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

When creating our media film we realised as a group that media technologies were incredibly important. When deciding on what we would do for our film we knew that we would have to push ourselves to the limit when using the media technologies we had available to create the result we got. For the filming of our product we used a Sony HDV1000 camera and tripod. Setting the white balance whenever we changed rooms took up quite a lot of time when filming, we tried to film in bulks so that we stayed in one room at a time, making it less time consuming. Another time consuming aspect of using the Sony HDV1000 camera was the fact that we needed to adjust the focus for every shot. When we first filmed we didn't focus the camera so we ended up with a blurry background once we enlarged the screen. We had previously used HDV1000 cameras for our first year film, however this year we found ourselves recording in HD, which made the focus and white balance mistakes stand out more than the previous year. Our film also involves the use of a voice over, which we produced using a Zoom recorder. It was the first time any of us had used a Zoom recorder so we weren’t aware of how far away from the recorder we needed to be when recording the voiceovers resulting in us originally having a crackling version which we had to redo, causing us to spend more time correcting our mistake.  

The attention to detail needed when 
editing our film the use of the editing software Final Cut Express made the cuts and effect all the more plausible. Even after using the HDV1000 cameras to white balance our footage we found that some shots didn't match up with the previous one, mainly due to the fact we went from inside to outside. Using Final Cut Express allowed us to change the colour balance to allow continuity throughout the film. The white balancing effect on Final Cut Express made it easier for us to correct the colour matching the codes with that of a correctly white balanced shot. When we originally watched through our film footage we noticed that the focus wasn’t always correctly set alongside the white balance problems. When watching the footage back on the camera the focus bouncing wasn’t obvious, however when on the screen of the Mac, the focus bouncing was easier to see. This was something we couldn't fix using Final Cut Express so we had to re-shoot certain scenes to complete the collection of rough cuts. When we re-shot the footage, making sure we focused for each shot, we found that the spinning ring didn't have a barrier to it, so it continuously changed the level of focus, the spinning ring moved rather fast, so it was hard to find the right focus for shooting the scene. Some of our shots were also darker than expected when viewed on the Mac, resulting in us changing the colour on the shots once again; however this time it involved us doubling up the video footage, we changed the contrast settings on one of the frames which made the overall image lighter.

For the most part of our research for the film, we became reliant on the internet to help plan and compare out own film. We used sites such as IMDB to research the different types of films with the same genre of the one we had chosen, while using YouTube to view extracts from films related to ours. YouTube is also the site we used to upload our completed film to the internet, allowing others to view and comment on our film. When we originally tried to upload our completed film to YouTube, we found that the college had restricted the bandwidth for the internet, restricting us from uploading our film to YouTube, postponing our audience review stage. We used Facebook to gain feedback from a potential audience by showing them a rough cut of our film, before taking their improvements on board and making our film better.

When designing our film poster we all produced our own original idea before combining the groups to create our final design. Once we had settled on some ideas for our final poster, we used photography facilities within college to take professional looking photos using a compact SLR camera for our poster. During these sessions we experimented with the different type of photos we could have and how we could portray our characters through one single shot. Once we had looked over the photos and found the one we wanted to use that involved bits of everyone's ideas together we set one member the task of creating the poster due to her graphics background and extensive knowledge of photoshop. Our radio trailer was originally proving difficult to create since we wanted to make it believable while expressing our message. Once we had our script written, we set about creating the voice over parts we would use, by recording them on a Zoom recorder, like we used for the films voice overs. We also mixed in snippets of the film to allow the listener to get a feel for what will happen within the film without giving too much away. Using final cut express we were able to combine our voice overs, video snippets and copyright free music to create our final radio trailer.


As a whole the created of our film, poster and radio trailer, I believe they have allowed me to enhance my creativity as I was allowed to chance to create my own storyline for the final film, along with how to present ideas and films using images and sound as separate formats rather than both at the same time.