How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In pairs we took pictures of each other holding the kit that we used, this included the camera, tripod and monopod. Other online and computer programs I have used were screenshotted such as YouTube, Windows Movie Maker, Blogger, Paint, Microsoft PowerPoint and Publisher. I dropped the images onto my blog and annotated it discussing what I learnt about these previously mentioned media technologies.
The tripod was a necessary tool and was very critical to the production of our Soap Opera trailer. Firstly we used the tripod to keep the camera still in order to make the cinematography seem as professional as possible, as an unsteady camera is a sign of amatuer camera work and also may give the notion that we were using the 'jiggly camera' technique, although this was not the desired effect. Secondly the tripod allowed us to achieve cetain shots with extreme precision such as the panning shots where we see the car drive past, these camera movements would have never been as smooth without the tripod therefore an effective part of our filming apparatus.
The FlipHD camera was clearly the most important tool within the filming process as it allowed us to capture footage/film scenes. This particular camcorder is very light and allows for maximum mobility, this was extremely beneficial to the camera man (cinematographer) when filming in awkward positions or having to film freehand for extensive periods of time reducing the stress placed on their arms/hands. The interface and buttons on the FlipHD was very simple and user friendly thus allowing us to go straight into filming without referring to an instruction manual or tutorial. Lastly the most beneficial part of the FlipHD is the USB feature that allowed us to simply plug the camcorder directly into the PC/Mac and drag the video files over to the computer. Not only was it an easy process but it allowed us to film significantly more and re-shoot particular scenes we were unhappy with, without the hassle of using a firewire which is a much more difficult and time consuming process.
The monopod wasn't used to the extent of the tripod but it allowed to overcome certain obstacles such as height restrictions. For example the extreme longshot within the trailer that reveals the entire street was only possible due to the length of the monopod which reached over the metal barriers of the overpass and capture a clear/unobscured shot.
The following screengrabs include the online and computer programs used within the advanced production:
Windows Movie Maker is one of the few editing softwares I am extremely familiar with, despite not being as advanced as other professional editing softwares such as Final Cut Pro and Sony Vegas 9.0 it offers the basic tools necessary for editing. This editing software allowed us to do basic cuts and cropping to put the footage in chronological order in terms of narrative, also add transitions such as fading and effects such as slow motion. In addition the editing software allowed us to change the brightness and contrast in order to compensate for the lack of lighting within the recordings.
Paint was used in order to screengrab/screenshot/printscreen certain things on the computer screen and turn them into pictures by pasting them into Paint and saving the screenshots as a .JPEG, otherwise known as an image.
Publisher was used in order to create the TV listings magazine which was made signficantly easier by this particular software as it is primarily used for creating things of this nature. Therefore Microsoft Publisher allowed me to produce a seemingly realistic TV listings magazine using the tools avaliable such as cropping, filling, layering, etc. All of which contributed to the outcome of my magazine cover.
I used PowerPoint very early on within my production and never seemed to return to it, despite being very good for creating slideshow presentations with headings, subheadings, backgrounds and bullet points. PowerPoint has little to no other uses, hence the lack of slideshows within my blog posts.
YouTube is the most popular online video streaming site in the world, therefore an obvious decision to upload the Soap Opera trailer in order to capitalize on its features and large audience. The annotation feature was used to label particular micro-elements which include mise en scene, lighting, performance, costume, etc, and how they were effective and challenged or conformed to the soap opera conventions. In additon the commenting section allowed us to gain feedback from the public on how to improve the product. Finally the High Definition quality of the FlipHD's was put to good use when the trailer was uploaded in 720p in order to give an extremely clear picture quality.
Firstly, despite the flaws within Blogger.com it is a very useful blogging website which allowed me to update my blog regularly through all three stages of production including pre production, production and post production. However electronically storing data on the internet means you must back up your work constantly in case of an emergency where the site goes down due to server issues or random data corruption. Other problems include the constant crashing of the website resulting in loss of data, frequently when prepraring to 'Publish Post' the website responds with an error. On the otherhand it offered me and my group members the ability to communicate with eachother commenting on one anothers work and also following other members of the groups individual blogs in order to recieve a constant update on one anothers blogging activity.
