How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and planning and

evaluation stages?

• In the process of creating my short film, I used a wide variety of technology in order to produce the best quality of work that was achievable. Besides this, I used a lot of Internet websites which allowed me to find out background information about other films and allowed me to see conventions which I chose to follow.

• In this presentation, you will see each of the technical equipment that I used and the webpages which helped me most throughout the process.

Apple Mac

Apple iMacs run on an operating known as OSX which is very efficient and they are provided by the school – last year there was nine in the media room, however there is an additional 10 in the English/Media room next to it. These Macs are updated and have new software on them, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Presentation etc and Final Cut Pro; this is the editing software that I will be using to create my short film. For my AS coursework last year, I used the Macs on a regular basis; this gave me the ability and experience to use them efficiently this year. The new Macs have no major differences to them, which made this task a lot easier as we didn‟t have to learn many new things. There was a small drawback which affected the time we had to complete the task. Because the new Macs which Sophie and myself were using were in a different room which made it hard to get access to them when there was a class taking place in that room. When this occurred we had to improvise with other technical devices in school, so decided to do blog work on the schools laptops.

When using the school laptops, I was able to get blog work done much quicker as they laptop keyboards are much easier to type on and I was able to concentrate more seeing as I worked inthe schools library. However the laptops tooka very long time to log in seeing as the connection is poor on them, which wasteda lot of time.

Laptop Sometimes I do not get on with the iMacs at school. They can be very slow and the keyboard is quite frustrating to type on seeing as all of the keys are spread out. Due to this, I worked on the schools Samsung laptops a lot of the time. These are very good as they never run out of charge and are very modern which makes them appealing to work on. They never freeze and it has all the software on it which you get on a normal computer. I rarely had any problems with it however the internet connection got lost quite a few times which made it hard to get on with work –most of my work is internet based due to Blogger being an online blogging site. When this happened, I just got on with other work which needed doing as well. Besides this, the laptops can very annoying when you type as my hand kept rubbing on the touch pad mouse and the curser kept moving to other lines! This wasn‟t a huge problem and didn‟t cause any other issues – but it was very annoying!

CameraFor the recording of my short film, I used the Panasonic Cam Recorder which is supplied by the school. The model of it is Panasonic SDR H40 – it is very modern and was quick when recording the footage needed. These camcorders are very basic and are not very technical, however I used a high definition camera to shoot our film. I found that these provided a very clear and precise picture which made our film look professional. I liked using these cameras and I would use them in the future due to the quality of the picture that is provided. The only problem that I found was that there was a lot of footage on them which other people had filmed beforehand. This made it slower to upload our footage onto the computer. Besides this, the camera we used ran out of memory so therefore I had to change to another Panasonic Cam Recorder and another time, it ran out of battery. Luckily these occurrences happened right at the end of the process of shooting so we no longer needed thecamera. We had enough to provide us with a good film.

When filming the short film, I used a tripod which is also provided by the school. This made the filming so much easier as it prevented the camera from shaking. However sometimes it was hard to get the angle that I wanted due to the tripod not being tall enough or not being able to get in the desired position.

Once I had completed filming, I had to use the USB lead and the charger to upload it onto the iMac. This enabled me to upload it straight onto Final Cut Pro which made it much easier to edit my clips. These were easy to get hold of as they were provided by the school and are stored in a safe place.

Tripod, USB lead & Charger

PhoneI have the phone Blackberry Bold 9700 which I found I used a lot throughout the process of this task. I used it mostly for emailing Sophie and texting her about the project. I found this very useful as it was quick and efficient and I had easy access to it at all times.

iPod I also used my iPod a lot during this project. I used iMessage several times to contact Sophie as this was much more direct and instant than texting and I also Facetimed her about the work. Facetime is phone call where you can see the person you are talking to. This was good as I could see her expression when I told her some of my ideas and this allowed me to get a better insight of what she thought about it. I also downloaded the „Blogger‟ app onto my iPod which meant I could do work on it at any time when I had wifi. However a problem occurred when I was editing a post. I had done a lot of work and changes to one of the evaluation posts and I had saved it just as I normally would. When I went back to the post, I saw most of the previous text that I was editing had been deleted and there was no way of me getting it back. I had to re-write most of the post and this took a lot of time and I had produced some good work which unfortunately got lost. This was very frustrating.

