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

Blogger was the first new technology that I had been introduced to when starting the research, planning and construction of our final AS media film piece. This has been very influential in the recording of each piece that has been put towards the making of our film piece. Blogger is a site that allows anyone who has an email, to create their own blog post in order to document activities which have occurred within my group when typing. Our teachers have prompted us to use the site in order to publish our research, planning and final pieces that have been done by us in order to make it easier for them to see how well we were progressing with the coursework and it proves an easy way with all of the research, construction and planning that was needed to be completed. The main use of the blogger website for me personally was to ensure that all my research that had been done, wasn't lost and was also easily traceable so I can review the research that I have made in order to link certain attributes into our film piece and Photoshop pieces. This was due to the influence of different films that have been made professionally, that we had took inspiration off such as 'Se7en' and 'The Girl on the Train' trailers. I found this site very useful as it has allowed me to store all my research and find it easily as well as enabling my teacher to monitor my progression which will overall in the long run, hopefully contribute to my overall grade being higher than if we just sent work in multiple emails.

Facebook Messenger has also played a large part in the making and construction of our AS film pieces. The social media aspect, played a large part of the communication of our group. This is because the application allows you to make group chats with as many people as you with as many people as you require. With this app we were able to discuss many different aspects of our film which lead to the overall final production which we created. We were able to discuss time periods where we would film and when we would film, general idea's on our film and what other actors we could use in order to progress our film to make sense. We have also discussed the use of emailing each other planning documents in order to progress our coursework.


This application  is known as Photoshop and it allows a user to edit and create near enough any picture they'd like. This helped me progress in my media A level course as we had to make a film poster and magazine. The reason why found this platform very helpful, is because it allows me to create projects that would normally be seen with the opening or release of our film. Therefor this platform has helped me make a detailed magazine cover with my own real images. The reason why this app was helpful for progressing my professional film release, is because the main aspect of the film releases are a trailer, film poster and film magazine that focuses on the release of the film. This makes for a more professional and realistic, distributions before a release. This application has helped to edit my own film poster and magazine cover which helped the advertisement of my film.


Sony handy-cam was the camera we used when actually filming our media product. This actually helped with construction of our film trailer, due to the piece of equipment allowing us to film the actual footage for our trailer. The camera was very good as it was very small, which allowed us to move it around easily, with the tripod, which in turn created an emphasis in the trailer of the film is in realistic and professional due to the movement of filming. Also we had previously used this exact camcorder previously, making it very easy to understand how to film and saved us time as we didn't need to learn the camera attributes. The camera provided high quality shots and made the footage seem more realistic.

Another attribute that helped me aid the construction of my media production, was the use of Adobe Premier Pro. This software was used edit the footage that we have shot which allowed us to create the actual film trailer in the way envisioned it. We found the software very useful as we had used it previously in our preliminary tasks which had allowed us to our final piece due to the simplicity of the software. For example, the first shot that was in our film had a wobble when panning, the software allowed us to smooth out the shot which saved time as we didn't need to film again for the shot. Also we wanted the mood of the whole trailer to be monotone and dull; the software allowed us to adjust the brightness and contrast, to suit the mood. Also the software allowed us to add the music we needed over the top of the trailer when we found it. The music had to be non-copyrighted and should've fit the mood of the trailer. The music we found was from www.freemusicarchive.org and it helped us as they provided genres of music which made it easy to find what we needed and allowed us to implement this within our trailer. Also the editing software allowed us to fade in and out the music when needed to fit when the action started and finished.

YouTube was another website that we used to help improve my coursework productivity. This was be it allowed us to implement an easy access for our teachers to view our final film trailers. This was because YouTube is a prominent site for uploading whatever video a person desires. Therefor, due to previous knowledge as I had used it from a younger age, I understood the process of uploading the video and allowed us to link the video which was the simplest way for the teachers to view and give feedback on how we could improve and what worked well. Also the website allowed us as a group to look at other psychological thriller trailers, which came as a positive as it started to give us an understanding of what the thriller genre contains, such as; the conventions, codes and stereotypical attributes which are normally seen. After viewing 'Seven or Se7en' and 'The Girl on the Train' we began to use what we had learn from these professional film pieces and progress on our own trailer.

We used phones, computers and internet websites to help us create an overall standpoint on our film. This is because each technology piece, had allowed us to gain and progress in our knowledge through research and observing. This is through the use of watching videos of trailers on a phone and on the computer, depending on the whereabouts of myself. Also, as well as progressing within the research section of the film, the desktop computer allowed us to edit and create the final product through the editing software that was already installed on the computer. The use of google and websites gave us easy access of every component to make the final piece and researching of our coursework.

Film Magazine Cover - 'First Films - Psychosis'

Psychosis Film Poster

Psychosis- Age Certification

The BBFC take multiple things into consideration to award a film a certain certificate rating. 

-The plot has certain aspects which could affect the narrative, whether it be through characters or the actions of every film.
-Timing of key moments within the film.
-A large quantity of bad language is used.
-Sex and Drugs is seen at an explicit nature and can be seen as glorified.

