EVALUATION

Chris Mahoney

Candidate # 5118

Centre # 27258

Media Studies G324

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For my media coursework I along with three group members chose to create a package that consists of collaborating to construct, research, plan and evaluate a Teaser Trailer, and individually create a film Poster and Website.

My Teaser Trailer- which was created alongside three other group members follows numerous conventions found within common teaser trailers, which exploits the commodity to their selected target audience.

The commodity that we propose to exploit to our target audience is a Horror/ Thriller genre film, called ‘Sunday’s Child’.

The first conventional aspect regarding the teaser trailer would be the scheduled length. Through research of previous teaser trailers and through other people’s findings on the same subject, we as a group discovered that a stereotypical teaser trailer appears to be among 30-90 seconds. The final edition of the teaser trailer is 64 seconds in length. By only showing the viewer a small amount of footage the purpose of the teaser trailer is to create an impact on the audience, an impact that leaves the target audience wanting to buy the advertised product. To achieve this type of impact several decisions were made through group discussions.

During the extract the identity of the characters goes past the conventions within traditional teaser trailers, as the identity of the main character is made clear to the viewer through a variety a camera shot lengths and angles. My point here doesn’t strictly challenge the conventions, as in the official teaser trailer of ‘Buried’ (2010), one of the very trailers I analysed; the main character is the main subject of appearance during the extract. As teaser trailers tend to go, information regarding characters and their roles in the film is left to be assumed by the viewer, but in our product the protagonist is identified clearly through the use of a variety of camera techniques. I would say that this feature has been developed from other previous teaser trailers alongside the film ‘Buried’. Having the main character as a female, we have successfully shown her typical values as; naive and vulnerable to danger.

Something that does challenge the system is the villain’s appearance. We decided to include this character to convey the Horror/ Thriller genre. Presenting the genre clearly to the audience was one of our priorities, and through other aspects of media we also conveyed this. The villain’s personal identity isn’t revealed as his face is hidden by a white mask. He also wears black clothing, which connotes corruption, evil and death, which are all conventional within the chosen genre. The hidden identity of the villain suggests a part of the narrative of not knowing who the villain is. This adds a sense of mystery which persuades the viewer into watching the final product. Part of the Horror/Thriller iconography is a mask retaining the villain’s identity from the audience knowing. This is a regular feature seen within my chosen genre, as it creates an enigma for the audience to question. Hiding an identity could mean its maybe a character we already know of, which could surprise the audience latter on. There are a number of films out there that use aspects of mise en scene such as ‘costume’, ‘hair’ and ‘makeup’ to keep an identity of a character secret. The Batman and Spiderman series uses costume to hide the main characters identity. Not from the audience, but from other characters in the film. This relates to the Sunday’s Child villain to an extent; as Spiderman and Batman are vigilantes who protect.

The footage has been edited to strongly put across the horror/thriller genre. From our research it was within our best intentions to use the editing to convey a horror/ thriller genre. The types of edits used within conventional teaser trailers are straight and jump cuts. Incorporating this into my product we chose to follow in the same footsteps from previous products. From my calculations there are 26 transitions, making the average length 2.4 seconds. Having a fast pace teaser trailer is another example of us following the codes and conventions within the chosen genre. Through my analyses of products that have been provided to me over the internet, I have gained an understanding of the type of pace, style and techniques the teaser trailer should hold.

Within the teaser trailer it is an important value to included camera variations. By variation I mean shot lengths, angles, movements and the composition of them all. A mixed variety of techniques is essential to include in a teaser trailer, as it provides something different for the audience to watch, and shots are usually used to show different things. Long distance shots are used to establish the setting and the environment the character is in, mid shots are used to show the characters movement and also show others in the frame, close ups are used to show speech and facial expressions. My teaser trailer includes a variety of camera techniques, which I gather to be stereotypical and following the codes and conventions. Excluding camera variety is seen by some as bad directing skills. To prevent the teaser trailer from only having few camera techniques it was all planned well before the scheduled filming dates. Planning the shot types, settings, time of day, positioning of characters within the frame etc gave the group a full understanding of the filming we were going to conduct. We made a storyboard to replicate what the real shot would look like.

An example of an Extreme long shot is shown at the beginning of the extract. What the group intended to do was to establish the setting; a public firework display in a close and small community. This establishment also shows the equilibrium. All of which follow the codes and conventions of a traditional trailer, whether it be theatrical or teaser.

