HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE

CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES

Ella YoungA2 Media

THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY Without technology I would not of been able to produce the coursework criteria for this year. Before media studies I thought that I would need to buy masses of equipment in order for my coursework to be the best it can be. However throughout the year I have realised that keeping the equipment very minimal is not a bad thing. It means that it makes it much easier for the post production stages.

For research and planning I mainly used the Mac Book and my Window x4 laptop. This gave me access to the internet (search engines such as google) in order to research the different genres and ideas to develop my initial short film idea.

IPHONE 6 The great thing about owning an iPhone is the ability to use all the apps from the apple app store. Because the website blogger is owned by google, there was an app to download meaning that it increased my accessibility for blogger. It meant that I didn’t have to log onto my laptop or bring my laptop around with me for blogging. Compared with a laptop my phone is very light and practical to put in my pocket and bring around with me.

I also used my phone to film the last clips of my film. At our school we needed our parents permission to take the video camera’s outside school, I found this to be very time consuming therefore I opted to just use the video option on my phone.

I also used my phone for sending myself emails such as voice clips, videos, images and music. This sped up the process of importing documents as it took along time and depended on how strong the school WIFI was.

MACBOOK I have used the MacBook's at school for the software, final cut pro. This media technology has helped me so much because I do not poses any of my own MacBook software. This meant that I couldn’t download something like final cut pro to edit my 5 minute short film at home. If I didn’t have media lessons, it meant that I most probably couldn’t access the Mac that I was working on, because of other lessons and other students using it.

When researching and planning I used the Mac to access websites such as Youtube and Vimeo to explore the most popular short films and see what inspiration I could get. I also used websites such as Pages on the Mac to create mood boards and story boards so that I could follow a structure.

I also used the Mac as part of my construction as I used softwares such as final cut pro and pixlr.

Although it was a privellige to work on a Mac that offers software that we would have at home, they were very slow and caused a lot of stress when it wouldn’t load.

FINAL CUT PRO

This was one of the most vital pieces of software that I used in the production of my short film. I used final cut pro to import my footage and as part of post production edit them into a certain correlation so that it made the narrative that was clearly understood and unravelled into a short film. The software was great for providing me with a number of effects such as colour correction, audio, and video effects. This helped me with the

construction of the short film, however similar to the disadvantages with the Mac, because their hard drives are so full, final cut pro would slow down and different intervals meaning I would loose some clips and have to restart.

PIXLR

I used the software Pixlr fro the construction of my short film poster and review. I developed my skills and knowledge from last year when I produced a music magazine. I found it very easy to use as I had learnt the basics skills from last year. By using pixlr I was able both my poster and film review by adding texts, adding lighting and shadows, adjust the colours, layer images and adding filters.

An example of this would be on the film poster where the protagonists face is layered 3 times to add the effect of his mind being confused and all over the place. By using the layering tool I added the three different images of my talent looking left, right and to the middle. I think this really looks effective.

One trouble I found was to decide between pixlr editor or pixlr express, so I ended up using both. The trouble was they both offered different things the editor choice enabled me to adjust the layering, lighting and shadows. Then the other site helped me produce the actual poster in which I added all the text.

SLIDE SHARE/ PREZI I used slide share and prezi presentations throughout the construction, planning, research and evaluation stages of my coursework. They enabled me to present and document my work in a more creative way so that my blogger as much more interesting to read. For example when I was researching codes and conventions I decided that it would be interesting to use prezi instead of just writing a basic post that would be boring to read. As part of my primary research I produced a number of textual analysis’s during the research and planning stages. Using prezi abled me to create an interactive PowerPoint where each slide has a different transition. Prezi also enabled me to add colour and different font styles.

BLOGGER Blogger has been the basis of all my coursework pieces as this is the program where al my work is being posted too. Blogger has helped me to arrange my work in a standardised way. I put all my posts in chronological order so that the organisation of it look very neat and clear to read. As the coursework was specified to be posted onto blogger, I had to use it, however I really like using blogger as it a easy way to showcase all of my work. I have decided that I would carry on using blogger if I ever need to post ideas or production pieces online again.

Blogger has been used more for the planning and evaluation stages. I used the drafts section to start all the evaluations and until I was happy with them all, I posted them. Using this is an efficient way to plan what I needed to get done.

YOUTUBE I used YouTube for planning, research and evaluations. I first used YouTube to search for short films that already existed. It was YouTube that inspired me to base my film on Mental Health problems because I saw a strong of films that were all very interesting. I also used YouTube to upload my own videos and evaluations, I found it very easy to use and another creative method to present blog posts.

YouTube is such a diverse but amazing piece of technology in terms of websites as it has so much content on it that will help give you inspiration and ideas.

GOOGLE AND THE INTERNET

When on the internet I will always prefer to use Google’s search engine. I used it a lot to find short films under the same genre as my own. I found that this helped me develop my initial ideas. I also used it to find other students work from previous years on their blogs to see what they produced and how in depth their evaluations were. This helped me immensely with finding the typical conventions of a short film and feature fil, posters for my ancillary tasks.