How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
The Evaluation of question 4 consists of 4 main areas which I am going to analyse and evaluate in the articles below. It represents the journey we took from the beginning of the year, how we challenged certain tasks as well as it shows what stages of editing we went through till we eventually had our final product. The first main area I will be talking about is planning and research of development and pre-production, followed by movie teaser trailer (production/ filming), movie poster & movie magazine front cover and lastly post-production. To find a basic understanding of how the individual software worked we all started researching by using the internet search engine ‘Google’. However when it came to figure out how the final cut surface is working, we also bought specific magazines where we were able to find advises in. Furthermore for our production stage we had workshops with our media technician of how to set up the camera as well as how to use the equipment required to get at least a bit of a professional look for the different shots. Also we had to inform ourselves through for example YouTube tutorials, which kind of makeup and costume to use as well as how to apply it. Lastly we went on to post-production, in which we then had to evaluate the work we had done so far and visualise it by using images as well as screenshots.
Planning and Research (Development and Pre-Production)
To begin with, throughout the whole process of creating and editing our media coursework we consistently used iMacs or Computers (Windows 7). However during the whole process it appeared to be easier to do all the Photoshop work with windows, whereas the whole editing process as well as the creating of the sound were easier by using an iMac. Furthermore it is generally known in the “tech-scene” that Mac’s are far more professional and make things easier while working with professional software such as final cut. While setting up our production team website we used the internet platform Weebly, which enabled us to use all kind of options, effects and templates without paying for it.
At the beginning of our whole development process we decided to name us Catacombs Studios, which was crucial since the name were attached to us for the following 4 months. After we named ourselves we had to create a website on Weebly, where we were able to record our progress and the results we obtained from certain tasks. The reason why we used Weebly was simply because we did not have that much time to program our own websites, as this itself would have probably taken us up a few month. Therefore we were given to use a free “website-builder”. We also used Weebly as a log for our progress so that it was easier for our teachers to track our performance.
At the beginning of our whole development process we decided to name us Catacombs Studios, which was crucial since the name were attached to us for the following 4 months. After we named ourselves we had to create a website on Weebly, where we were able to record our progress and the results we obtained from certain tasks. The reason why we used Weebly was simply because we did not have that much time to program our own websites, as this itself would have probably taken us up a few month. Therefore we were given to use a free “website-builder”. We also used Weebly as a log for our progress so that it was easier for our teachers to track our performance.
We originally wanted to use for our logo the right image, which is basically just a simple font that looks smashed like glass. Then however we thought that we would need a proper logo that is easy recognisable and can reflect our work. Therefore we first drew out the ideas we had, to later on transfer in Photoshop. To transfer the logo in Photoshop we had to first scan in our drawn up drafts and then use the pencil tool to work around it. After that we refined all the edges so that the line we previously drew out with the pencil tool looked straighter. We followed this procedure for the whole of our logo. However when it came to paste in the two C's which represent the eyes of the skull, as well as the writing of 'studios' which represents the mouth and teeth, we had to change the shape of the font otherwise it would have looked awkwardly misplaced. For the crucifix which is behind the skull, we again had to use the pencil as well as the line tool. For the blood dripping from the skull we simply used an image of blood from Google images and put it behind the skull in a new layer.
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Font we eventually decided to use for all our products including Trailer caption, any website headers, poster, magazine.
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Audience research results
To conduct our audience research we used a large variety of different social network websites. Furthermore we even gave the option of answering questions regarding magazine, trailer or poster. Considering the means we had available we used a quite large sample frame, as we carried out interviews, online surveys sent via emails, online questionnaires on our website as well as we asked our target audience single specific questions on social network sites such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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The left image shows one part of our audience research results (you can find it under audience research). We basically posted all the structured interviews we conducted to a main overview of what our target audience wanted to see as well as what type of target audience we have.