This is Gemma Wenman. She is 17 years and 6 months old, and lives in the urban area of Southgate. She primarily focuses on maintaining a good aethstetic appeal which is typical of his age consisting of designer jeans, shirts and cardigans which are all expensive. She enjoys going out with friends on the weekend to shopping malls to purchase the new designer accessories and clothing, going out cinema every Saturday to watch the new releases, in particular romantic comedies or ‘chick flicks’. The shops she purchases clothes from are Topshop, River Island, Next, Littlewoods, Blue Inc and other online stores. Mature teenagers negotiating their pathway into adulthood are usually into soap opera with certain issues within them that relate to their lives and everyday occurrences. Soap operas such as Hollyoaks, Home and Away and Neighbours are targeted towards teenagers and broadly speaking youth. Therefore it consists of themes and issues such as teenage pregnancy which attract these audiences to watch these in a form of entertainment. Based on her preferred soap operas, ‘The Street’ will be ideal for this particular target audience as it deals with current issues within their lives and is primarily set in the location many of the audience members will be living and experiencing at the time, university. Other TV programs she watches often reflect her age thus consisting of programs such as Friends, Scrubs and The Event consequently the most prominent channels within their viewing habits comprise of Channel 4, Comedy Central and E4. Two of the previously stated channels primarily focus on TV entertainment particularly for her age thus making them appropriate choices for airing ‘The Street' as they have a following within the age the soap opera is targeted to resulting in optimal views and ratings. The social class of Gemma is very critical in terms of being able to relate to the soap opera as it will not seem particularly realistic if it is a working class slum lifestyle which is not relatable to Gemma’s middle class background. 'The Street' features middle class students attending a middle class fictional university in the rural countryside, therefore the show will primarily focus on middle class lifestyles than working class issues but still appeal to a broad young audience, especially teenagers. Ethnicity will not play an important role within the target audience decision as The Street features a multicultural road, due to the fact we live in a culturally diverse society in the contemporary UK, although it will deal with controversial cultural issues such as Eastenders homosexuality storyline with a Indian male which was considered controversial but is realistic and entertaining. Gender is crucial as Gemma is female and therefore much more in tune with her emotions at that particular age during the youth or teenage period in their lives. However males, especially adolescent boys feel it is not the norm to watch soap operas as it has a feminine stigmatism associated with it. Therefore priority is provided to the female audience in particular young girls similar to Gemma although there will be storylines taken into consideration to appeal to a broader audience for boys as it is a audience that lacks a soap opera.
I had to use YouTube's annotation tools to to add notes, speech bubbles and links to my trailer using the following link for help:
These annotations will highlight the ways in which my trailer links to other similar products in order to attract the particular audience I have previously identified.
I was instructed to write a summary of audience feedback I have received at different stages of production and how this influenced your production choices.
The feedback gathered from the questionnaire was extremely beneficial as it help me acquire a target audience that want a new soap opera. For example the most prominent age category within our research was the 15 to 19 years of age category, meaning our soap will have significant competition from other soaps such as Hollyoaks (coincidentally the most popular soap amongst the people who filled in the questionnaire) which appeal to a similar audience. Therefore in order to avoid competing with Hollyoaks due to its strong established fan base, the most logical way to solve this problem is schedule our soap opera after Hollyoaks, possibly on the same channel E4 which received joint equal votes with BBC1. However this could be an opportunity to bring a contemporary soap opera aimed towards a younger audience to a very established and widely syndicated channel such as the BBC, although this may become a problem due to Eastenders audiences overlooking our soap due to the overwhelming popularity of Eastenders. The ratio between men and women is significantly more lenient towards female audience members thus meaning the soap must deal with certain issues such as teenage pregnancy in order to appeal and educate the audience with real life issues which are relatable. Overall this questionairre was very helpful indeed and could potentially determine the outcome of our creative project.
The feedback given by the audience was very limited due to the minimal exposure of the video on YouTube, thus only recieving one comment. Despite the very small turnout of people watching the soap opera trailer (a total of 13 views) made our group use other means to gain feedback such as a questionnaire. Here is the example of the feedback from the public:
The response was very brief and only touched on the editing which prevented the narrative from flowing. We took this on board and edited the trailer again cutting it down only by 3.3 seconds however this extremely minute number makes a signficant difference to the overall outcome of the production as shots do not drag on too long. The shots/scenes push the narrative foward smoothly thus benefitting the audiences experience watching the trailer as it is much more pleasent and interesting.
