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

The Internet played a big part in the research, planning and evaluation stages throughout the construction of our media product. In the research stages, we used websites such as Wikipedia and IMDB to gather together information relating to genre and conventions, however, we had to ensure that any information we gathered was reliable as Wikipedia is open for anybody to contribute to. We also made good use of YouTube throughout the researching process so we could observe other films similar to the genre we wanted to work within. Throughout the planning of our film, we recorded all of our ideas and findings in the form of a blog on the website Blogger. We were able to construct our blog exactly how we liked, and so we decided upon a housestyle that related to our production company, Green Apple Productions, ensuring that the colours, texts and layout all complimented our logo well. During the evaluation stage, the internet proved to be very helpful as we uploaded all of our finished products (film and radio trailer) onto YouTube (we faced a problem relating to bandwidth at one point due to college server issues, but it was soon overcome) and then straight onto the social networking site, Facebook, where we were then able to share our video with an online community and gather feedback instantly from our target audience and others, which made gathering audience feedback very easy.

Throughout our planning stage we also took advantage of our access to handheld cameras by videoing some of our peers’ answers to a questionnaire we created. After collecting the footage, we then seized the opportunity to develop our video editing skills through using Final Cut Express. While editing, we played around with titles and split screens where there was a title displayed over 4 video frames as one got larger and began playing, shortly followed by other answers to the same question that faded in and out of one another. I believe that this was helpful at this stage as it eased us steadily back into using the software and gave us a bit of practice before we were to start editing our final film. 

I believe that the creation of our media product itself was the most insightful experience for us all as we once again used a HDV1000 camera and a tripod, however this time we were shooting in HD and also got the chance to use a zoom recorder to record the voiceovers within our film, something we hadn’t considered in last year’s production. We found that when using the zoom recorder it was easy to get too close to the microphone and cause unwanted bumping noises, meaning we had to redo our voiceovers until we were happy with them. We also encountered problems when using the HD Camera as on our first filming session we struggled with the white balance and focus as we’d set the camera to the automatic setting rather than manual, meaning the colours were off and the focus bounced from one place to another rather than staying focused on a point, meaning we then had to rearrange filming. The practice editing video to the right shows these problems. Another problem we had with the camera was its spinning ring. This setting made it very difficult to pull focus which came as an inconvenience to us as we’d planned to have a pulling focus shot in our film that we then edited out later as it didn’t look as we’d expected it to because of the camera’s limitations. 

Once we'd overcome all problems with the camera, we were able to finalise filming and begin editing our film. I think we learnt a lot throughout editing as we attempted things that we hadn't last year, for example, we keyframed some of the text on our titles to position them exactly, we edited cuts to fit in with the beat of the music used to give a sense of consistency, we played around with audio levels to lower or higher voices and music wherever necessary (we filmed without music playing and edited it in afterwards) and we took advantage of effects such ‘flashback’ to give our film a gripping edge. Examples of what I believe to be our best editing are at the end of the film where there is the use of several sound snippets from the film to create an eerie, haunting flashback for Fiona, and the scene where Fiona is getting ready as shots are edited to the beat and we use cross-cutting between her getting ready and walking down the stairs. 

As well as creating a film, we had to consider a radio trailer and poster. As a graphics student, I found creating the poster to be an exciting task and took advantage of the skills I posses by using Photoshop to mock up poster designs. When creating our final poster we also took advantage of our access to a photography studio and took photos using an SLR style digital camera to give us high quality photos that we could then use within our final poster. When creating our radio trailer, we decided to compose it using a combination of Garageband and Final Cut Express. It is made up of sound snippets from our film, copyright free music we found on college CDs and voiceovers that we recorded using a zoom recorder. I believe that creating a radio trailer has helped to enhance my creativity as I had to consider telling a story verbally without giving it away; something which is easy to achieve when using images as they tend to speak for themselves. Although this task was difficult, I believe we overcame it successfully and managed to blend a mysterious narrative alongside film snippets to create a wonder-inducing radio trailer that will hopefully intrigue people enough to watch our film. 

Altogether, I believe that the production of our film, radio trailer and poster have helped me develop creatively as the experience has offered me the opportunity to think about a storyline, consider editing in terms of both video and sound and, finally, how to represent a motion picture through both images and sound alone, showing that I’ve been able to think of how pictures can accumulate to give an overall picture, how one single image can give an insight into a whole story, and also how words can be used cleverly to tell a story's outline but not its whole content.