Furthermore we presented our research results in all different kind of forms such as a grid in Excel or simply a variety of screenshots as for example from Whatsapp or Facebook. Beyond all those findings we then went further and showed a few individuals of our target audience videos of horror trailer or specific 'scary' effects where we captured their reaction while recording with a webcam. |
Research Technologies
Google Search, commonly referred to as Google Web Search or just Google, is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. It is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web handling more than three billion searches each day. 'Mozilla Firefox', 'Google Chrome' and 'Internet Explorer' are three of the most infamous internet browsers used around the globe. During the whole research process we permanently used the internet browser Mozilla Firefox, which turned out to be better than Safari, as the whole uploading process for videos was much easier.
Moreover when it came to our research on the horror magazine as well as the horror poster, we used Mozilla Firefox with Google as a search engine. Literally all of our ideas for certain poster we obtained from Google images. Though most of them probably were completely different in colour scheme and style, we were more looking for inspirations, meaning we only focused on particular elements on those posters or magazines.
Moreover when it came to our research on the horror magazine as well as the horror poster, we used Mozilla Firefox with Google as a search engine. Literally all of our ideas for certain poster we obtained from Google images. Though most of them probably were completely different in colour scheme and style, we were more looking for inspirations, meaning we only focused on particular elements on those posters or magazines.
Inspirational Posters
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Inspirational Magazines
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Youtube as source of research
Especially during the whole planning and research process YouTube turned out to be our most crucial source of help when it came to any editing technique in Photoshop as well as FinalCut. Furthermore YouTube enabled us to watch huge variety of different real media trailers, which kind of developed our feeling for when to show certain shots or in what order to do caption as well as if captions are more simplistic or have a really bold looking 3D effect. Moreover one of the first things we did after we had a logo, was to create our own youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcoqSOObBic_Y5UOIzBeWLw) where we then uploaded all the audience research interviews as well as any team logs and eventually the final product.
Self-made tutorials
While going through the whole planning and research process, we firstly tried to gather a huge amount of knowledge of how to make for example make-up or how to find a scary looking costume. To do so we mainly watched YouTube tutorials on these topics, which also gave us an idea of how much we will spent and what we have to plan in for our budget. After ordering all the make-up we needed and getting all the various costumes together we also had to present them in our make-up and costumes section. The simply way occurred to us to fulfil this task was to shoot our own tutorials and give basic examples of how we were going to do certain things. Also we attended three different camera sessions held by our media technician where we basically learnt how to set up the camera in terms of ISO, white balance, shutter speed as well as how to use certain equipment.
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Storyboard and Animatic
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Animatics are animated storyboards. They are used for various purposes depending on the medium for which they are being produced. Animatics are used every day in the advertising industry to test commercials. They're used to preview scenes of live-action films before they are shot. You'll also find animatics in the pre-production stages of animation and in the video game industry. It is aiming for to give the user a template and order of various shots. After we received the real media trailer of the film Evil Dead, we had to import the whole trailer in FInalCut, where we then had to cut the trailer each time a shot changed. Furthermore we had to make a fading every time when there was a fading in the actual trailer. The purpose of the whole process was to give us like a main template, where we later on were able to easily put our own shots over the original shots in the evil dead trailer. This gave us for each shot a certain length, which kind of gave it that professional look.
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Horror films we watched as an inspiration
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These are the most influential films on our final product. Some of them we either watched in class or private. The most common feature, which all these films share is that there is a high number of scenes that are supposed to gross out the audience.
Movie Teaser Trailer (Production/ Filming)
For the most important part of the filming progress we first had to make sure that we understand how a camera works and how to set it up for basic filming. The technician in our media department helped us to gain the knowledge and skills we were missing out. Furthermore the whole process contained 3 lessons where we learned all the basics we needed to know to shoot a semi professional trailer. The first lessons content was to adjust the ISO and do a white balance, which basically refers to lighting adjustments. The second lessons content was to set up and use filming equipment such as the rig, tracking dolly or a tripod. The third lessons content was how to shoot a steadicam. The camera we used throughout all three lessons was a canon 600D. However in the first session we learned how to set up ISO and white balance on the canon 7D, which is the camera we are going to film our trailer with.
The 600D is built around an 18-megapixel, APS-C sized CMOS sensor and the same Canon DIGIC 4 processor as the 550D. Sensitivity remains pegged at a useful, if not class-leading, ISO 100-6400 with ISO 12,800 available in expanded mode.
