Evaluation Question 4

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

Media is a constant evolving entity that surrounds the majority of the world. People are unaware of the influence the media has on their day to day lives. Without new and emerging media would our lives be the same? It would be a crime to not take advantage of the easy access to new media technologies that we have at our fingertips. The use of this new media technology has led to some of the greatest media product formations, especially in the film industry. Computer effects such as slow motion have enabled producers and editors to work with mistakes that may have been made whilst filming rather than having to start again or perhaps completely cut a certain part out. This not only saves time but also enables the finest quality media products to be created.  

Firstly I used blogger which is a blog-publishing service that allows multi-user blogs with tome stamped entries. It was here that I upload every piece of work that I complete that would go towards this project. This way I was able to keep track of all the work that I had done and also allowed me to plan what else needed to be completed in the future. I was able to place the work in a specific order for example keeping all the planning stages under the “planning” label therefore it made it more clear and easy to follow as well as keeping up to date with the progress of my work.  This is also an easy way for other people to access my work as it is presented in the form of a website, therefore anyone has the ability to view it.  

Before we started planning what we wanted our short film to be about we had to carry out research on the different elements that make a short film. Originally we started doing this by using the search engine of Google to find different images that represented what the noun “success” meant personally to us and what we would define it as. By doing this we were set off automatically with ideas that we could use and base our short film that we were yet to create on. For example by searching for an image of a baby, I was able to understand that “success” to someone could be having a child therefore grasping the idea that success can be something deeper than the cliché thought of someone winning a race or winning a competition. These thoughts triggered the gathering of what our short film could possibly be about.  Google was used again throughout the entire project for things including: related images and information on topics. For example when faced with the task of creating a magazine review for our final short film we chose to research real magazine reviews so that we were able to create the most realistic and professional one possible. We searched for existing indie film reviews on “little white lies” webpage, found and read several reviews for sense of the type of work we were to produce. Something major that we took from this research was the ability to use screenshots from our final film and put them in the review as a reference to the most related scenes.

One good thing about new media is the different foundations upon which we can access it. One day we were trying to search for a good location to carry out the yoga scenes that we planned in our short film however the internet within the school was down, therefore we had to come up with an alternative. The most obvious conclusion was to use the smart phones that we all happened to own. We had a range of iPhones within our group of 3. These included an iPhone 4s, 5c and 6s. Having such easy access to such media technologies meant that problems like the internet being down did not result in an unsuccessful planning stage. We were still able to complete the task of searching for different locations that we could possibly use. In order to do this we used the various search engines that provided images of different locations. We searched several different parks that were in a 10 mile radius of our location via Google maps. This saved us from having to own actual paper maps.

The invention of smart phones has also meant that we no longer need to carry a tripod and camera around. The use of the iPhone 6s meant that we were able to use the iSight feature which contains a 12 megapixel camera which focusses very quickly. This enabled us to produce extremely clear and realistic still shots for a photo storyboard that was created in the planning stages prior production. Having such a product meant that we were able to get fit in certain places to recreate the exact angles of a shot that we planned to execute during the production of our film. This therefore meant that we were able to have a clear understanding of the exact type of shot we hoped to film which essentially saved a lot of time as we did not have to stop and think about the types of shots we hoped to produce as we had a clear plan right in front of us. It also meant that before carrying out the main production we were able to see the shots that did not look as good as we had hoped or that perhaps could be altered to ensure each shot was produced to the best of our ability.

For the construction section of our short film we used new editing technology such as Adobe Premiere (timeline video software) to piece together our final product. Due to the fact that this would only be the second time that we had used this software, we required some teaching of the basics therefore completing extra research outside the classroom was necessary in order for us to take full advantage of what we were faced with. For this reason I chose to use the subscription service of YouTube to deepen my knowledge on Adobe and what it has to offer. Here I was able to understand the different features that it consisted of such as fading and duplicating as well as some of the special effects that they have to offer. In order to import our footage from the camera to the software we used an external hard drive device called a “LaCie”. Each time a new copy of our progressive work was saved, a copy would be saved on the LaCie as well as the computer in act of a back-up version in case the computer crashed. Since we had used Adobe before, my group member and I were able to complete the basics of editing for example: cutting and rearranging shots in the order we wished it to be. We were then able to use our knowledge of previous experiences with Adobe and our research to begin putting our short film together using different tools on the software. We were also able to import different texts into our short film and place them where we wanted as well as having them appear when we wanted; this was appropriate for the titles and credits for the short film.

 Although Adobe has some sound effects to offer we had to search for music to cover the non-diegetic sound that we wanted during some scenes. For this we used a suggested website called “Ben-sound” which offers different soundtracks that we are able to download onto a USB or the computer and then import it to the software. Without such websites available we would have had to collectively record a soundtrack of our own which would have not only taken more time but also wouldn’t sound as professional.

During filming we used a Canon camera which we were all familiar with as we used this for the last two production tasks we were faced with. Due to this I was able to use the skills that I already had whilst directing and filming the short film. I naturally knew that between every shot I had to check the spirit/balance level of the camera so that all shots were levelled and not unbalanced as well as doing more simple tasks like where the tape is placed and how to zoom in and out, whist changing the speed of the zooming. Knowing these small techniques made it easier for me to complete the filming stage as I did not have to stop at any point and ask anyone how to do anything with the camera.

We also took advantage of the constantly updating software of Photoshop to create a realistic and eye appealing film poster. The software meant that we were able to experiment with different colours in designs in detail at the touch of a button. The ease of Photoshop not only meant that we were able to create it quickly but also whilst coming up with new ideas throughout the process. For example changing the gradient of the gold coloured background so that it was not an average gold colour was not what we had planned. The plan was rather a simple “gold” background which would reflect the idea of the theme success however Photoshop helped blend this idea into something even better. Photoshop helped us create a film poster which would be effective to an audience through its purpose of delivering information about the film in more obvious as well as subtle ways. We were able to share the release date of the film, the main actors alongside the production companies that had an involvement etc. but also an image and the tagline that would sub consciously let the audience know what the film will be about. Although Photoshop enabled all these advantages, we faced the problem of not having any font styles available on the software itself. However we quickly solved this issue through the use of the “Horizontal type tool” and a bit of the internet we were able to make our font look more realistic and professional. We used “traditional Arabic” as our font type for the writing on the poster (including the names of actors, the title, the reviews and the credits and involvement in the film). “Traditional Arabic” was a similar font type to other film posters writing font. We wanted our poster to seem as if it was a well-known film and that it was professionally made.

To make the positioning of our words and images on our film poster more accurate and identical in size we used the magic tool. The magic tool enables the user to duplicate the highlighted item on a page to wherever one please. We used the magic wand tool to put the film reviews identically opposite each other. This helped our poster look better because our positioning was more accurate which shows that our poster has been well made.

I firstly clicked on the “move tool” to move the highlighted item of Buddha to the centre. When using Photoshop the programme allows you to know where you are moving an item. Grid lines appear to show you the suggested places where one may want to move an image into, i.e. the centre, corners etc. This allowed the positioning of our Buddha image to be centred to the accurate spot. The background around the image of Buddha was lighter than the edges of the poster. We firstly used Google to find the background. We then edited the background using the rubber and blender tool to help blend the background from a light to a darker background. As the image of Buddha is white and the background around him is light. This was done to show a peaceful aura that Buddha is the centre of peace.

The “magic wand” tool enabled us to remove any excess background on the main image and see the coloured background. For example here, originally there had been a white background however we did not want it so used the tool to get rid of it.