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro is an editing software provided on the Apple Macs which we have in school. It has a variety of editing features which effectively make your “film” look professional – these include transitions, effects, sounds, blade, trim, and many more. I decided to use this to edit our film as I thought it would be more suitable seeing as it is more advanced and developed in comparison to IMovie. When I first used Final Cut Pro, I found it very difficult to use as it was different from IMovie, which I used to create my practise short film. There were several new features to learn about, however this was soon overcome by the videos on YouTube. All of the key buttons, such as blade and trim where located in different places to IMovie so it proved a task just to find these! Once I experimented with clips on Final Cut Pro and got some practice, it soon became very easy, seeing as I became used to the settings. I also found that applying the music, effects and transitions were much easier using this than IMovie as they were easier to locate. With the effects and transitions, you could preview what they looked like before applying it to a selected clip in order to see if it would work well – I liked this a lot as it helped to save time.

Another feature which I liked a lot was how you could apply clips above the project timeline – it made that clip fit in more smoothly with the film and overlap the previous scene slightly. Similarly, I liked how easy it was to apply as many music clips to the timeline as wanted. This enabled me to have several sound effects and music to be played at the same time to create a more tense mood.

The blade button came in very handy in the process of this as it allowed me to place the clips where I wanted. It was very fast and effective as well as precise and accurate as to where I wanted the clips cut. However throughout the creation on my short film, I found several drawbacks which hindered the time I had to complete the task. Firstly, I figured out, like with most things, you need a lot of practice on Final Cut Pro before you can create a good quality film. Secondly due to all of the content and data on it, it froze a lot (sometimes up to half an hour) which hindered the time I had and made it difficult to get on with my work. When this occurred, I planned what I could do on planned, ready for when the Mac started to work again, however it was very frustrating as I just wanted to get the task completed.

Another problematic issue was the voiceovers. Once we figured out how to apply them to the project, I adjusted the volume of them due to them being faint on top of the background music. This took a lot of time as I could not get the sound to sound „normal‟ without sounding muffled. In the end, I adjusted each sound to the same percentage as well as the background noise, however one voiceover clip did not respond well to this and is quieter than the others.

Another problem which Sophie and myself came across was that we had great difficultly changing the duration of the transitions (fade to black). We wanted to make the fade longer so it had more of a dramatic effect. Teachers did not know the solution to this, so we figured out that by adding a title page in the middle to two fade to black transitions and cutting it, allowed us to have a longer fade to black.

Pages

I used Pages on the Mac to create the magazine film review page. I had previous experience of this from my AS work and from when I used it in my own time. It took longer than anticipated to create as I couldn‟t figure out the way that I wanted it to look. I liked using pages as it allowed me have different affects on the pictures and text boxes. As you can see, the film recorder in the top right hand of it, it faded around the outside. I chose to do this as it fit in with my review page better and looked more subtle. As I am getting more experience, I am becoming more comfortable with using it.

PicMonkeyPicMonkey is an online photo editing website. Before using this website I used to use Picnik which was very good, however the site got closed down which caused problems when it came to editing my photos. I tried using iPhoto but I found it was as developed or advanced as to what Picnik was. Soon after I found another photo editing website called PicMonkey which (I think) is a revamp of Picnik. It has the same features and effects as to what Picnik had so this was very helpful. PicMonkey provides features such a teeth whitening, blemish removal, eyelash enhancement etc which helps the model look more Alist – which effectively makes the film look more professional. I used this in the magazine film review page as I wanted the actress to look a little airbrushed. Besides this, PicMonkey also allowed me to use basic edits on the picture for the film review page. It enabled me to „darken‟ the contrast and saturation of the picture which made it look more dark and sinister; this fit the mood of the film better. I had no problems using this online website and I would definitely use it again.

