Media Technologies

Whilst making our trailer, poster and magazine cover we had to use a lot of media technology. Some of the programs used were ones I was already familiar with. However a lot of them were somewhat tricky to use and it took time to get used to them.

To film our whole trailer we used a HD flip camera. This is something I have used before and it was fairly easy to use it. We decided as a group that using the flip camera would be the best option. We chose the flip camera to use because it is simple to work with and easy to upload and play back what you film. We also had to use a tripod with the flip camera when filming a lot of our trailer because without it the shots were shaky. I think using the flip camera was a good choice because we had no problems with it and it was quick and easy to upload the shots to the Macs.

To edit our trailer and put it together we used Final Cut Express. This is something we were not completely used to because last year we used a program called Pinnacle. However we had used it on a practice task were we made a music video so we knew how to do a lot of the edting already.

 One of the things that took some time to work out how to do was the split screen. This was because we hadn't done this before and therefore it took us a while to work out how to do it. We also had to get used to the different layout and settings on Final Cut Express because we were not familiar with them. Using Final Cut Express was very worthwhile because we gained a new skill in using a different program and also there were a lot more settings on Final Cut Express compared with Pinnacle so it was an overall better program to use.

Creating the music for our trailer was something we wanted to do ourselves. We knew that we couldn't use copyright music and that it would be possible to find some un-copyrighted music online. However we decided it would be great to make the music. We used Garage Band which is a program on the Mac specifically made for making music. This was fairly simple to use because you simply had to drag the different types of sound onto the time strip. I feel that using this program was a good choice because we were able to get the exact sounds we wanted and the music came out really successfully because it adds tension in our trailer.

Making our poster we had to use Photoshop. Me and Ella were mainly focusing

on using Photoshop because we are both very familar with the program because we use it in another lesson. Therefore it was very easy for us to use it and create the look we wanted. We also used Photoshop for creating both the Gif files in the trailer. This was a little more challenging because I had not made this type of file from Photoshop before. It took us a while to find out how to do it but the outcome of this was successful. Photoshop was a good program to use for our poster because we were able to merge the chess piece onto the photo of megans face and add text.