Sound is used in the teaser trailer whilst following the codes and conventions of stereotypical teaser trailers. Sound is a strong feature within any electronic media format, as the audience can encage themselves into the media in a further depth. Horror/ thriller genre films rely on sound effects to scare the audience. At certain moments in my teaser trailer sound is used especially for emphasis. The editing software (Sony Vegas 9.0) allowed us to manipulate sound in levels of volume and bass. With the recording hardware we had available to us, the editing software improved the recorded content to an extent, allowing us to play with the recorded footage, to then make amendments to make it fit more into the Horror/Thriller genre. The editing of sound and features is a typical procedure that would take a long time when in the making of a real trailer. Following in the same footsteps I believe we have used a conventional aspect within making a Teaser trailer.

Whilst we had made amendments to the diegetic sounds, we placed non-diegetic sounds such as a soundtrack and sound effects. All of the sound features we included in the teaser trailer are conventional. Through our individual research in the preparation stage before the making of ours, I recognised the sound effects produced, which then gave me an understanding of what to include later on. The soundtrack that we chose is also a guideline for when we should choose to edit. As you may have noticed, each edit falls within a beat produced by the music.

The soundtrack includes a piece of music from the classical era, which was purposely chosen to establish the equilibrium. The classical music is a form that we chose to develop, as it clearly establishes an equilibrium through its major tone, however, including a piece of music from the 18^th century is not something we approached upon during the planning and researching stages of our production. Another track we included was ‘Final Hour’ by ‘XRAY DOG’, this song was chosen for its characteristics, which are sinister, dark and mysterious. The song fulfils this by excluding lyrics and having a slow tempo whilst in a minor chord. The notes of the chord are produced from a piano, whilst accompanied by computer generated sounds which adds emphasis at certain moments. This was the type of music we found common to appear in a traditional teaser trailers of our chosen genre and in extracts where the audience should feel deeply encaged from the intensity.

Mise en scene is a feature that considered whilst in the preparation stages of teaser trailer. This area of representation over rules many aspects, that have been used, developed or challenged in comparison to other teaser trailers in the horror genre.

The setting and filming location was debated upon to what we thought was most appropriate in terms of representation and likelihood of it actually working. Due to our non-existent funding we were challenging a conventional aspect that most media production teams would have. The greatest film to approach huge commercial success with minimal funding (£15,000) was ‘Paranormal Activity’. The director used his own home and unknown actors to feature in his 2009 film. This film genre coincidently is a horror. The home in which we filmed Molly and her family was actually a team members home, which was based in a village people could access easily. The children’s playground was based in the same village and was a few minutes’ walk. The church where the last scene was recorded was in a nearby village. A team member had a close connection to the caretaker who knew the vicar very well, and so permission was granted for us to film in the premises. The fireworks display was in a public place; therefore permission wasn’t necessary, as long as the identity of people was kept anonymous. As far as the conventions go, we stuck to them, as houses are used in almost all horror/ thriller genre films, as it shows a certain character in their own environment still feeling scared. To summaries a typical setting for a horror/ thriller then it would be a place deserted and far from sanctuary.

Time of day is an important subject, as in Horror/ thriller films a dark settings connotates danger and mystery. This is a feature we chose to use, as we felt this was a strong indicator in our chosen genre. Most of the scenes are set during the night where low key lighting is present.

In the time space that we had not many props were featured. We found that common teaser trailers didn’t involve too many props. The mask is the most important prop featured, as it is used to keep the villains identity a secret. The showing of the mask to the audience entices them into watching the film, to uncover the enigma they have been questioning. Leaving an enigma is a stereotypical feature within teaser trailers.

The Film Poster follows most, if not all forms of real media texts. All posters that I analysed followed the conventional theme of a horror/thriller genre. The main image on my poster is mid-shot of a gravestone, which links into my narrative and genre. The grey scale effect takes all the colours out of the frame, giving a cold and creepy effect. On the gravestone is the release date of the film, which is a convention piece of text to include on a film poster. Other texts include the film title, slogan and credits. An unconventional factor on my poster is that the main character doesn’t appear on it. The closest thing to a character to be seen is the villain’s mask, which has been edited into a superimposition shot, to then be applied to the gravestone. Having the villain appear on the poster is a strong indicator of the Horror/ Thriller genre. The ‘Sunday’s Child’ title is the largest sized font, which is stereotypical, as it has to stand out clearly. The film title appears to be different to the others that appear in the teaser trailer and website, as the title has a red and black colour filling, rather than also having white. I felt that this look was much better, as it contrasted in comparison to the black and grey background image. I also felt that the font style and size of the title was enough to keep the continuity between the three products.

