In order to actively research and plan my main media product and my ancillary texts, I had to use various media technologies. This began early in the production process, during the research and planning stages. I started off using the video sharing website "YouTube" in order to view various trailers of both current and past movies in order to draw inspiration and to see how to correctly assemble and pace a good trailer, as well as seeing what not to do in a trailer.
During this viewing, I came across two or three trailers that really influence my work such as "Shaun of the Dead", "Dawn of the Dead" and"Toxic Avenger". These helped me really how to correctly represent body horror into a perfectly paced trailer. During the Shaun of the Dead trailer, body horror is used, but not excessivly. The scene where the zombie enters the house while Shaun and Ed are on the sofa, the zombie has blood splattered over his torso and face and is missing a limb, but it's only breifly shown and is still just enough to give the audience an idea, this is what I went for durnig my trailer with the fake black vomit. It was only on screen breifly, but still gave that shock factor that I was looking for.A final scene that influence me was from the "Toxic Avenger" trailer. The scene in the trailer where he drops weights onto a man's head, but where the image cuts before the impact shows great restriced narration. This is something I strived to place into my trailer, as it allows the audience to use their imagination as to what happens next, I used this during the attack of the last zombie in my trailer, where the camera cuts just before the impact of the knife on the zombie's neck.
Another site I used was the Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB.com), which was used in order to read into depth about the film, not just the actors who started in them, but about Auteurs such as George A. Romero ("Dawn of the Dead" [1978]), and how they would construct a low-budget film from the ground up. Also, IMDB has high rated films, so by looking at how films were rated and what they did in their trailers, it helped me understand what to do and what not to do during the construction process. There was various things in other trailers I watched that I wanted to avoid for example; during the Shaun of the Dead [2004] trailer humour is used a lot, mainly to help lighten the mood - this is something I wish to avoid as it detracts from the atmosphere and can drive away many of my desired audience.
There were always various new media technologies I used during my construction phase, such as "Final Cut Pro" and "Photoshop". In each I used various techniques in order to alter images, text and the layout and look of my main product and my ancillary pieces.
I used Photoshop to create and edit Magazine Cover. Techniques within "Photoshop" such as Image Overlay to help add my grungy effects to my poster. I took an existing copyright-free grunge effect and Overlayed it on the to poster image, double clicking the layer and setting the blend effect "Overlay" to achieve the desired result. Another similar effect to Overlay was the Clipping Mask. I used this in order to adjust the look of my text for my trailer's title both on my magazine cover and my poster.
A clipping mask example, as it looks on Photoshop "layers"
A final technique I used was in "Final Cut Pro" in order to have the text zoom towards the camera. To do this, I went into the shot with the title sequence and added the start "Key Frame", then as I proceeded to move through the shot, I added more key frames and at each frame I altered the "Scale" of the text, and by the end the text was made to look as it was being zoomed in on.
In order to help evaluate my products, I also other new media technologie, for example; I used "Blogger" in order place my work online so it can be seen and evaluated by other people - via comments etc Another interesting asset that "Blogger" opens up is enabling polls and surveys to be placed on it, so that you can simply the feedback process from potential viewers.
Two other pieces of Web 2.0 technology I used were "YouTube" and the social networking site "Facebook". On these, I could share my products and get feedback quickly and simply, from both friends and strangers. Both however, though enabling positive feedback, can invite "non-helpful" feedback i.e. for “trolls.” Though this was often not constructive, it helped highlight how useful the feedback we got from the class screenings was.
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