Evaluation - Question 4

Question 4 – How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

At the start of our project we had to conduct a lot of research in order to plan our film. I did this research using the internet and more specifically, sites such as Google, Youtube, Blogger and IMDB. I used Blogger as a way of storing the information I had gathered from the research. All of the above has helped me to improve my research skills and also my level of skill when it comes to blogging. Blogger also enabled me to create and design my own blog. As I used it more and more, I found out ways in which I could personalize my own blog and make the design relevant to our film.

Whilst producing posts on our blog, I took various photos on my I Phone that we could use for our location photos and storyboard. I also took photos of some of the props that we used within our film, such as the fake money and the flour we used as a substitute for drugs. This has improved my photography skills and has also had a positive influence on my planning skills as we used the photographs to plan out which shots we would take for our film.

After conducting our research and planning, we then had to film footage that we could use for our film. We did this by using a Sony HDV camera and a standard tripod. Throughout my time using the camera I feel that my filming skills have developed significantly and that I now have a better understanding of what range of shots come together to make an effective scene. The camera was extremely easy to use and this was a big help in developing my skills as I was able to get on with the filming without any trouble. Whilst the camera was easy to use, it still produced excellent and professional results. The only problem I had when using the camera was due to the outside conditions. This was mainly down to the lighting of our locations which meant I had to spend some time in adjusting the camera so that no glare appeared on the footage.

After filming all of the footage, we then had to edit it all together and we did this by using the programme ‘Final Cut Express’ on a Mac computer. This programme was extremely successful in the editing process of our film and it has certainly improved my creativity. My editing skills as a whole have improved because of this programme and I am now able to use a wide range of effects that I wasn’t able to beforehand. Some of these effects are the ‘roll over tool’ that I used to smooth the transition from shot to shot and the ‘cross dissolve’ effect. The tool we used to smooth the transitions was extremely effective and made our film look far more professional. We did experience some difficulties in the editing process though as we lost our initial work because of the Mac we were using. The Mac crashed and in the processed lost our work. This meant that we had to re edit our footage and made the whole process take a lot longer than it would have.

Completing the editing process meant that we could then look at the ways in which we could advertise our film. The two ways we advertised our film were by creating a film poster and a radio trailer. I created my film poster by using the programme ‘Photoshop Elements 7.0’. I opened up a captured image from our film onto the programme and then used the programme to add effects to the image. The process of creating my film poster, improved my skills in editing and also helped in improving my creativity.