Due to the explicit content shown within the 'Psychosis' film, we have decided to give the film an 19 age certificate rating. This is because we know that the film really focuses on the blood gore and grittiness of the film. Anyone below the age of 18 would struggle to comprehend or bare the film as the components exist and would be the most suitable age range to market.

Production Schedule

When?	Where?	What?	Required Resources	Actors/Production crew required	Date completed
25/11/2016	St Neots, Longsands Academy	Research- Researching films ideas by looking at film trailers for the thriller genre. In addition to this we also looked at trailers made by previous years before us.	Internet Computers Microsoft Word	Oliver Butler Henry Vaudin Thomas Payne	5/12/2016
5/12/2016	St Neots, Longsands Academy	Initial ideas- When coming up with the ideas for our trailer, we used our research to help us. Also with this it wasn’t the final idea, and there was some tweaks needed.	Computers Microsoft Power Point	Oliver Butler Henry Vaudin Thomas Payne	9/12/2016
12/12/2016	St Neots, Longsands Academy	Storyboard- Putting all of our ideas into a storyline to portray the way in which the trailer is viewed by the audience. By imputing all of our ideas into pictures, in order to help us visualise the story further.	Post it notes Pencil Rubber		12/12/2016
12/12/2016	St Neots, Olly’s House Henry’s House Priory Hill	Filming- Recording the scenes needed for the trailer in order to portray the story correctly.	Camera Tripod Car Props	Oliver Butler Henry Vaudin Thomas Payne Connor Flint Luke  Abbott	16/12/2016
19/12/2016	St Neots, Longsands Academy	Editing – Editing all of the footage together in the correct order to help us portray our story.	Computer Adobe Premier Pro Adobe After Effects	Oliver Butler Henry Vaudin Thomas Payne	13/1/2017

Trailer Timeline

0:01- Credit is given to our production company 'Eclipse Studio's'.

0:03- Further credit is given by the caption comes up saying "A Film Brought To You By Eclipse Studio's".
0:04- An establishing shot is taken of an empty, monotone and dull grassy field.
0:07- Another establishing shot is used to show another empty field that has been fenced off.
0:08- Establishing shot of the same fenced off field but at another angle.
0:10- A mysterious looking man standing alone in a dark area.
0:11- The scene then cuts to the man still standing in the field but this time he is murdering an innocent man.
0:12- A closer shot of the man being murdered.
0;14- the man that had been killed is now laying in a muddy ditch.
0:15- Another establishing of a house and the neighbourhood.
0:16- A close up shot of the man suffering with multiply personality disorder looking very upset and angry.
0:18- There then a jump cut to a flashback of the man, which shows what the man went through to gain his multiple personality disorder. The scene shows some sort of fatherly figure abusing him.
0:20- A close up of the fatherly figure slamming the door where you can also see the man being roughly pulled up by the fatherly figure man.
0:21- There is then a jump cut to a different man driving his car as though he is looking around and investigating.
0:24- The man driving the car is then on photo and being filmed via a Point Of View shot to signify that he is being followed.
0:27- There is then a shot of the detective looking man walking up a flight of stairs.
0:29- There is then another shot of the detective man walking up the stair going towards a door.
0:30- There is then a close upshot of the detective man investigating some documents.
0:31- The next shot shows the psychopath/ the guy with multiple personalities trying to get through a door.
0:34- This shot shows the man with the split personality looking into a mirror and seeing his evil, psychotic personality.
0:39- This shot shows the evil personality torturing one of his victims, who has been tied up to a chair in some sort of garage.
0:42- Shows the evil personality putting knife up at the victims throat.
0:43- the screen then jumps to black.
0:44- The caption then pops up saying "PSYCHOSIS".
0:46- Another caption comes up saying "Coming Soon".
0:47- Another caption comes up stating all information about the film, such as the the production company, the film 4 association, the makers of the film, the costume maker, editor, etc

Thriller Genre Poster Research

I found that many of the thriller poster genre's, use the same conventions throughout in order to try and portray their message of the film. I feel like the most suitable trend for me to follow will be through the colours and positioning of the characters.

Colour- This is a main convention of a thriller poster due to the connotations that can occur from it. This is because certain colours can mean different things and can be easily identifiable to the genre. For example the three main colours that I could see that were constantly occurring were red, white and black. I feel that the three colours now symbolize the thriller genre due to the connotations from them. For example, when people see red and a scary image they will think of blood, danger and death as its dripping and scaring people. When people see black they think of nothingness, death and fear as it leaves the imagination wondering what's in the darkness that will affect me negatively. White is the juxtaposition and contrast between the three as its used to stand out and catch the eye of a viewer.

Position of Main Character:
This is also another vital convention in a film poster. They like the attention to be on the main character so that they can emphasize the star power which they have on the film. This will help the distribution because if the audience can identify a world renown actor, they will automatically think the film has to be good in order for the actor to take the job and act in it.

Examples: