Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the

construction, planning, research and evaluation stages?

Use of Media - Blog

One of the main ways we have presented everything we have done during the whole of our production of our coursework product has been to create and use a blog where we have stored almost everything we have done and recorded the production process. This has been extremely useful because it is a place where we can easily access everything we have done from anywhere with an internet connection.

Use of Media - Blog

Thanks to the way that almost anything online can be connected in Web 2.0 we were able to present our information in more interesting and interactive ways to make our blogs in order to make them stand out. By using sites like Slideshare we were able to put PowerPoint's on our blog as well as using Prezi to produce brain storms to upload onto the blog.

Use of Media - Research

The use of Media Technology was essential to our research into Short film and the audience we were aiming our short film was aimed at. One of the main focus areas for the research was to look at short films that already exist and one of the easiest ways to find and view these films for free is too use the internet and websites like Virgin Shorts and YouTube.

Use of Media - Research

Watching Short films online enabled us to greater understand the conventions of making short films and then using our blog we were able to keep all the information we found about everything we had researched in one place. We were also able to put links to every good site and film we found so that we could easily return.

Use of Media - Research

Also by using the internet we were able to build up a more accurate audience profile by looking at audience profiles conducted and published by other companies across the country in order to produce the most accurate profile we could for the target audience we were aiming our film at and thus aim the film at them as much as we could. One of the most reliable audience profiles is on the Pearl & Dean website

Use of Media - Research

The internet was also extremely useful in terms of research for our poster as you can find at least one poster for almost every film produced in the last 10 years. Looking at posters online allowed us to have a greater understanding of what makes a successful poster.

Use of Media - Research

We were also able to use media technology to research our magazine article as we were able to look at the websites of film magazines and read their reviews of films, helping us to get a feel of how to write a magazine article. The special features on these websites also helped us to decide what content we should use in our magazine article.

Use of Media – Short Film

For the preparation of our short film we were able to create a moving story board of how we planned the film to look. Using Final Cut Pro we were able to upload photographs of our story boards and then edit the photos into a film allowing us to get a good estimate for how long our film would be and allowing us to change some shots to be more successful before we even started filming.

Use of Media – Short Film

One of the main forms of Media we used to create the film was the High Definition Canon Video Camera we used to shoot the entire of the film. These meant that the film looks as good as it can as well as been able to get the best audio possible to avoid having to record vocals during the editing stage. This quality of video helps to make the film look more professional and suggest we had a good budget for the film.

Use of Media – Short Film

Using the editing software Final Cut Pro, used on many professional films including The Social Network, was an essential part of the editing process for the film. The software allowed us to immediately upload our footage onto the computers and then start editing by arranging the clips we wanted in order and then cutting them to our needs and then adding suitable transitions, as well as been able to add a title sequence to our film.

Use of Media – Short Film

We were also able to use the media to create the soundtrack for our film, despite neither of us been very musically talented, by using a programme called Garage Band. This enables you to either create your own music and mix together a collection of sample music to give you as much control as possible over the soundtrack without having to be able to play an instrument. This soundtrack could then easily be uploaded on to final cut pro and added to the film.

Use of Media – Short Film

Media was also an important part of getting the audience feedback about the film, which has been uploading to video sharing site YouTube for anyone to see. This meant that not only is the video available to see online from anywhere with a connection to the internet but also because of the way that web 2.0 is linked you can post a link to the video almost anywhere on the web allowing easier access to the target audience and thus more accurate market research.

Use of Media – Film Posters

The posters for the film were created entirely using computers and the Adobe CS4 package, especially Photoshop. This allowed us to add the text and the images we wanted for the posters and then move them to the positions we felt would be most effective and then add effects to them, like making the picture black and white or changing the size of the font.

Use of Media – Magazine Article

As well as using the same software as we did for the film posters we were also able to use Microsoft word to create the text that we needed for the article on word which allowed us to use its spell check feature to make sure that their were no mistakes in the finished article that would take down the professionalism of the article.