The Website follows the same colour scheme as the trailer and the poster. This is so the audience can make a textual link between the three. This continuity provides a solid advertising campaign. My website follows aspects that official film websites have. I have included an enter page for the website, this is also known as the index page. Following that is another five pages; Home, Synopsis, Cast, Gallery and Teaser Trailer page. All of the previous pages are ones I found common to appear in official sites. These pages let the audience fall into a further depth and understanding of the narrative and characters. The website is different than the other advertisements, as the audience searches for it on the World Wide Web, rather than the product coming to them. Therefore, the website is allowed to reveal more information in comparison to the others. With the available technology around we were able to conglomerate various Medias, these being; Hyperlinks, Video technology, interactive images, text on screen and sound effects.

A particular section that I couldn’t create due to the technology unavailable was the games section. Current modern official websites have games where the audience can control the character, and doing so lets the audience interact and gain an understanding of the character roles and narrative. Online game creators are available, however they are very basic and don’t suit my needs.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The main product works well alongside the two ancillary texts to complete the advertising campaign I set out to complete. All three products include features that are of significance, either to the genre or the continuity.

The first piece that has been repeated throughout the products is the title of the film. ‘Sunday’s Child’ appears in the same font style throughout. The repetition of the title will be the main factor that will link all three pieces together, and so the audience recognises and increases their familiarity, therefore making it more memorable. A presentational device that leads the title to the awareness of the target audience is the font size. The large size is used purposely to lure the attention of the audience and to emphasize the importance of it. On my official website the name first appears like it does whilst on the other two products, but on some pages the colour has changed to just black and white, substituting the red.

My second point is the colour scheme that runs consistently throughout the three products. The most frequent colours are black, red and white. Through our individual and our collaborative group work, we chose these because they are most stereotypical of the horror/thriller genre. Through a group questionnaire we were able to investigate our target audience’s preferences; what they thought would be most suitable/ stereotypical for a horror/thriller genre film, and what designs were most effective on visual exemplars that we provided. Through my independent research of analysing film posters black, red and white proved most popular. It’s understandable, as their connotations slot within the horror/ thriller genre. The colour black suggests death, power, evil plus the unknown. This colour is dominantly used within the teaser trailer (e.g. the setting, clothes, edits, etc...). The website uses black in most backgrounds. The poster uses this colour to dominate large areas and the font colour on the gravestone. The colour red relates to blood and also suggest power, love and passion. Power is in the villain’s character role which is coherent, however love and passion is slightly vague, but is expressed ironically through the anger of Molly’s parents, and how they morne their daughters disappearance. In the title, red has a strong influence of portraying the genre to the audience, as the red font is covered in strains of black and white webbed texture. White connotates innocence and purity, which can be found in victims. This colour is used in the teaser trailer during scenes, text on black canvas and for emphasis on certain areas. The continuity of conveying the same connotations is apparent throughout all three products. As a summary; the colours used have been purposely selected to convey the genre, to build a general theme that links all of the pieces together, which would then strengthen the advertising campaign.

The villains mask, which I can classify as a prop is repeated in all commodities. Like the other features that are repeated this links the teaser trailer, poster and website together as part of the advertising campaign. The mask appears discreetly within the products, by not being the centre of attention within the frame (teaser trailer), by being superimposed/ merged into a gravestone (film poster), and only being shown on the home page on the official film website.

The institution (Dark Path Productions) appears on each and every product. From my research I found that a small margin of my target audience looks for the institution in order to gain an opinion on the film. Our institution is unheard of; therefore the audience has no recollection on previous products. However, they can leave the product know who made it for future reference. On our teaser trailer the institutions image appears as an animation. Using flash I was able to include a shooting star, signifying a special moment. The animation makes the institution look a lot more interesting, in comparison to a standstill image. The logo is then repeated on the poster, but in a very small size. The website includes the logo on the first page, but after that on every single other page appears the name ‘DARK PATH PRODUCTIONS’. From my research, official mainstream film websites start from the official website of the institution behind the production. I chose to approach this differently because my institution is not as big as a well known company like ‘Sony’.