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The 7D's 18 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor provides superb quality images with sufficient resolution. Furthermore the EOS 7D is Canon's first dual processor camera outside the EOS 1 range. Working alongside the sensor, two powerful DIGIC 4 processors bring impressive speed (8 frames per second in bursts of up to 94 JPEGs) and an extremely broad range of ISO performance (from 100 - 6400, expandable to an ultra-sensitive 12800).
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Filming equipment
It is generally known, that a professional film no matter what type of genre usually needs a lot of equipment to give a kind of static shots. However there are also some film examples such as "The Blair Witch Project", which completely abandoned any film equipment and completely filmed hand held. This also gave the film a more realistic ouch. Despite that we had to find out more about what kind of equipment will be available to us as well as what kind of opportunities were there for various shots we should use. Furthermore we then also had our media technician who gave us instructions of how to set up the cameras as well as the equipment.
With the knowledge we then had from the technician as well as from watching various YouTube video's, it was not difficult at all to use the camera and the equipment by ourselves during the filming process. |
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During the whole shooting process and editing, making videos, we struggled to upload our videos to YouTube, because most of the time the internal YouTube uploader was not working for some odd reasons. Therefore we always had to transfer all our data on a hard drive and then try to upload it from any other iMac. However, this turned out to also be challenging since all the iMacs were allocated to other people which meant we had to upload most of our videos outside of lessons, which took us some extra unnecessary effort. We were not able to upload it from any Windows Computer due to the hard drive is only compatible with IOS.
Furthermore when it came to editing our raw shots and trying to import them into FinalCut, it often occurred that we needed assistance, as we yet were no professionals in using the software. Because the class was usually really packed, many other people needed those kind of assistance as well, but since we only had one professional person of staff helping, it turned out that many groups were more or less left to themselves. Moreover it seemed to be always the same kind of people who needed step by step instructions, as they might have been less ambitious in trying to figure out how to do solve easy stuff like doing a fading for example by themselves.
Another huge problem turned out to be the booking of iMacs, as some groups egregiously put themselves forward by booking the iMac's for multiple sessions. This gave other groups limited choice of booking an iMac, as well as a smaller time frame to finish off their work.
However it has to be said, that towards the end of the deadline, two people of staff were really ambitious by helping every group to finish up their trailer. This turned out to be helpful, as they might have started to realize, that by only favoring the appearing to be weaker groups, won't help those who might seemed to be more independent.
Furthermore when it came to editing our raw shots and trying to import them into FinalCut, it often occurred that we needed assistance, as we yet were no professionals in using the software. Because the class was usually really packed, many other people needed those kind of assistance as well, but since we only had one professional person of staff helping, it turned out that many groups were more or less left to themselves. Moreover it seemed to be always the same kind of people who needed step by step instructions, as they might have been less ambitious in trying to figure out how to do solve easy stuff like doing a fading for example by themselves.
Another huge problem turned out to be the booking of iMacs, as some groups egregiously put themselves forward by booking the iMac's for multiple sessions. This gave other groups limited choice of booking an iMac, as well as a smaller time frame to finish off their work.
However it has to be said, that towards the end of the deadline, two people of staff were really ambitious by helping every group to finish up their trailer. This turned out to be helpful, as they might have started to realize, that by only favoring the appearing to be weaker groups, won't help those who might seemed to be more independent.
Camera technologies
When it came to all the different camera technologies, we mainly gathered our knowledge from youtube, online websites or books. However it was one of the most exciting topics to learn about as it gives you a better understanding of how a camera works and where its limits are. In the following we give some short information of what we learnt about the various camera technologies.
White Balance: White BalanceWhite balance is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "color temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance and can create unsightly blue, orange, or even green color casts. Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these color casts, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions.
ISO: The ISO speed determines how sensitive the camera is to incoming light. Similar to shutter speed, it also correlates 1:1 with how much the exposure increases or decreases. However, unlike aperture and shutter speed, a lower ISO speed is almost always desirable, since higher ISO speed dramatically increases image noise As a result, ISO speed is usually only increased from its minimum value if the desired aperture and shutter speed aren't otherwise obtainable.
