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

Click to view analysis of image.

























new tech a photo by DeaveDump on Flickr.

During the process of creating our trailer, the development was spread over three main areas:

• Planning and research
• Construction
• and Evaluation

Planning and research mainly took the form of investigative study into horror conventions and target audience research. The majority of this stage was done in class and studying theories such as those presented in Men, Women and Chainsaws. Research done using new media technologies, however, was mainly conducted using browsing software, questionnaire designers like surveymonkey.com and analysis of horror trailers found on youtube.com using Blogger to present it in a way that is aesthetically attractive. Using these technologies was very efficient and enabled me to find information easily and then collate it into a single document where my analysis can directly relate to what I am analysing.

The construction of the trailer was done using technologies that I had little or no experience using. This included using a camera and Final Cut Pro. The construction part of the project was therefor a steep learning curve for me. Using Final Cut Pro was a necessity for making the trailer look professional and presentable and, as an industry-standard software, was good to start using. It allowed us to edit our shots together fairly easily after getting used to it, and also allowed us to change the light filters, tempo of the trailer and add intertitles and music. As the group developed their skills in using the software, we began thinking of new ideas for our trailer, such as the narrative structure of the trailer and short sequences like the running sequence. Using it was sometimes difficult and took lots of time to get things right like the simultaneous stomp and 'impact' noise. It was all necessary, however, to create a product that may somewhat resemble a real horror trailer.

Finally, Blogger and Flickr were the two media technologies used to evaluate my work. Blogger has allowed me to show the entirety of my work in one place which also applies to the evaluative work. This enabled me to show how development of the product occured, and my thoughts of it next to the product, allowing for easy reading and comparison. Flickr was a very useful tool in this stage as it allowed me to collate my ideas and show it visually using images, rather than typing large chunks of text. Using Web 2.0 is a completely different process to writing down your evaluations. Examples can be used and analysis can be done in more depth than simply writing it down. That is probably the largest advantage to using these new media technologies. There may be some risk, however, of being distracted by presentation and layout rather than the process of actually evaluating the work, which isn't as likely when using pen and paper.