IPhotoWhen I created the first ancillary poster, I used IPhoto to darken the image to make it look more sinister and disturbed. However because of the image we used, we had a talk with our teacher and concluded that it was too distressing to use – the audience may be put off due to the young school girl being tied up with duck tape across her mouth.Putting this aside, I then used IPhoto to make the picture I used for the magazine film review. I dulled down the picture, to again make it look more cruel and on edge.

As you can see from the image on the far left, the darken button clearly informs you on what it does. You click continuously on it, depending on how dark you want it to go. I liked using this as it allowed me to edit it to the extent in which I felt looked best. Most photo editing sites have specific percentages in which you edit it to.

Grab is software which is provided on the iMacs. During the process of creating my ancillary task (magazine film review page), I used the grab tool several times in order to get my poster onto my blog. When you create a document on Pages, it doesn‟t save into a picture, which made it very complicated to upload it to my blog. I asked the schools technician on how to overcome this problem and he informed me how to do so straight away. I followed the steps he said on how to do it and now I can use it all the time. This enabled me to upload it to my blog once I had to convert it into a JPG. By„grabbing‟ and „selecting‟ the document, it allowed me to print screen it into a picture which made it easier to upload.

Grab

SafariSafari is the Macs internet search engine. I think this is a very fast and efficient search engine and I enjoy using this. I used this a lot as I spent most on my time on blogger as well as Final Cut Pro. At some times of this process, I had poor internet connection however once I asked the technical, this problem soon got sorted by reconnecting.

GoogleGoogle is the is the search engine what I use at home and when I am not on the Macs. I feel that Google is the most used search engine, therefore I feel that the information found on it is reliable and results are found efficiently. These two search engines were also available at any time because the school pays for Safari and my parents pay for the broadband at home.

Blogger is the blogging site I used to display all of my work. I previously used this before for my AS work so I knew how to work it effectively. I spent a lot of time on this website as I find it easier to blog my work straight away instead of writing it on paper first. There has never been any major problems when using blogger, however it is very hard to upload videos. There are displayed in the actual post however when it is published, it never seems to play or show the content. I have not overcome this problem yet, as I am planning to do it when I do the finishing touches to my blog.

Blogger

Youtube

YouTube has been a great help to me throughout this process. It has allowed me to view videos in which became an inspiration to me and help me view videos which helped me identify typical conventions (Cupcake and The Lovely Bones). Without having access to YouTube, it would have hindered my progress of the project and would have prevented me from doing work on time. As well as this, I uploaded my short film to YouTube which allowed me to promote it and get easy access to it when I am not at school. I am now able to view it at any place where I have internet connection and at any time which makes it easier for me to refer to it in my work.

As I mentioned, by uploading my short film to YouTube, it allowed everyone to view my film as I uploaded it on a public setting. This enabled my film to be promoted through the media as hopefully, it will get many public viewings.I enjoyed using YouTube as it enabled me to investigate other short films however a lot of the time it was blocked by the schools IT system to prevent it being misused by younger years. This delayed my time when I needed to use it – when this occurred I got on with other work which needed doing. However this, of course, made my other tasks take longer to complete.

Prezi

I used Prezi in the final stages on the process. This is an online website where you can create presentations of your choice – and to make it more exciting, it provides different themes which include different colours and fonts. I used Prezi in the evaluation of my media product as I felt that is was an effective way to display text about my short film. Besides this, it makes it more interesting to read by the effects, fonts, colours and styles that prezi provides for your text, as I have mentioned before. I used this last year for my AS evaluations and found it hard to use at first, but I soon got used to it. Due to this, I thought that it would be a fast and effective website to use for my A2 evaluations. However when I came on to using it, I found that there was a new layout and design. This was confusing and I had to learn how to use it again – they did provide a walkthrough video which helped and I soon realised not much had changed but some key features of it only had.

This is a website which enables you to upload your presentations and it allows you to embed them into other websites. This site has been very helpful through the A2 course as it has allowed me to upload my presentations to Blogger. The only difficulty I had with this site was learning how to embed the presentation onto my blog. Also I noticed when I viewed the presentation online, some of the font was cut off the edges as I had it on a large font. To overcome this I had to change the original document and upload it again. This was not a big issue however it did take time which was limited due to deadlines.

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