Aperture: A camera's aperture setting controls the area over which light can pass through the camera lens. It is specified in terms of an f-stop value, which can at times be counterintuitive, because the area of the opening increases as the f-stop decreases. In photographer slang, when someone says they are "stopping down" or "opening up" their lens, they are referring to increasing and decreasing the f-stop value, respectively.
Shutter Speed: A camera's shutter determines when the camera sensor will be open or closed to incoming light from the camera lens. The shutter speed specifically refers to how long this light is permitted to enter the camera. "Shutter speed" and "exposure time" refer to the same concept, where a faster shutter speed means a shorter exposure time.
The depth of field: The depth of field does not abruptly change from sharp to unsharp, but instead occurs as a gradual transition. In fact, everything immediately in front of or in back of the focusing distance begins to lose sharpness, even if this is not perceived by our eyes or by the resolution of the camera. Since there is no critical point of transition, a more rigorous term called the "circle of confusion" is used to define how much a point needs to be blurred in order to be perceived as unsharp. When the circle of confusion becomes perceptible to our eyes, this region is said to be outside the depth of field and thus no longer "acceptably sharp." The circle of confusion above has been exaggerated for clarity; in reality this would be only a tiny fraction of the camera sensor's area.
The filming process
When it came to the whole filming process, it occurred to us quite immediate that by counting in while already filming would give us an advantage when it came to the editing later on. This process is called pre- and post-roll footage. The main purpose of counting in and out is that when it comes to the editing process, the editor knows exactly when a certain shot start and when it finishes. Therefore it allows him to cut the shot more accurately, as well as the chance of any footage being lost because of being outside the recording time is extremely low if not even completely resolved. By following this procedure, it helped us to save some time while editing and selecting all the various shots.
During the filming process we had to shoot three scenes with dark surroundings. To get reasonable decent shots from shooting in the dark we needed good lighting, which was sometimes a bit hard as we only had three LED lamps. It turned out the first of all it was crucial to obviously spend enough light to the subject we were filming as well as we had to try to cancel all the shadows with the other LED lamps from the background. This was sometimes a bit problematic but still manageable. |
Movie Poster & Movie Magazine
Photography session and editing
When we had to choose our location, where we were going to take the pictures for the magazine as well as the poster we decided to use one location for both, as it might be easier to recognise them as belonging together. So when taking the pictures, we chose the location of a dark gym cupboard. The main issue we had to face was to get a decent lighting as well as we struggled with the ISO settings as we didn't want to put them to high to avoid noise.
During the editing of the poster we had a variety of different ideas we tried to realise. While doing so, we drew out for all the ideas we came up with, a quick sketch which were supposed to make our work in Photoshop much quicker. Eventually we decided for the poster to only use the mask, we used throughout our trailer, as it seemed to be an iconic symbol and easy recognisable. But then we were thinking that it would have been too simplistic to just leave the poster as an image of the mask, so decided to cut the mask into four stripes, which we then slightly moved into opposite directions. This gave the whole image a bit of a distorted effect and made it look weird in some good creepy way. Furthermore we change the background to completely back, which made it seems like the aggressor behind the mask is coming out of the dark. Though it is a really common horror convention for the aggressor to come out of the dark, we thought by choosing such effect for our horror poster might give us high marks.
During the editing of the poster we had a variety of different ideas we tried to realise. While doing so, we drew out for all the ideas we came up with, a quick sketch which were supposed to make our work in Photoshop much quicker. Eventually we decided for the poster to only use the mask, we used throughout our trailer, as it seemed to be an iconic symbol and easy recognisable. But then we were thinking that it would have been too simplistic to just leave the poster as an image of the mask, so decided to cut the mask into four stripes, which we then slightly moved into opposite directions. This gave the whole image a bit of a distorted effect and made it look weird in some good creepy way. Furthermore we change the background to completely back, which made it seems like the aggressor behind the mask is coming out of the dark. Though it is a really common horror convention for the aggressor to come out of the dark, we thought by choosing such effect for our horror poster might give us high marks.
