Evaluation Question 4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Sound

•         We used You Tube to research sound in teaser trailers and find any conventions or inspirations when carrying out  deconstructions 
•         You Tube  was also used in conjunction with  Sound Cloud   to search for uncopyrighted music and sound effects that we later planned to edit and fit to our trailer. However, we did not find any that were appropriate and therefore went on to develop our own sounds.
•          We used LogicPro to layer and combine individual sounds and recorded an audio file of a Music Box  as this was specific and unique to our teaser trailer and fitted with the opening shots of our antagonist playing with a music box as well as reflecting the child like themes. During postproduction we rewound the sound and edited speed in order to create distortion and add horror aspects too the innocent sound.

•  Using iMovie, we then inserted our sound and cut the sound to fit to the image of the trailer.

   Typography

•          To create the main title Title  we used website “myfonts.com” and downloaded the original font. Using Photo Shop we edited the font with “smudge” and “blur” effects to distort it and achieve a smokey effect, which was very effective and consistent with the birthday party theme, especially for the poster as it works parallel to the image of the birthday cake.

•         When creating typography for the tag lines and titles, we had followed conventions found in our research and chose the colour red. However, we felt that we could challenge these forms and pursue our girly child like themes by making the titles a hot pink colour.  Too add a horror aspect, we used a satin effect which creates effects and adds tone to the typography.

        Internet

•  During research and planning we used many websites such as IMDB, You Tube and Sound Cloud. For Construction our teaser trailer, website and poster we used My fonts, Wix.com and iPiccy. We have used Blogger to document all of this research and production.
• Website iPiccy editing tools such as contrast made our Poster  vibrant, fitting with the party theme.

• Wix.com allowed us to make a user friendly website as well as adding feeds from social networking sites such as Twitter , conforming to modern conventions of having links to social networking sites and helping us to appeal to our young audience by using similar technologies to them.

Equipment

•  We used Studio Lighting lamps when filming at our interior dungeon location, as there was no natural lighting. We carried out Video Tests to determine which type of lighting would be most appropriate for each scene. This allowed us to create shadows and glares adding to the horror aspect of our teaser trailer. 
• We filmed some of the apple bobbing torture scene using an underwater camera Underwater Camera   as we thought that this would be effective for showing the agony of the victim as well as disorientating the audience from an unusual angle. However, when editing we found that shots were too close due to the depth of the container that we used. Despite refilming several times and trying different containers and methods, we were unsuccessful and therefore used small snippets of the underwater shots combined with mid shots of the victims head being forced into the apple bobbing bowl.

 

Website typography

For the website we needed to create typography for the quotes and also additional titles.

I used the same font design as the poster for the additional titles 'You're invited to Lucy's birthday party'.

I once again used Photoshop to edit this title to look the same as the tagline on the poster and trailer. This kept the titles consistent throughout all the products we have created.

For the quotes they needed stand out against the black background so thought white would do this best but I used the satin effect on Photoshop once again to create the tonal effect so the text didn't look so flat.
The font is in italics which highlights more so that it has been quoted. 


Amy Freeman

Typography

Original font

To look for fonts which would be suitable for our typography I used the website MyFonts.

Blurred font 

After our idea of using melted, dripping wax for the title I looked more into creating a smokey look for our typography.

This was continuing from the candles idea and to try acheive a more eerie, spooky effect.

I used Photoshop to edit and minipulate the orginal font from MyFonts.
I used the blur tool and smudge tool to change the font to create different possible typography looks. 

Smudged font

 

 Amy Freeman

Typography idea

This is further testing for our typography from Libby's initial typography research into using melted candle wax.

I used hot glue initially to make the 'Bitter Sweet' so that it was raised becoming easier to see.

I then melted wax dripping it over the title, using white candles firstly to make the title noticeable on the black background. 
I then used red, blue, green and yellow candles to add colour.

When I edited the photo to make the black background darker the title became unclear and not easily readable. 

It did not work out as I'd hoped when edited so will not be used for our typography however was helpful showing we should use a font rather than hand drawn typography. 

Amy Freeman