Evaluation: Question 4

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

The progression of technology in the past ten years is phenomenal and is the only reason that projects such as my own have been possible at all. All the technology I have had access to has been utilised in order to produce the finished products I now have.

To begin with, the research and planning section of the course was completed solely on Apple Macintosh computers and my own Macbook (as was the rest of this course) and this was documented on blogger, a blogging community enabling people to read my journey through my A2 course in a structural, chronological order. Using the internet I managed to research into short films and romantic thrillers in particular in order to gather ideas and conventions required to construct a high quality version of my own. My findings in relation to examples of the genres studied, some were hosted on Youtube and some as pictures screen shots.

After I had an idea of what I wanted to create, I set to work on writing an idea which i hosted to the class using Microsoft Powerpoint for Mac on an interactive projector. Groups were then determined and my idea was deemed best, so I set to work creating a treatment on Microsoft Word for Mac, hosted on Divshare, online software enabling files to be hosted on the internet for all to see. Feedback was filmed and hosted on Youtube using HTML data as well as vocally recorded on WireTap and hosted on Divshare. Now the plan was devised and it was time to put it into action! A script was written on Final Draft enabling the actors to know what was occurring in each scene and what to say. As well as this, a storyboard (made in Storyboard) was constructed alongside it giving us our first visual product to see what the film would look like. Of course this is simply not enough, so in order to take it to the next level an animatic was created, consisting of all the frames imported into Final Cut and altered in length to represent how long the shot will be, including any effects and transitions we required. Once this was finished, any sound in the film (including a basic form of the dialogue) was realised in Soundtrack Pro on my Macbook and then exported back into Final Cut. After it was determined that all was in order, the Animatic was exported as a mov. file in order for it to be watched using Quick Time Player.

Apple Mac

Hosting/Recording

Planning

After the bulk of the planning was done, the final parts of the preparation were needed, this included a props list and research into which costumes we would use. I made what is known as a Prezi which is an interactive presentation which is more fun than your average Powerpoint with a lot of motion and animation. I highly enjoyed creating these. The next stage was the most important. Filming. Filming was done using a Sony HD camera, tripod and a crane which we were quite familiar with and had experience in using. Once the film was finally realised, we chose the useful clips in Final Cut for piecing it together and used Soundtrack Pro for all sound aspects, much in the same manner as the animatic. One particular scene however saw us needing to re-record some of Matt's lines for Brian which we used a microphone for.

Recording Equipment

Editing

Finally for our ancillary task, we had to create a poster using photoshop in order to advertise our film. This was done to cut people out of a white background and blend them in as well as insert text. Other than this, a review was made in QuarkXpress to make a life-like magazine article with text wrapping and precise adjustments for aligning pictures and borders.

Ancillary

Without equipment like this, all we would have is film to be developed. No means of creating digital copies or extensive soundtracks. This all allows film making easily accessible to the masses, leaving no end to the amount of new and wonderful creations to be discovered from the hard work of others.