Q4) Portrayal of

technologies

By Anita Ofori

1) YouTube

1) I used YouTube to watch examples of horror movies such

as, The Ring, Dead Silence and ‘Mama’. YouTube is a video

sharing website which allows its users to upload a video or

multiple videos based on any subject. These YouTube videos

was very effective for our short film as we were able to build

up ideas about costumes, camera shots, angles and editing

from watching these videos. For instance, the ghost having

almost ¾ of her face covered by her hair was inspired by ‘The

Ring’ trailer on YouTube. Moreover, even though the pink

clothing was also relatable to our colour scheme the use of

the pink clothing worn by Diana was originally inspired by the

‘Mean girls’ trailer on YouTube.

2) Google images

• We used Google images to search up film posters of popular horror movies such as, ‘The Host’, ‘Conjuring’ and ‘Chucky’. Google Images is a search service owned by Google and that allows users to search the Web for image content. The use of Google images was very effective as we could choose from a much broader range of film posters. Through viewing film posters on Google images we were also able to apply some of the ideas to our film poster in terms of, camera techniques, Mise-en-scene and editing. However, we did have dilemmas choosing a maximum of five film posters for our research and planning as there were too many good ones to select from.

3) Prezi

• 3) Prezi was used to produce our research and planning of our print products and audience feedback. Prezi is a presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a online canvas. Prezi is easy and quick for us to use as, there is no long sign up process and images of film reviews and posters could be simply uploaded from our computer or even imported from Google images. Through Prezi we were also able to change the template of our presentation so that we can find a suitable template for our genre of horror. Hence the reason why, we used a grey, black and red colour scheme for the research and planning of the print products. However, due to Prezi’s wide spread use we as a group thought that our creative skills were slacking.

4) Microsoft word

• Microsoft word documents were used to produce drafts of our film reviews and film posters in our research and planning. Microsoft Word is a word processor first released in 1983 under the name of ‘Multi-Tool Word’ for Xenix systems. The use of Microsoft word was very proficient as through Microsoft word we could automatically double check the grammar of the text we used for our film review. This therefore made our content more professional as through spell checking words we were able to minimise silly mistakes. In terms of font, through Microsoft word I discovered the distinctive font of ‘Showcard gothic’ which was vibrant and interesting for our masthead. However, difficulties did arise when we tried to use Microsoft word on other hardware such as, an Apple Mac as the application was unavailable for use.

5) Blogger

• We used the popular networking site of Blogger to keep the examiners up to date with our activities and tasks. Blogger is a website that shows postings by one or more individuals’. The posts tend to be in chronological order and usually allow its users to share links of specific websites. Even though Blogger can be difficult in making videos or presentations from other websites visible, the fact that you can copy and paste ‘links’ onto the compose element of Blogger whilst editing makes postings easily navigable for the viewers.

6) Leyton media Moodle• Leyton media Moodle was used to gather

information about the tasks we had to do for our research, planning and evaluation stages and also the construction of our short film. Leyton media Moodle was very useful to us as it made us aware of the deadlines of each task and also made us aware of the criteria expected in the research and planning and construction of our short film. If there was a media session that I missed or a team member missed we were able to keep up to date with work through downloading the research and planning tasks from Moodle.

Thanks for watching

By Anita Ofori