How did you use media technologies in the

construction and research, planning and evaluation

stages? Victor Nonyane

Research and Planning

Google – In order to research what kind of genre I could create my short film as I looked at different examples and I as able to this because I used google to find these sources. An example of a good sources that was recommended by google was the internet movie database. This allowed to look at bad and good examples of short films and what I had prevent when creating my short film.

Prezi and Slideshare. I used both Prezi and SlideShare quite a lot of the time through this project, this was in all of the stages. Prezi and SlideShare both allow me to present information in a slide show. Both of these sites work completely different to each other which is good as the final products vary. I used Prezi to make slideshows for things like conventions of short films to presenting information in my post production stage. Likewise, I used SlideShare to display similar types of information throughout the project. I presented some convention findings again using the site. Not only this,

YouTube, YouTube For the research stage of the production, the main technology used was the internet. As there are many great examples of short films on sites such as YouTube, it was used heavily. It gave me the ability to look at similar short films that were action based to see whether it could be achieved. This allowed me choose the type of camera shots that I cloud use within my film.

Blogger, Blogger the site I used to document and track the research I had done was Blogger. Blogger is a blog website and came in useful throughout the whole production. I initially used it in the research stage to track everything that I had researched but as the production moved into the construction stage it was used to document my progress and show any changes that had been made.

Microsoft 365, Making all of these were not technologically demanding, as most of it was done through the software, Microsoft Word. With the Storyboards, all that was needed was to make square shapes on the page for where the drawings would be drawn and a few blank lines so that writing can be placed there to annotate the illustrations. The film synopsis only had to be written on Microsoft Word so that it can be copied and then pasted to my blog also used PowerPoint to create this slideshow and to show my idea to my teacher for what I had come up with for my short film.

Google Maps, Google Maps for the research into locations. Google maps allows the user to look at both satellite and street view images of nearly everywhere on the globe. This helped in the research stage as I could looks at potential locations without having to visit them myself. It allowed to visit the area I wanted to film without having to send any money.

Construction

Camera, Canon Legria HF R506 By far the most important technology in the construction process was a video camera, specifically the Canon Legria HF R50 Without the camera I would not have managed to film the short film. The camera shot in HD this was very good as it allowed to shoot high quality images

Tripod. I used a tripod whilst filming, as they allow you to gain really clear and steady shots. Although within my short film I featured a number of handheld shots, I still feel using a tripod is essential. When using a tripod you are able to get a constant pan without the camera wobbling everywhere. For example, when doing a pan of the street without using the tripod that shot would’ve looked awful due to shaky hands. Using a tripod allowed me to create a really professionally looking film.

Adobe Premiere. The use of Adobe Premiere was another main piece of technology in my construction stage. Premiere was the program we used to edit all of our shots together in hope to create a good short film. This program I feel was really efficient in making short movies, however, it did have a lot of blips where it would completely crash on us mid-use. Premiere allowed me to no only organise clips and put them in the right order, but, it gave the option to crop shots, slow shots down to give them a ‘slow motion’ effect and also filters in which you can add over your film. Premiere allowed me to add transitions between my shots giving my video a bit of ‘flow’ and continuity, the main transitions I used were the fades: fade to black, fade to white and dissolve. I also used After Effects to create the intro titles along side Premiere.

Photoshop is the software I used to edit the photo's I had taken for my film poster. Also for the photo's I took in preparation for the film poster. To learn how to use Photoshop, their are plenty of tutorials on the internet that explain the functions. But I just spent a while experimenting with the different tools and eventually learnt how to use it. Through using this software, I did not have to use a great deal of tools. It was mainly fitting in the black borders. Experimenting with brightness, contrast, and saturation levels. And placing in the titles and credits.

Sound Bible A website that came in useful in the construction stage was SoundBible. This website contains an assorted archive of sound effects that were completely copyright free. I used this for the majority of the Foley sound within the production such as the footsteps and the whooshing sound when the pendant is activated. The best thing about this website was that the sounds were copyright free. This meant there was no need to contact anybody about permission to use them and instead could directly download them and implement them into the production.

Evaluation

HP Laptop, I used the laptop to bog my evaluation and to also edit my answers that required to be filmed. The laptop was best for this as its portable and has a good display meaning the audience would have no problems in viewing the video whilst they were being filmed.

IPhone 6, This was used when people where watching the video as it was easily portable.

Camera, used to film people as they watched the short film.

Microsoft PowerPoint Finally for this question, I have used PowerPoint to answer it. As there were many things that need to be noted it may have got tedious if done using a video. PowerPoint allows information to be displayed clearly and I have used it here to both verbally and visually show all the technologies used in the production process and how they were effective in enhancing the final product.