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

evaluation stages?

By Josh Walker

ALICE

The availability of media technologies has heavily influenced the research, planning and evaluation stages of my project. I have used lots of physical equipment and document software in the creation of my overall product. This availability of digital technology and the huge database of information, the internet, has helped me to creatively develop throughout the production of my project.

Without this advanced technology, this portfolio project and our short film would have never been created. However, the amount of high quality digital equipment which we have to our disposal, gave us the tools we needed for research and the creation of a strong film idea and professional finished product.

Digital technology enabled me to develop creatively throughout the duration of this project.

To create our short film our group used a range of technical equipment. The availability of equipment allowed us to produce a professionally filmed, edited and exhibited film.

We recorded our entire short film with a HDV-1000 camera. The large body of the camera enable it to be steadily carried on the shoulder which allowed more adventurous shots to be taken. Also, the camera could be attached on to a tripod for more steadier shots. The camera recorded to tape, which increased the quality of the footage.

We used a tripod to film certain scenes in our film, including the “pool hall” scene. This is because the camera needed to be at a very high angle and more importantly, remain still for the period of a pool game. This is so when the footage was speed up by 850 times, the angle of the shot would not jump but look very fluent.

A Zoom recording device was used to record Alice’s voice over in our short film. We used this device because it was the best sound recording device which was available.The Zoom also recorded the narration for the Radio Trailer. The Zoom was easy to work and it was a very simple to task to upload the recording onto the desktop.

Our group used an Apple Mac Desktop accompanied with additional software which was on the desktop to create our short film.

Document Software

On the Apple Mac Desktop, our group used a document software called ‘Final Cut Pro’. At the beginning of my AS levels, we had tutorial lessons of how to operate and use this software. I edited our AS project and our group’s A2 journey exercise. Because of this I had plenty of experience editing using this software. Final cut pro allowed us to produce a professional short film.

I made our group’s film poster on a piece of document software called Adobe Photoshop. This Prezi shows the step-by-step method of how I created our film poster. http://prezi.com/i-tmlnn0wl-i/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-i-tmlnn0wl-i&rc=ref-21827785

For the creation of our groups film poster I used an Apple Mac Book Pro. This is a significant tool which helped me to create my project.

Another piece of software which was used on the Mac Book Pro was ‘iMovie’. It was this software which I edited and creating our film’s radio trailer. The image to the right shows the different layer In our final radio trailer.

Evaluation – Task 2 To film my Evaluation – Task 2, I used a Sony HDR CX190 Handycam + a Jessops light attatchment. This is my personal camera and is ideal to film small interviews. The microphone for the camera isn’t very good, but can cope in small rooms. Because of this, if our group was to film our short with this camera, we would have had to use an external microphone.

To lighten the shot, I attached a Jessop's light attachment to a brace on the tripod. This brightened up the shot and made me more clear to see.

I also used ‘iMovie’ to edit my evaluation – task 2.

This image shows the edited footage from my task 2 evaluation. iMovie allows quick editing but gives the footage a professional finish.

Internet Online Resources The largest benefit which developed my creativity was the internet. The internet provided me with an endless supply of research into genre and the conventions of short films. The main search generator I used was ‘Google’.

Whilst using the internet, Google was also the service which I had to upload my project work to. I had to create a Google Blogger to document my portfolio. Whilst using Google Blogger, I used a ranged of different Medias such as YouTube, Prezi, Facebook and Twitter. YouTube was used to exhibit my short film. Facebook and Twitter were used to share my film to a potential audience. Prezi was used to create my Evaluation – Task 3.

I exibited my short film and radio trailer on my YouTube channel for the public to watch, rate and comment. The following hyperlink will take you to my YouTube channel. - http://www.youtube.com/user/Walkdogggggggg

I used Facebook to post a questionnaire which my Facebook friends can asnwer and leave me feedback concerning the first edit of my short film.

Google DocsThe feedback results from my questionnaire were contained in an online Google Docs spreadsheet. This data was later inserted into a Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet. This data was then made into tables.

PowerPoint and SlideShare The last piece of software which I have used is

Microsoft PowerPoint. This software has enabled images and text to be combined easily, which represents information to people in a more interesting way.

SlideShare is an online site which enables PowerPoint documents to be uploaded on to the internet. This PowerPoint has been uploaded on to the internet and embeded through SlideShare onto my Google Blogger.