Another aspect to consider is the release date. It’s important to aware the audience when the product is to be released, as the purpose of the commodities wouldn’t be as effective. The website and poster both say the release date, the teaser trailer on the other hand doesn’t. This is because from our individual research we realised the trailer is meant to teaser the audience to the extent of wanting to know more information, which would leave them onto the website.

Overall I think that all three tasks complement each other really well, as all the products share strong similarities to link them together as part of the advertising campaign. Through research I was able to plan how I was going to approach the idea of linking all three together. Through analysing previous campaigns I understood the stereotypical features that were included, to then later apply this information into my advertising campaign.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Throughout the research and planning of the production of my media project, I have gained an understanding of how important the audience is towards my main commodity. Without an audience to target the advertising products would be pointless. Target audience research is carried out by institutions to know whether the product is necessary, and appeals to the taste of the specific audience. If this procedure is not carried out then there is no reassurance of knowing that the product will sell. Making a product without knowing the target audience thoroughly is not the best way to approach business, as the product may not sell, leaving the producers with a hefty debt.

A theory I used was called the ‘triangle of dependency’. This method suggests that the audience, text and institution rely on and influence each other. In this case the institution does not influence the audience, as it is not an official company that can be recognised. However, the target audience did influence the text style that we as a group decided would work well at the bottom of the institution’s image.

As texts develop, the institutions behind the production need a current knowing the audience’s taste. With the constant development of institutions understanding the target audience to further levels, institutions constantly seize to amaze the audience by going beyond their expectations.

Through using the ‘triangulation method’ (as it’s also known) the team and I constructed series of questionnaires. The first was to gain an understanding of the target audience’s preferences through initial questions. The second questionnaire was to find the audiences thoughts when comparing two rough cut versions of the teaser trailer. In order to improve in vast amounts we asked questions that would indicate what changes we had to make, for it to then appeal to the audience. This was achieved by asking ‘open questions’. The first change that we made was to the editing software, as we thought Window Movie Maker didn’t show our potential. ‘Sony Vegas 9.0’ was the alternative software we chose to edit the final piece on. Other small changes were made so that it fitted within target audience’s specifications. Another questionnaire was put into place to give us an idea of what the target audience thought of our re-installed teaser trailer that we had made the changes to. This questionnaire was just a reassurance for us knowing that we hit the criteria that they set out.

Looking back, the questionnaires didn’t just give us a target audience’s opinion, but another prospective on our work that neither member of the group would have noticed.

When looking through the results there would be a suggestion that wouldn’t be supported by many others, however this one suggestion maybe a logical one that could improve my product, and to find whether this is true I would research other products of the same genre to see whether it is congruent. When analysing I found that looking at the high percentage suggests did give me good advice, nevertheless there were some suggestions that weren’t support in high numbers, but were still valid.

In total there were three questionnaires, which were used within different stages of the production, to gain a further understanding of what the target audience thought in our attempt to make improvements. The first questionnaire was quite open, as the question asked were able to give the group and myself an understanding of what to base our film around. Researching whether there is a target audience for your intended film is important, as there needs to be an audience to watch the product. The first questionnaire let the group know that the target audience likes to watch horror/ thriller genre films, which helped us on to create a narrative. The second was to correct our mistakes into knowing what the target audience expected and would have wanted to see. The last questionnaire was used to reassure us that we hit the criteria the target audience set us on the previous survey.

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

The internet played a strong role in the researching stage, as previous advertising campaigns were found easily through the use of a search engine. The two web browsers I used were ‘Windows Internet Explorer’ and ‘Google Chrome’. The school uses windows for its easy usability, however I find Google Chrome easier to manage, as the browser automatically keeps up with the most recent flash and format readers to utilize many forms of mediums on the web. Previous advertising campaigns were easy to find on the internet and with previous experiences I can easily find what I want within a short time space. ‘YouTube’ is a well credited website that supports and specializes in videos footage. This media can be published by anybody with a user account, which is possible for anybody with internet access. YouTube allowed me to access previous teaser trailers, for me then analyse, to later gain an understanding of the typical codes and conventions that appeared within a teaser trailer, to then apply it to my own, which we later published on YouTube.

