Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


During the research and planning stage new media technology played an essential part in the whole process. The internet enabled us to access a full range of short films for analysis through internet sites such as YouTube and the BBC film network which influenced us on our final idea. We were able to research into the background of short films and look into existing products, allowing us to see what worked best and if there were any ideas we could include in our film. Short films only used to be distributed via mainstream means and were not easily accessible, potentially making the research and planning process very difficult. A particular short film that we got a lot of ideas from was Sold by Nadia Attia. The film has a linear narrative as the movie played out in chronological order and was in 'real time'. It also had a circular narrative but was subjective which we used in our film.

For ideas on our film poster, Google image easily allowed us to access film posters via the internet which we could instantly look at and analyse instead of having to physically go out and look for

them. The internet website; www.blogger.com has been essential for the documentation and organisation for our research and planning stage. The website has been easily accessible for both me and my group member which allowed us to communicate through comments. In addition, we could see each other’s work and see how each post had progressed.

DV cameras and digital cameras were the main media

technologies used during the production process. The DV cameras were used to film the whole production however there were limitations. The quality of sound/microphones were poor although we worked around this by using voice overs and scores to set the mood and to illustrate the narrative. Furthermore, the footage appeared to be 'grainy' however it was suitable for the theme of our film of the awareness of social networking sites as it added to the social realism of the topic which worked in our favour.

For our blog posts the digital cameras were used to take pictures of the location and characters, and for the poster and magazine. Digital cameras allowed us to easily upload them to our blog whereas before hand pictures had to be developed making the whole process very time consuming. In addition, digital cameras allow you to see the pictures taken before hand where you can make instant changes if necessary whereas camera films before had to be developed. I have found that with the use of new media technology has made the entire production process faster and easier.

During the post-production process new media technology was essential. The use of I-movie HD was very useful. It is non-linear editing software this means the process was non-destructive which worked at an advantage as we could therefore film in non-chronological order and place the clips in the order needed which made editing a lot easier. Moreover, after audience feedback was given we could make the changes instantly to improve the production efficiently. I-movie HD comes free with mac computers, it is therefore consumer targeted software as oppose to professionals. This made the software easy to use and understand, as you do not have to have a lot of skills to use it. However, with any free software it came with limitations. The effects and functions available were limited such as split screen which could have been used to make our film more enticing. Similarly, the use of the desktop publishing software Pages is a consumer product and not professional, it was easy to learn and use however again there were limitations with effects such as merging images etc. which reduced the utilisation of the publishing software for the magazines full potential although it did provide us with the basis for making our magazine film review.

Important software used during the post-production process was Photoshop CS4. It is at industry standard and was therefore a bit difficult to use and learn which was very time consuming, although it has a lot of capability. The software allowed us to develop more advanced poster ideas in contrast to the film editing software.

Photoshop covered a variety of different effects such as image manipulation, cutting, layering and blending etc. The use of expanded options meant the poster could potentially look like the real Hollywood ones once we developed our skills and techniques of using Photoshop.

The internet played a vital part in the post production process as we could access copyright free music via www.freeplaymusic.com for our film, there were thousands of songs available for us to choose from which made it easy to find a score or sound effect to suit our film without having the struggle of creating our own scores or contacting

people for permission to use their music as it could have potentially been very time consuming. Furthermore, there were copy right free 'stock' images that we could use for our poster and magazine which also worked at advantage as we didn't have to take some pictures ourselves in our case the picture of Facebook in the background of our magazine review.

New media technology was used during the evaluation process via the internet to post our blog evaluation. The use of YouTube enabled us to instantly distribute our media film and receive feedback. This was the same with Facebook as we posted our film onto the website to receive constructive criticism from people all around the world. This was helpful as we could get a variety of responses and opinions on how to improve our film. In addition, I-movie was used for creating our podcast for evaluation. Editing pictures into the voice over using the microphones was very simple and made the evaluation process easier.

Overall, I found that internet was the main source of new media technology I used throughout the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages as it played an essential role in the making of our short film. This is the final version of our short film which would not have been able to be made without the use of new media technology.