Evaluation Question 4

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

Throughout the construction of our media product, the media technologies each contributed to the success of our film. 

Google Blogger and Celtx

In terms of planning and research, we used software’s such as Celtx (to produce our script) and Blogger (to plan ideas regarding story lines, scripting and best camera shots/angles that could make our film unique and interesting.) These software’s particularly helped with the development of our film, as when we first began planning and research on Blogger, our film had a numerous amount of ideas significantly different to our final product. This, for us as a group allowed a ‘record’ of development and how we excelled throughout to overall create a piece of work we were all pleased with. Blogger also reflects our research as a team or as individuals as many posts have the power to reinforce research that can be commonly shown in our media product, for example, research into genre or generic conventions helped us take these ideas and place them in our film as a way to match stereotypical views, E.g research of Sci-Fi helped us with the concept of a virtual reality, which is shown through the common use of ECG tabs and tapes throughout our film. Research into genre and generic conventions even allowed us to give a suitable age rating as certain scenes in the film were only appropriate for 15+ viewers. Overall, Google Blogger was one of the media technologies we used the most, alongside Premiere Pro and the Canon Legria HFG25.

(shown above: examples of our Celtx)



Cameras and Recorders (Canon Legria HFG25)
As another part of planning, we decided to use cameras for practice shots as a way to see how certain shots would look within the product which was then uploaded to Blogger as a part of our ‘record’. An example of this would be at the beginning of our A2 year, where we filmed a "short journey" in order to practice different shots and editing techniques such as elliptical editing.This also aided us with developing skills using the new cameras so our media film could be filmed in the most efficient way, as the earlier we were aware of working the cameras, the easier filming days would be. The cameras we used for our A2 production also allowed us to reflect on our progress from AS, as these cameras were much easier to use and allowed us to shoot more shots than in comparison to the cameras we used last year (Sony HD 1000). Our scenes this year were shot in a more professional manner that complemented our film and the different events that were taking place throughout our production. This was a result of the Canon Legria HFG25 having the ability to self focus and produce more clear, detailed shots which contributed significantly to the professional look of our film, e.g no blurry shots unless they were intentionally placed in a scene.

(below: our short journey) 

In addition to our improvements of camera skills, the more modern zoom recorders we used to produce a radio trailer also helped with our media product. The H4 recorder we used in our AS production was not as efficient in terms of its abilities and how efficient it was to carry around with us. For example, the H1 recorder we used for our A2 production allowed our voices to be more clearly recognised and picked in comparison to last year. Furthermore it was more compact therefore was easier to hold when producing our trailer.








Adobe Photoshop
Alongside our radio trailer, we had to create a suitable film poster as apart of synergy for our film. This was a task set to us as individuals, however we  overall would chose our best design and have that as the main poster for our production. In terms of Photoshop, as a personal opinion I found this software to obstruct my creativity as when I first began my individual film poster idea, it was the first time I had ever used the programme; therefore I had no skills or knowledge that would allow me to create an effective poster for our audience. This part of planning for me was overall not as successful as other blog posts.



Premiere Pro
Premiere pro was extremely useful to us as without this software, editing of our film could not be done. This included piecing our film together shot by shot and editing them by cutting to create our overall production. This software was different to what we used in our AS year (Final Cut), therefore we were all unfamiliar with how it worked to begin with however soon became familiar with the icons and what each allowed us to do with our film. Using this software was a lengthy progress however over 5 months it allowed us to create our A2 production which clearly shows our skills development from AS to A2. From the use of this software, we also created our bloopers for our film as a way to use Premiere Pro in a different way than just piecing together our overall product. Despite our bloopers not needing as much attention to detail such as continuity etc, it still allowed simple skills to be developed for example getting familiar with tools and icons that could piece each clip together e.g option of fade into another scene etc. We didn't particularly use any effects on our bloopers however we still tested different elements the software provided as a way to get familiar with it that could contribute to our overall product. We did this as a way to create the best film we could possibly make that is successful in terms of all purposes (entertaining, showing camera skills etc) alongside showing our development over our 2 year course.

Youtube

When using and uploading our film onto YouTube, we remained with our same account from last year to show how we have developed as a group and so it would be easy to compare both productions.  This helped with our evaluation stages as it allowed us to watch it through as a final piece, rather than little bits we had seen during the editing stages, therefore it made it easier for us to praise and critique different parts of the film. From these evaluations of our film we uploaded rough copies of our film before exporting our final production so it presented what changes we made in order to make it as successful as we possibly could. Our YouTube channel worked in a similar way to

Blogger as it kept a record of work, however this showed work consisting of previous film ideas, audience feedback, bloopers and other active work that allowed viewers to be shown our ideas visually rather than looking at our work from blog posts.

The above picture shows images from YouTube of our first film idea where we had a plot consisting of henchmen and a dystopian world, however the picture on the right shows our development from one storyline to another. YouTube was helpful when showing our development as it acted as a video portfolio and showed how we developed from the beginning of the year and how skills of creativity have excelled within months of working with cameras. These camera skills can also be reflected to our final film of "Playback" where cinematography has improved dramatically from not only our AS year, but also from our first film idea at the beginning of A2. During our first storyline, we primarily were focused on creating something unique and entertaining that we forgot some key aspects of camera work that helped with continuity, for example we had little match on action and no shot reverse shot, therefore by using YouTube, we could look back on the films we had uploaded before and discuss what could be cut completely and what we could take from our old idea and adapt it into our new film (e.g we kept the intense chase scene from our first storyline)