Gem Pictures : Evaluation: Monaire Pillay-Question 4: How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages ?

Canon Legria - We used a canon legria on auto setting for our poster and magazine front cover, as it was better quality than our own cameras . We relied on Photoshop due to having more knowledge and therefore more confidence with it.

We felt as though perhaps we should have experimented with manual change, exposure and aperture.

Mini DV cam-we chose to use a mini dv camera due to its portability and efficiency.Its size made it very easy to carry around when compared to the larger camera , as well as this, uploading the footage took a fraction the time we filmed in, meaning that we could have time to do other things such as editing.

-Photoshop Sadeff re-established her knowledge of how to use Photoshop in order to make our poster .
She multiplied textures as a way to connote the breaking of equilibrium within this couples relationship

I learnt how to use Photoshop by using the knowledge I already had. I used it to create titles for our magazine, which made it much easier to create similarities between real media texts and our own
When encountering any problems, I used wiki how and YouTube tutorials as a guide.A main issue I had was the choice of photo could not simply a the picture to a background, as the picture created a harsh where her head had been cut off,

•I created a new background with the rectangle tool, which was the same colour as her face.

• used a layer mask with the gradient tool to cover her face

•after i lowered the opacity of the layer mask gradient and used the black brush to highlight her facial features
softening the harsh line made the image look more natural, as well as making it emerge from the background like the avatar issue of Empire.

Having access to Photoshop was rewarding, as we could manipulate and change our images rather than having to use the original photos as our final products. being taught how to use Photoshop at the begging of year 13 gave me the ability to work quickly and be more experimental with the tools i used on Photoshop.Through the use of I movie we had the ability to edit any part of our trailers narrative at any given time due to imovie being a non-linear program. This affected our schedule as we were able to film according to our storyboard and then after, if we felt that certain parts where missing, we could film the footage and then slot the clips where it was necessary.

For example when filming the scenes with the couple, we had to re-shoot out footage as it did not give the desired effect, therefore, we could delete the footage without having to reshoot the whole trailer which would have to be done if we used a sequential editing program. Therefore using I movie made it a lot easier for us rather that if it had be a linear program.

The ability to use multiple audio layers in imovie was extremely useful to us. We were able to split the sound from our footage and then move it and edit the sound then layer it on any piece of footage that we chose; to create the effect of emotional turmoil.

for example we used the diegitic sound audio and layer it between two shots in our cutaway. We show a shot of her shouting over a shot of her seeming sad and deep in thought, this shows how her problems are affecting her, as well as showing our characters vulnerability.

Soundtrack- in yr12 we recorded a single sound using the our mini dv camera, then looped it in year 13 used mostly existing loops, classic piano and bass to convey drama conventions, as well as testing with composing ourselves for our soundtrack. For diegetic sound we used the mini dv camera microphone

Form of a trailer required a range of medley compared to an opening sequence which is why using existing loops was helpful due to being an easy way to create a variety of tracks

Using garage band made it easier to experiment with using various sound samples that they had as well as making our own using piano. By being able to use a variety of loops and repeat them alongside other sounds which we could specifically search such as piano, and then we could look thorough various types of piano sounds.We were able to layer the sound. I had to make sure that it didn’t finish too early or too late due to making it one track rather than three separate ones. This meant that I had to repeat the loops to the beginning, middle and end of the track that matched specific parts of the trailer narrative.

I had difficulty with this and therefore it took up a lot of time. I had to always change how long parts of the soundtrack would be, every time that I added footage, a transition, or an effect to our trailer. An example of this was adding slow-motion to the clips of Hanah in the bathroom, doubling the time of the footage therefore making me have to double the time of the audio soundtrack.

However I movie separated the dialogue and the music onto separate coloured tabs which helped us differentiate between both sounds, therefore making it easier when selecting which sound clip to split.
Dafont.com-for a vaster range of font-the fonts on Photoshop and Imovie were too basic and not fitting to our promotional package

I used Dafont in both year 12 and 13
for our opening in year 12 it was only necessary to use one font, for our promotional package in year 13 it was necessary to use a wider variety.

Using photoshop with Dafont meant that we could make our titles distinctive, for our magazine we used drop shadow to emphasise the difference between identities of the magazine and our product. The ability to have a variation of fonts was rewarding to us as for our magazine its required to draw attention to whats being advertised in our magazine such as the cover star and film preview.

we used Photoshop fonts in our final, however they were quite basic, if we had time , we would have picked a different font for our final character titles.