Evaluation - Question 4

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

Media technology played a huge part in the development of my media coursework. At each stage of the coursework, I found myself using different types of media production technology to complete tasks and research. Without access to this technology, my coursework would have taken a lot longer to complete and would have struggled to create my final products.  

The Internet:

I used to internet in a number of ways to help enhance my coursework. In my research, I relied greatly on the internet as my source of information. I used YouTube.com to locate and watch existing short films that would gain me an insight into how to make one for myself. There, I found a variety of different short films that have been created by both professionals and other Media students. Comments made by YouTube viewer about the films allowed me to depict what features I would need to include in my own product in order to produce an effective and popular short film. I used the comments made by viewers to determine audience perception of the product in order to improve my own. YouTube also allowed me to broadcast videos I had created in order to attach them to my blog. I also used IMDb.com in order to research existing horror/thriller films to gain an idea into the type of market I was entering into by making that particular genre of film. I found the film ‘Taken’ the most useful of all films as the narrative is similar to my own short film. The website provided many important details concerning the technical aspects, box office information and film production details of Taken which allowed me to determine the popularity of the film, how it was made and whether it would be justifiable to create a short film similar to it.  I used ‘Google’ search engine which enabled me to find images, information and websites quickly and more efficiently. Pearlanddean.com, a similar website to IMDb.com, provided me with more information about existing films, particularly concerning impact of target audience. From this website, I was able to define a suitable target audience for my short film based on the genre and other comparable films. Blogger.com was the blog site I used to document my coursework. This allowed for easy access to my work from any computer which made working at home much easier. Barb.co.uk was the website that helped me to decide on perfect broadcasting for my short film based upon figures of popular viewings on different TV Channels. This website helped me to select Channel 4 as my broadcasting channel based on existing programmes broadcast by the channel and how effective they were at drawing in audience numbers.

Filming:

For the process of filming, I used a video camera, camera tape, tripod and power lead to capture my film. The video camera enabled us to film scenes a number of times and watch them back in order to choose the best version to use in our short film. To prevent from problems with the battery in the video camera, we always had a power lead on hand to substitute for a dead battery. However, this power lead could only be used when an electrical supply was available. For the number of scenes that we filmed outside, there was no accessible electrical supply. Due to this, we had to ensure that before we commenced with filming scenes outside, the battery had to have been charged fully to allow for lengthy filming sessions. The tripod allowed us to create a smoother finish to movement of the camera when filming.  This was important when wanting to give scenes a professional finish as filming movement with handheld cameras tends to be uneven and creates jolting in scenes. All filming was recorded onto the same camera tape ready for editing.

I also used a digital camera (Samsung L313) to capture still-images of the bridge that I then went on to use in my poster.

Editing:

Throughout the editing process, we used MAC computers and the programme iMovie to edit and produce our short film. Having not used this programme before, we found it difficult to manage and locate around. However, once we had gotten used to how the programme worked, we were then able to produce a good standard short film. Using iMovie, we were able to import, crop and position scenes that we had filmed on the video recorder in order to create a logical storyline. We were also able to insert text into our short film to indicate passing time “The next day”, location placement “In the interview room”, illustrate the short film title scene and create rolling credits at the end. iMovie also provided a decent selection of sound effects that would help to enhance our narrative. For example, we used the sound of a “cold wind” to increase atmosphere in the walking scene, which it did effectively. Using un-copyrighted music that we found on the Internet, we were able to increase the professionalism of scenes that needed accompanying music to intensify the situation. The music helped to illustrate scenes when there was no allocation of dialogue.

I used Picasa3 software to edit my images for use in my ancillary products. I find this programme extremely easy to use due to familiarity with the software. The programme provides a range of different editing techniques and features that helped to enhance the outcome of my images. For my main image used on my poster, I increased the brightness and contrast of the image to emphasise the light and then increased the amount of shadowing to intensify the darkness, resulting in an effective looking image for a horror/thriller film.

Evaluation:

For my evaluation, I used Windows Live Movie Maker to create a video response to the first evaluation question. This allowed me to be more creative with my evaluation and construct my information in a more entertaining process. I found Windows Live Movie Maker very easy to use, although I had trouble when trying to upload the video to YouTube. I have also used other documenting software such as Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Word to produce the other responses to the remaining evaluation questions.