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

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We used a variety of media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages of our three products.   

Research

• We sed Empire Magazine to help with our research into film posters and film reviews. As we adopted the Empire – Plot, Review and Verdict structure to our film review. 

• We used YouTube to research into other similar films to get inspiration and to grasp the conventions of short films. This included looking at the films such as: Sliding Doors, Memento and The Family Man. We also used YouTube to look at editing techniques which we wanted to apply to our short film, for example the time lapse shot in The Script’s music video, slow motion from The Matrix and the rewind effect from Coldplay’s music video. Additionally we used YouTube during the planning stages of our production as we made some vlogs about the filming of certain scenes. We also used YouTube as a great tool when conducting our evaluations as by uploading our short film to there, we could receive feedback on how effective our final product was from our demograph.  

• We used the website IMDB to research into short films and film posters and also used it to get an idea of which production companies would work with us to produce our film.

• We went to the cinema a couple of a times as a group to watch films to get inspiration, for example we went to see the film ‘Inception’, which encouraged our decision for the ending of our film where we leave it on a cliff-hanger so the audience can decide the outcome.

Planning

• We used scripped.com to help with the creation of our script for our short film.

• We used blogger to update our blogs regularly, keeping us organised and up to date on our planning and the progression of our short film and the two ancillary products.

• We used the BBC weather site to check the weather before organising filming for the exterior locations and Microsoft Word to organise filming schedules.

Construction

• Regarding the construction of our three products, we used Adobe Premier Pro to edit our short film, Adobe Photoshop to create our poster and Microsoft Publisher to create our film review. These are programmes which we had used last year, hence were familiar with them, yet still experimented much more, as included lots of features to make our film more interesting and appropriate for our demograph, for example: the time lapse, the slow motion, the change of colour and the split screen effect.
• In relation to the music within our film, we used Apple’s Garage Band to create some non-diegetic music yet also used the website freesound.org to add other diegetic sound to our film.

Evaluation

• We uploaded our film to YouTube and then posted the link on the social networking site Facebook to receive audience feedback, hence indicating the convergence of 2 mediums. We also uploaded an image of our poster to Facebook too and by doing this we could receive direct feedback from our demograph. Additionally, with the use of social networking sites being worldwide we could receive feedback on our products from people from other countries, thus helping our film to become international. So, although our film was intended for a British audience, people from America gave us positive feedback on it, probably due to it being regarded by them as a quintessentially English film, hence a type of cultural imperialism.

• For the evaluation tasks we used websites such as Animoto, wix.com, and Prezi, proving to be creative ways to analyse our products.

Equipment

• Canon 400D Still Camera to capture photos when we went location hunting and to capture the images for our poster.

• PC and Mac to edit our film and create the non-diegetic music

• Sony HD camcorder to capture the footage for our short film.

Therefore, new technologies can be seen as very important as have helped us in all stages of the production of our 3 products, with the internet being a key element in the whole process, as it contributed to all stages of completing our product and without it, it would have hindered our progress.