To show every part of our media coursework we have used a blog, which works over the internet, which I found very useful as I was allowed access to it either at home or at school. Through the blog I have demonstrated thoroughly the three sections; Panning and Research, Construction and Evaluation. The blog was the most appropriate electronic media product that was most suitable to hold the three stages of my A2 study. I found this easy to access, as the internet browsers I used (Google Chrome and Windows Internet Explorer) allowed me to save the URL address of the blog’s home page to my favourites list. Clicking on this link regularly I found this method an encouraging feature to access my blog. To enter the blog I had to enter my account details; my email address and password for security reasons. This process didn’t take too much of my time, as the site recognised my long email address instantly in a validated drop down menu. Styling the blog was one of the first things I did, the colour scheme was selected to convey the horror/ thriller genre based upon the products as part of my advertising campaign. The layout was dictated through suitability, ease of use and navigation. I found the blog similar in a way to a diary; as the system recorded the date and time of each post, in which each would start off with a title and feature information I learnt and studied that very day. With the technology enabled within the program I was able to post more than just text, this meaning I can publish illustrations and videos. The images I uploaded were of the Official film poster and print screens of the official website I made, along with images of my pieces of practical work, in the likes of; questionnaires and pilot studies, photo shoots, permission consent forms, filming dates, filming locations etc. I used the video feature to upload the final Sunday’s Child Teaser Trailer and rough cut versions of it. Having a blog also meant it was published on the internet for anyone to view, allowing people to look at my work and copy it. On the other hand, it allowed my work colleagues and teachers to correct my work as I went along.

Another program that I used that also operated over the internet was the WIX website designer. I found this program very modern with its template designs and design agents. I thought that this was the most appropriate program to create my website, because it was user friendly, rather than the alternative Macromedia Dreamweaver. When creating a website on Dreamweaver the options of design are quite minimal, as the program is quite old fashioned, and is more suited to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) coding, which is a style sheet language. I found WIX the most suitable website creator, in comparison to the others available on the internet; Weebly, Jimdo, Webs, Yola etc... WIX is a highly recommended because of its usability. Like the blog, I signed in to my account using my email address and password, and once I had signed in I could click on the current website under construction, which I had labelled ‘Sunday’s Child Website’. The tools and design section of WIX is laid out in a simple and movable drop down menu box. All design aspects of the website were covered in this box; which divided into categories. Another menu was available to choose an effect upon the design feature, such as an animation or colour change, which I found myself using quite often.

In the construction stage, numerous media technologies specialised in areas that fitted my needs. For recording moving images the group decided to use a ‘Panasonic Lumix HD’ camera. This device enabled us to record in a 1280x720 HD screen resolution. Whilst using this device we needed a method to keep the camera still, and so we used a ‘tripod’. The tripod we used had telescopic legs that extended the height and an axis control stick that rotated the camera round 360 degrees, up and down. This video camera saved data to an SD card, which we then transferred to the PC. I found this particular technology easy to use, as the camera was set in automatic mode. The telescopic tripod was difficult for some group members to manage, as each leg was separately set to a height, and trying to set the height evenly between the legs was harder than first thought. Often whilst filming the camera would appear slightly canted to an angle, and to set this right it was regularly my job to level all legs. I used this camera to take my picture for my official film poster, which features a grave stone at a slight high angle and a mid-long shot length.

I used two different cameras for the photography part of the production. A Canon 450D Digital SLR and a Panasonic HD spec camera. The SLR camera is what the group and I used when taking photos on set, of characters and settings. Using this camera came with some difficulty, as there were numerous settings that only a photography specialist would be able to work with. I found that working on the automatic mode was the best way forwards, as the settings and specifications were too advanced for my understanding. The Panasonic camera is a casual camera for general use, which I found easy to utilize. The product I used this for was the film poster. Whilst the photos that appear on the website where taken with the SLR. Due to the navigation setup and various settings the SLR was confusing for most group members, nevertheless, the main advantage was the resolution and finished quality was far better than the standard camera.

The last hardware technology that I used was the Computer. During my production there were 3 PC’s involved; the schools, home desktop and laptop.

The school provides all students with a user ID, to connect to the school network and personal area. During lessons and my free time the school computers came in use when I would want to carry out some research. I also used these to construct my website over the internet. The schools network runs a Windows XP Operating System. A basic system to run programs of basic technology; nevertheless, it provided a standard performance that I needed at the end of the day for me to carry out my research and website construction. This software installed on this system is just the basics you expect from a school; Windows Office 2003, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Internet Explorer etc... I used the schools PC’s mainly for making my website over the internet, and manipulating images on Fireworks.

