Adobe Photoshop was a main program for me to use, this was to create the poster and gives the effects of a horror genre and also to create the magazine front cover, it being a specialist editing program it was best for me to use in order to create the two ancillary tasks. This program allowed me to create both my poster and magazine with the effects to make it suggest that the film is a horror to attract the target audience.
For my poster it was very useful for creating my horror poster, I was able to smudge the text to create my very own font and gave the hint of a ghostly presence given an idea of the killer and could also use the smudge tool to drag the blood making it seem like it was dripping, and the title 'Social Killer' I used the text effects that Photoshop has to offer such as the shadow, inner shadow, outer glow and stroke effects these effects were made to boost the idea of what is the killer but this also made the title stand out more. It also was useful because I was able to make the image darker to my liking, with the darkness and the use of colours this surely helped because the audience are able to look at this poster and tell straight away by the conventions that this is a horror.
Photoshop also helped with creating my magazine, I used my poster as a free poster if the magazine was brought to use up more space it helped by giving me image effects by making it look like it wasn't just glued onto the page but gave a more professional look too. It was also helpful in positioning the text and images to my liking to allow thing's such as my main image's knife be viewed by the audience (before It was changed the text was at the side) allowing me to put the focus on the knife for the audience to get idea's of what genre the image is, and yet again it helped by giving me text effects such as colour transparency. Having used Photoshop last year's Media AS coursework, I was able to quickly jump on the computer and effectively use my time without learning the techniques for Photoshop.
Windows movie maker is a program that allows the user to create movies, I was able to use this program to create my trailer it was a disadvantage for me because I have never used this program before so learning it took time, when I did get through the barrier then I was able to use it purposes such as cutting clips to shorten time and copy and paste clips.
I used it's tool which allows the user to create titles in the trailer which gave the plot of the story to the audience so they know whats the problem (Social networks) and lastly I was able to add sound in for the crucial part of the element of that it's a horror and to create the scary effect in order to make the trailer a success, it helped me with the conventions that are included within a horror trailer, it could be better if better software for editing was available but their weren't so Windows Movie Maker was are only option because when watching other school's media student trailers their software obviously made a huge difference in making their trailer better.
Using blogger to upload my A2 media coursework for it to be marked and reviewed easier and properly quicker, also receiving feedback by comments made on my posts to improve certain areas for a higher mark, also was very helpful viewing work from student's in my class to view the standards of the work and help me gain more of a understanding of the task. It was difficult at first learning to use blogger and their are times where it becomes frustrating to use like when it wasn't allowing me to post work or upload images.
An obvious choice to research, I was able to search up movies to watch for ideas and set a standard what must be expected in a horror it also was good to use to search up horror posters to analysis to view the conventions of a horror poster and also for magazine covers and trailers, by looking at real media products I was able to create my media products with the conventions the real media products have shown in order to make my media products like professional. It was also helpful in collecting images such as the bar code for my magazine and the warning scene on my trailer, along with the images I also used it to find non-digetic sound for my trailer it helped me in finding a website which would let me download music which was not copyrighted and free. Google was mainly what I used in order to research for the trailer and also gain the other things as mentioned this was a big help and contributed better then any other program I used.
I used a camera and a tripod for my trailer, the camera obviously allowed me to view the trailer at first I had to learn how to use it but wasn't hard to use it after learning how to, the tripod helped in order to maintain the balance and prevent the camera from shaking which would give a amateur look which I am not intending to do or trying to make a hand held film, it also helped by letting me do the techniques used in films such as panning, tilting and etc. I was able to adjust the height of the tripod as well so this allowed me to do camera shots at different heights such as low angle shot.
YouTube is a website which allows people to upload videos for others to watch and comment/rate, for me I was able to upload my trailer onto YouTube and others could watch and give feedback, it was also used to find trailers of real movies which I could then watch to view the speed of scenes or camera shots and angles used in a horror, this gave a few ideas in which I included into my trailer such as the warning scene at the beginning. Even ideas that wasn't included were found from YouTube, I searched up a old pop song called 'Turn around, look at me' which let me listen to the song to see if it's a good idea to include.
