Question 4

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

From the start of production stages I had to make several uses of old and new technologies to complete research, planning and evaluation works. Research started right after our AS Exams we looked at different short films and annotated them in full details and this went on for a few weeks to get our knowledge and brains freshened for A2. We had created a story idea based on “Rite of Passage”: A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. From this mega topic we had to go and brainstorm on themes that link in within Rite of Passage.

From the brainstorm I found myself using search engines to find out further detailed information like Google, Search, Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia to find a creative interpretation from which I could great a strong idea from. Research on Manhood led me to so many different articles and films which all had relevant information about manhood were I could build a story up from.  Wikipedia however led me to the male sex organs which technically is part of “Manhood” but not the ideal information I needed for this project.  At this stage most of the technology used was search engines and YouTube simple because it was all for the use of first and formal outline information about what we wanted to make a film about. For the review I found gained a lot of information from IMDB and other Google examples on reviews or I visited the actual website of the film companies and looked at their film magazine reviews.

During planning stage I discovered that we would use double the amount of technology that AS stage because there was a lot more to do but in the same process.  One activity we carried out was taking pictures with a SLR Camera of everyday objects in different angles which would help us out when we was at the shooting stage. The photograph activity really developed my skills in camera use. Whilst taken pictures I took advantage of the various settings on the camera such as Macro to change the focus and blur of each picture.  I study photography so I could apply some of my skills into doing this activity. From planning to research we had to use online publishing documents like slide share, slideshow and prezi which would let us publish our script and treatment in its original format and it also made it look more creative than just blogging down a load of text. From AS stage I felt comfortable with these technologies were as when I got to the stage in A2 I had to refresh my memory a little bit but got comfortable after a while Using the Canon X5 with the Libec Tripod as it was easier for me to assemble and was familiarised with it. This reduced the time of setting up so we could move swiftly on location and keep our times to the minimum during the shooting process. On the video camera we had to look at specific technical aspects like making sure that the spirit level on the camera was correct. The viewfinder was another technical part of the camera that was extremely important to us. In such we had our camera on manual which meant we have to control the white balance/lighting ourselves and make sure it was suitable to what we wanted it to be so not too dark and not too light. We used many several of camera shots using the Canon X5 like in the scene were Linda come to the door and picks up the letter from the floor, this shot was a high over shoulder shot from Linda’s point of view. We used a panning shot right after the boys walk off on their house road and go to school the next shot we see is a panning shot of the school’s entrance board. It starts from about the middle point and pans its way to the top of the shot and this created more effective ness because it shows that we are able to use variety of shots in the right places. In the case if this school entrance board was just shown as a flick up picture for 4seconds it would look professional at all. During filming we used shot-reverse-shots especially in the scene were John, Colin & Linda are at the table and they are eating their breakfast we get a shot-reverse-shot of John trying to talk to his mother and his mothers reaction of ignoring him. We used this camera shot here because it creates that action – reaction vibe and this shot reverse shot was shot very close up to get all the facial expressions.

We used the sound equipment as well for voice over and also to get some of the characters dialogue. This equipment was the boom, the pole and the microphone itself we didn’t need this too much as it was made to be a silent film but I had to make sure that the right channel on the camera was activated so that the sound will come through the headphone properly. However as a group had to make sure that the equipment was dry especially because we had outside scene so we had an umbrella because of the little rain that was happening on the shooting day. The weather also created a problem with continuity as the rain would stop and start between different scenes, meaning that we had a change of weather in different shots but it wasn’t to noticeable when it came down to editing. During planning stage we used various media technologies to find our actors/actresses firstly we used

Starnow    Gumtree 
NowCasting      but these didn’t amount up to what we was looking for so we went down on making phone calls to relatives and friends who we thought were right for our short film.

We continued using the previous technology for editing which was Abode Premiere Pro however it was easier this year because last year I had the basic knowledge and playing with it throughout the months I developed my skills in it. Whereas this year we broadened our range and shot scenes with the intention of creating shot reverse shots and slow motion at the end of the film because we all wanted to increase our technical skill and make further progress from our previous AS production which would have shown the examiner the progress we made. In Adobe Premiere I used several tools to make sure that the film came down to a clean 5 minute cut and theses tools included trimming tool to trim down the video lengths and delete the unnecessary shots and seconds. Capture tool to record in the film from the Canon video camera unto the Adobe software and this whole process is called capturing. Rate stretch tool is another tool I used frequently during editing this enable me to stretch out the shot and with the zoom till look at the closer. There a was a twist this year because we had to create film reviews and film posters and for their formats we had to Adobe Photoshop Elements which was the best recommended editing software. I personally used Adobe Photoshop CS4 and there were many tools I used to create these posters and review such as Lasso tool which basically enabled me to cut out John from a screen shot of the film into a blank page I had opened up and this page was going to be the poster. For the review I used the shape tool a lot to create like the

 Paint brush to create the outline glow of “Take the next step” which was a black outline the reason why I used a paintbrush to do it is because it makes it stand out  and I learnt that doing things manual on Photoshop creates greater effect for people to see from afar

 Text tool was used all through out the process of creating the poster and review for example in the poster I used the text tool to write out “Take the next step” even with the text tool I was able to add in effect unto the title like shadow which basically is the black shadow behind the text.

 Image size tool was used to resize pictures on my film review like the first image on the first page of my review I used this image size tool to change the size of John walking in the middle of the road from Width 400 pixels and Height 400 pixels to Width 600 pixels to Height 350 pixels. This image size change made the image fit in right with the film reviews layout.

 Filter effects has many effect that I can use from it however the one I used the most was Sharpen like in the first poster I used the sharpen effect on the background which was the stairs and the reason why I used this effect is because it enables the blurry images to look sharpen that they originally are. This Sharpen tool made my images look clearer for instance another example is the image of John & Linda hugging in poster 3. In that image I added on the Sharpen tool which made the image also look clearer and sharpen than the original screen grab. With Filter effects there are more effects that I used like sketch which is another tool which enables a sketch effect on the image which means that it gets the cartoonist effect, texture, render and blur.

With all the knowledge I have I was able to help a lot of my classmates on using these various tools on Photoshop.

To conclude, we used a wide of different ranges of new and old media technologies to help us complete the work needed for the construction, research and planning stages for our A2 Media production and to my own believe it came out successful from the stage we started at.