"How did you use new media technologies in the construction, reseach, planning and evaluation stages?"

Above is a diagram of the main programs we used to make our teaser trailer, 'Triquetra'. Final Cut Pro is the application which the editing of the film was done in, which was combined with effects from LiveType and the soundtrack imported from GarageBand. We used the internet for our research and Blogger to post our products, research and so on! The way we created our survey was through Survey Monkey, where we created the questionnaire, then people filled it in, and we could collect our results in an easy way.

Final Cut Pro had the biggest learning curve for me, as although we used it last year, it was more of a test to get used to it, and the different style of film we were making meant that we needed to use different editing techniques, such as a lot of cross fading and editing the speed and length of shots. I found it overall good to use, but it can be quite daunting because it's such a complex program, but as long as we stayed to what we knew and only experimented a little bit, we were okay.

I didn't really like LiveType because I found it a bit basic and it was hard to work out where the text would fit in with the video, and how it would look against the background. I liked some of the effects but most of them looked quite flash, whereas in most horror movies a simple font is used, without all the rolling and swooping effects.

I use GarageBand in my own time so I'm used to it, and thought we made a good soundtrack for our trailer using it. This is the part of the process I looked forward to a lot because we had the film finished by this point, and were able to take time to get the sound to really fit in with it.

Photoshop is quite easy to grasp and it's easy to see how everyone's products have improved since the original college magazine in AS media studies. We used Photoshop to create mood boards, the magazine cover and poster, and for other visual uses throughout the production and post-production stages.

For the evaluation stage, we are all using Blogger, which is a different way of working than a written essay. The benefits allow us to post videos, links, photos and sounds, creating a more accurate representation of the changes in technology and how media studies is an up to date subject. In the context of a film trailer, it's very fitting as we can show exactly what we mean about our product, with careful analysis and an embedded video which can be looked at. Because of the subject, it feels natural to use a blog to present our evaluations. I prefer writing on paper because I can see what I'm creating instead of staring into a text box, but I do realise that for the evaluation of this specific product, this is a much more effective way of doing it.