4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Text:
The internet was a crucial source for research throughout. It
provided us with access to:
Distribution company websites- which provided us with
information that allowed us to make the decision on which distributor to use:
such as
-previous films
-budget
We also used http://www.imdb.com/ to
research into the typical conventions found in the Fantasy and Drama genres in
order to apply them to our film.
http://www.imdb.com/ acted as a
source of creativity as I was inspired by the flashback found from my research
into "The Mummy Returns" of a ripple effect to convey a passage of
time. This encouraged me to conduct my own research into flashbacks which have
been incorporated into our own flashback.
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ permitted
us to conduct extensive research into film classifications. The findings
allowed us to award our film a PG to meet our target audience (females 10+), by
using the guidelines on the website.
http://blogger.com was
extremely convenient as it allowed us to store this research in an easy and
creative way using presentations, images, videos and prezis.
http://prezi.com/ became a main feature on our blog for recording research in a concise, easily accessible way and planning our film effectively.
Prezi offered us inventive ways to structure our research through
mind-maps, flowcharts and online presentations, making memorable notes. During
planning it allowed our creativity to flow as we could edit notes online
quickly and easily.
Sometimes the Prezis failed to load on our blog, which limited our
creativity as it was time consuming having to manually type in the Prezi and
wait for it to load rather than having direct access to it.
However, we overcame this by adding links to all the Prezis on our
blog, so that if it didn't load, we could access our plans, without it slowing
us down.
Our planning was also effective as we had access to https://drive.google.com and a Sony
HDV1000 camera which allowed us to create online and video questionnaires for
the public to provide us with feedback on our plans so far. This feedback was
extensive as the online questionnaire was quick and easy to complete and the
video questionnaire provided us with a verbal account of the public's view. This
allowed us to develop our film creatively as
we were able to use the feedback when making decisions for our
film, which meant that our film would be enjoyable for our potential audience. People
from different ages/backgrounds/gender/education were able to provide us feedback
on our films plans, which has proven beneficial as it allowed us to gain a
representative response from the public which we used when planning our film,
in order to ensure we please our audience females 10+.
The Sony HDV1000 video camera was effective for filming at it was
versatile. We could film at different heights, angles and movements, without a
loss of quality and were able to shoot in HD. Similarly, the tripod was
extremely sturdy as it had a spirit level that allowed us to film even if the
location was unbalanced. Collectively, they allowed us to shoot our film
creatively as it didn’t restrict us. By using this equipment we were able to
shoot our desired shots such as long, close up and pan shots, without any loss
of quality.
A major problem during film was that the actors spoke too quietly,
which would make it difficult for an audience to hear over the music. For
instance, Sarah's closing speech. We fixed this by using a Zoom Recorder which
allowed us to re-record the quiet dialogue and replace it with a clearer version. By creating
these recordings we were also able to create an effective radio trailer as we used
those recorded by the Zoom Recorder for dialogue in our trailer, which meant
that they were loud and clear.
After filming we imported all recorded video and audio clips onto
Final Cut Express, in which we were able to edit our film. FCE provided us with
lots of tools that met our creative needs, which has made our film much more
professional. Low pass audio filter: allowed us to make Diane appear as though
she was in another room to Sarah in one scene and on the phone to Sarah in
another, creating believability. We had never done this before, so we used http://youtube.com to watch tutorials on how to
achieve this effect. We believe this has improved our film dramatically as now
it is believable that Diane is not present in the scene.
FCE also allowed us to create passages of time in our film. We
used fade to blacks to convey time progression, which the audience would
understand and therefore not get confused. We also learned how to use colour
corrector. This became really important throughout editing as in some cases,
our white balance was not correct and therefore we were able to alter the tone
by using this tool. Similarly it provided us with the opportunity to set a grey
tone to the flashback at the end of our film, by altering the tones and colours
present in the shots. FCE also allowed us to overlay music with dialogue, due
to the vast amount of tracks, in an attempt to make the film more dramatic in
the finale. Final Cut Express effectively permitted us to develop and create
our film effectively as it provided us with tools that we could use to create
effects that were not achievable with the video camera alone.
http://www.youtube.com
htttp://www.twitter.com and http://www.facebook.com provided us with the
means of sharing our first draft of our film to the public. This was crucial as
it allowed us to gain actual feedback from a potential viewer, and use their
feedback in order to improve out final draft. Once taking into account the
suggestions made, we then posted and uploaded our final film on these websites
too. These websites are important as they have allowed our film to be seen by a
wide audience, as friends shared our film and it can be viewed globally.
