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

In the research and planning stages I used new media such as youtube, to do the trailer research and I used internet sites such as imdb.com to research more into films.

One of the few trailers that influence my media product is the PUSHER TRILOGY(1997-2005) trailer, this influenced me as I like the fast montage of different scenes from the film included in the trailer and this is what influenced the ending to my media product I think that the fast montage of clips not only improves the speed of the trailer but also adds more excitement and these last few montage of clips are what will stick in the audiences memories. Another trailer which influenced me was ABANDONED(2010) trailer, this has influenced me as I thought that the story line was told very well throughout the trailer and with the use of classy text, which is what I used in my trailer to help the audience understand what is happening inn the trailer that little bit more, I also gained inspiration from this trailer as I thought that the music was used very carefully and skilfully throughout the trailer, the underlying eerie music really helped to build tension which is what I wished to accomplish in my media product. And another trailer which highly influenced my trailer was BLACK SWAN(2010), my media product was influenced by this trailer as I liked how the trailer portrayed the psychological element from the narrative which I wished to also portray in the narrative of my media product (before I had seen this trailer). The mirror edit in the trailer, where Nina Sayers' reflection moves in opposite ways like it is a completely different person, is what influenced the fading reflection in my media product.

In the construction stages I used new media such as Final Cut Pro,

for the construction and editing of my media product. I also used After-Effects to create the edit on the text used in my media product such as the text between shots that tell the narrative 'When your husband is murdered...' and also for the title of the media product 'Behind the

Shadows'. I used Photoshop for the construction of both my magazine cover and film poster.

I have never used Final Cut Pro before I constructed my media product so it was fairly difficult to begin with but once I used it a bit more I found it easier to use and create effects whilst editing the shots. When I placed the shots on the time line I didn't want them to go straight from a shot to the text for example so I added an effect of 'dissolve/fade' so that the editing between the two shots were much smoother and clearer, this fading also worked well with the transition effect I had used on the text, as the letters fade up onto the screen. This slow dissolve fade keeps the transition between shots in sync with the eerie atmosphere I was trying to create in my media product. I also took advantage of this slow dissolve fade when it came to making the 'disappearing reflection' effect in the construction of my media product, for this I had to film two shots; one of Susan looking up into the mirror and touching her face (which is when her reflection will disappear) and another shot of her slowly walking backwards from the mirror, but looking straight at the mirror so her reflection seemed to be getting further and further away from the mirror. I then captured these shots onto Final Cut Pro and placed them on the time line, but I placed them on top of each other and used the dissolve fade tool to fade out the shot were Susan is walking away from the mirror so it looks as though her reflection was fading away. I also changed the brightness and contrast on the majority of the shots used in my media product as due to natural ambient light the shots were fairly bright as they were all filmed during the day, so I edited this to make the shots a lot darker to connote the mystery and 'shadows' a lot more in my media product, without Final Cut Pro I would not have been able to do this and the trailer would have been far too bright.

I found After-Effects a bit easier to use as I typed in the text onto a black 'canvas' and then went through the pre-set transitions to find one that I liked and fitted best with the genre of my media product, I could have made my own transition but I found exactly what I wanted on the pre-set transitions. To add these to my media product on Final Cut Pro I had to add each text screen to the render queue, render them and then import them onto Final Cut Pro and they work perfectly.

I found it a lot easier to make my ancillary texts (magazine cover and poster) for I have previously used Photoshop a lot for my AS coursework. For both texts, I edited the brightness and contrast to make both images a lot

darker and mysterious, I also edited the colour of each of the models eyes to more vibrant colours as I thought it would make

the models looks a lot more 'freaky'and would capture the audiences attention. To do this I used the 'lasso-select' tool and chose the elliptical shape and drew around the coloured section of

the eye, once selected I went into the 'hue and saturation' menu and moved this until I found acolour that I wanted. On the poster I created the shadows around Susan's face using the lighting effects I used the 'soft omni' effect as it created a circular light that focused on Susan's face and created darkness around the rest of the image, I moved the levels of the effect to create darker shadows.

I used new media when evaluating my media product as I created an online blog using Blogger to

show all my research, planning, production and evaluation. I

changed the colour of the background and text to make them more horror like firstly I went with a black background as my media product is all about shadows so I thought that this would fit well and I used red text as this predominately connotes danger, but also because 'red' was the colour of the nails varnish that I wanted to stand out and stick in the audiences mind so I went with

red and black as a colour theme for my blog. I added gadgets to my blog such as a voting poll on how successful my media product was so that people can vote for how successful they feel my media product was. I also added gadgets with links to 'My 10 most inspirational website and books' and another for 'My 10 most inspirational films' I did this so that viewers can see exactly

how I got to my final media product.

I also used the website Flickr to analyse my ancillary products, I saved the texts as JPEG images and uploaded them to Flickr, and using the 'add note' tool I added notes analysing specific areas, I then shared these images onto my blog so that you just click on the image and it takes you to Flickr and you can read the analysis. I used Youtube again in the evaluating stages of my media product as my media product has been uploaded on to there for the general public to see, and most probably leave comments whether good or bad. But when the focus group screening was done on the media products we did this within the class as they all understand the hard work that we have put into each of our products and are a lot more knowledgeable and respectful of that than the general public may have been, so this feedback was a lot more useful than the dodgy feedback we may have gotten from the likes of 'Trolls' on the internet.