows unmusically talented people to create soundtracks simply. For our camerawork in the production stages, we used a HD video camera and tripod to film with. The HD cameras are more effective than the DV cameras. They produce a much higher quality of video, improving the overall look. Using DV cameras produces a much more grainy image quality. However, some of our lighting is a little dark, for example in the 'clubbing' or 'party' scenes, so the quality is not always at its best. 

Throughout our coursework we have used new media concepts to help promote the trailer. Having our trailer on YouTube allows us to see how much our trailer is being viewed, who by and where in the world they are watching it. Knowing the demographics of our audience would really help use in marketing and distribution as we are more likely to have a clearer idea of who is our target market. To encourage more people to support our trailer I posted the link on my social networking site allowing friends and other Internet user to go directly to YouTube and watch the trailer.

Here is a screen shot of when I posted the link on my Twitter. My Twitter privacy settings are completely public so this link was open to anybody who found it. With over a hundred follows, and many of which are not direct friends, this post was made very accessible. Also the privacy setting for the actual trailer on YouTube were set in such that anybody was able to view as well. I also published the link to my Facebook profile, which although is not public, the direct audience was much larger than that of my twitter account. Another point on this matter is that the viewers are all people I know so their responses should be more ‘helpful’ than some of the ‘haters’ that post on many viral productions.

After posting our trailer on these social websites I noticed that the view count started to rise quite significantly. After a week of being on YouTube without having posted to my networking site the play count was around twenty, however after doing such the play counts are now in the high sixties which is really encouraging. Media 2.0 shows that gaining instant feedback for your productions is extremely achievable today. Viewers are able to comment on the film straight away voicing their opinions and hopefully providing constructive responses helping the producers.