The second PC is my Dell Inspiron. This laptop has Windows 7 installed as its default OP (Operating System). I used this PC at school and at home to complete numerous tasks. The more recent operating system installed allowed me to navigate around my work space more efficiently, through its desktop bars, pop-up bars, split screen modes, simplifying modes etc.... The system has installed; Windows Office 2007, Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks, Google Chrome etc... I used the laptop for all parts of the advertising campaign. The institution animation was made using Macromedia Flash. The film poster was made using Macromedia Fireworks and Microsoft Word, whilst the website was made using both the school and laptop over the internet. Other work such as written documents and presentations such as the group pitch were created on the laptop, as I was able to work at home and at school in my free time.

The other computer that the group and I used was a Dell Desktop model, which was at another group member’s house. We primarily used this to create the teaser trailer, as the computer held the ‘Sony Vegas 9.0’ editing software we preferred, rather than the Windows Movie Maker. The computer held the Windows 7 OS and managed the software to a good level. The only criticism would be the rendering time when we decided to publish the finished product from the editing software. The computer nearly took a whole 24hrs to process the rendering, in this time space group members left without seeing the finished product.

One of the most important devices that I used was a 2GB memory stick. This allowed me to save and transfer documents between the three computers I used. If I had no memory stick available I would have created a personal saving area online, but this would only be achieved if I constantly had an internet connection, which isn’t always the case when I work on my laptop.

Macromedia Fireworks is an image manipulation program that I used for all products in the advertising campaign. In the teaser trailer it’s not obvious where this program would have intervened, however I did use it to create the production company logo/image, which started off as a picture we had taken. The original photo started as a path/road with a streetlamp to the side, which then had a large moon, clear sky, shining stars, and darkened colour change added to it. This program also came in use when editing the picture that appears on the film poster. The program allowed me to select the villains mask off one picture, to then place it over the gravestone. The transparent effect came in handy for this editing, to merge the picture together to create a ‘superimposition’ shot. I used this program on the website to minimise the size of images without denting the quality too much, but enabling the image to load in quick session. I did this through exporting the image into another format that was appropriate for internet purposes. This format was a PNG (Portable Network Graphics). From previous encounters with this program I was familiar in knowing how to work my way around, which led my work to be very efficient.

Sony Vegas 9.0 is the video editing software we chose to use to construct out teaser trailer, instead of using Windows Movie make, which we found too basic for our ideas to become practical. Sony Vegas was appointed as the editing software through researching the product over the internet, and reading the reviews other people also felt this was a good quality product. We also discovered editing our rough cuts on windows movie maker the software didn’t provide us with a high quality finished product. Whereas Sony Vegas 9.0 had an interface that provided us with a wide range of editing techniques and effects, which lead us on knowing we had chosen the best editing software. My only criticism whilst working with the program was that the navigation system was quite difficult to get around, as the program offered so much I didn’t know about. We overcame this problem by experimenting as we went along. From our filming we took a total of 144 takes, which we were able to select and delete any bit we didn’t want. This stage was very time consuming, as we pondered through different versions of the same takes, whilst assessing which ones to keep or delete. Once we had our final takes selected we chronologically ordered the passage in a timeline, whilst editing the timing, sound and effect. The timeline came in useful when we were aiming to shorten the length, which was shorted through deleting scenes and cutting loose tails we didn’t need. We successfully shortened the extract to 1m4sec, in comparison to 1m39sec.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentational program that the group and I used to present a pitch of our film idea. This program let us present our ideas through pictures and text, whilst each group member verbally communicated to the class in turns. We used this program to also present a small group evaluation, which is featured on my blog. This program also let me save the film in not just presenting formats, but also in pictures such as Gif’s, Jpeg, PNG etc... I then was able to publish my presentations onto my blog through a series of images.

Microsoft Word is the main program I used to type up my written documents, which falls under the Planning, Researching and Evaluating stages of the production. I find this program useful for written work for the fundamental aspect of its grammar and spell checker. My analyses of previous advertising campaigns usually consisted of me typing up the document on Microsoft Word, to then be copied over to my blog.

The shooting schedule was constructed in Microsoft Word, through the use of its tables and colour coding. Deciding on the dates was through the use of emailing group members for a suitable date, whilst considering the featured cast. Contacting each other over the web gave us an understanding of the time we had, and gave us an idea how to plan our days shooting. The final shooting schedule was then sent via email to the other group members and cast.

Another technology that we used was a scanner. The storyboard contained illustrations that we found easier to construct by hand drawing them. To obtain these images electronically we used a scanner to copy the physical drawing to the computer. Once all pictures were recorded we used Microsoft word to arrange the pictures in a table layout format.