Similar to the horror poster we chose to use the magazine front cover image from the photo session in the same location. The main difference to the horror magazine is that it is more of a mid shot rather than a close up of the mask, as well as the magazine looks less artistic than the horror poster. By doing so we just followed general conventions of horror magazines as they usually are more packed with different colours, a variety of different fonts as well as they sometimes even include other pictures on the front cover.
In our audience research we found that our audience liked the name "Coffin" the most for the magazines name. Furthermore the font for our selling line "Your Soul Is Our Pleasure" (which we used for both magazine and poster). We had to download the font "High Tower Text" , which had that old dirty but still good readable kind of look. In comparison to real media texts, it is obvious quite immediate that they all use more clean font that are easy readable on either magazine or poster.
For the main image of the magazine we decided to show more of the antagonist as when looking at other magazines it seems that they always reveal more of the antagonist than is actually shown in the trailer.
In our audience research we found that our audience liked the name "Coffin" the most for the magazines name. Furthermore the font for our selling line "Your Soul Is Our Pleasure" (which we used for both magazine and poster). We had to download the font "High Tower Text" , which had that old dirty but still good readable kind of look. In comparison to real media texts, it is obvious quite immediate that they all use more clean font that are easy readable on either magazine or poster.
For the main image of the magazine we decided to show more of the antagonist as when looking at other magazines it seems that they always reveal more of the antagonist than is actually shown in the trailer.
The picture just by itself, without any editing so far
Trying to start figuring out the main cover line as well as selling line.
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The colour is corrected now as well as first ideas and effect for masthead
The specials on the top were added.
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The masthead is finished now.
The final product with more cover lines.
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Health and safety
The only things that might have been a bit problematic in terms of safety was, that one of the days we were filming it was raining which forced us paying more attention to not slip anywhere and damage the equipment. Other than that another important factor was to carry the equipment properly, as for example the tripod was to an extent quite heavy while carrying it only with one hand. Also during the filming or especially while filming in the dark, we had to pay attention not to fall while using a camera. Moreover when doing the photo sessions we had to be careful not to touch the bulp of the lighting, as after some time they extremely heated up.
Post-Production
When it came to the editing process of all the various shots we took, we predominantly used FinalCut. Because we obviously never used FinalCut at any point previously in our lives, it was a complete new experience. Therefore we first had familiarize us with FinalCut. To do so, we attended an introduction lesson held by our media technician, of how to use the main tools such as selecting, pen tool, blade as well as we learnt how to do a fading either into black or white. Furthermore the person whom were tasked to edit the trailer use also other sources such as YouTube tutorials, magazines and the German book "Final Cut Pro HD". Eventually this made it whole lot easier, as we did not constantly had to look up how to do certain things.
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and later Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X 10.1, runs on Intel-based Mac OS computers powered by OS X version 10.9 or later. The software allows users to log and transfer video onto a hard drive (internal or external), where it can be edited, processed, and output to a wide variety of formats. A fully rewritten and re-imagined non-linear editor,Final Cut Pro X, was introduced by Apple in 2011, with the last version of the legacy Final Cut Pro being version 7.0.3. |
Video techniques
While using final cuts we used basic techniques such as cutting and pasting clips in the timeline, played around with pacing, transitions, titles and lastly credits. Instead of spending time on trying to find really hard effects or changing colour contrast to a maximum as well as putting any effects over our shots, we tried to remain simplistic. Therefore we focused more on how we present a caption or in what order we put certain shots.
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Conclusion
Overall this whole course work has been a fruitful experience with its up and downs. First of all I would like to say that it gave us a good insight of what it is like to work as part of a group and being able to manage and liaise with people towards deadlines. Though this turned out to be sometimes a real pain, we still learnt from it and eventually we can be happily present our final products. In terms of knowledge and understanding of the major editing softwares Photoshop, FinalCut and Adobe AE, we learnt to used their surface and are able to fulfill basic editing tasks. Furthermore the whole research on the horror genre gave us a major understanding of what it could be like to work for a much bigger project or conglomerate, which might have been a nice introduction into the work of the film industry. Moreover the research process also taught us about all the typical horror conventions or horror theories. To conclude, we were working throughout as a team and we grew with each other.