How did you use new media technologies in the

construction and research, planning and evaluation

stages?

By Christopher Osbyrne

The Importance of Technology in the Production of our Short Film It was crucial in the making of our short film that we

used a variety of digital technologies. Without them, we would not have been successful

in the making the film at all because we used technology in the Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production stages of “Virago”.

Pre-Production: CeltX

CeltX is a free all-in-one pre-production software that allows you to write full length screenplays as well as make production notes and story-boarding ideas.

We utilised a computer and wrote all of the drafts of our script using this CeltX software. CeltX was very practical and easy to use so there was no difficult in the writing process of the film. It taught us how to format it and structure a standard script. If we wanted to make changes to it, we would print it off, annotate it with notes and then make the changes needed in the software once more.

Some of the dialogue and scenes were cut out of the final film but the vision is still prominent and present in the film.

Internet Explorer and Firefox Internet Explorer and Firefox are browsers that allowed our group to research into other short

films, different types of genres, different types of audiences, theorists, title sequences inspirations as well as allowing us to upload our film and blog work.

Google.com is a search engine that was allowed us to access websites of all kinds whether it was for our research or for uploading our film. The site is easy to navigate and gave us access to thousands of other websites.

Artofthetitle.com is a website that catalogued many title sequences from feature films and TV shows and allowed people to watch them online. I analysed the title sequence from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange utilising Artofthetitle.com.

Blogger.com is a website that allows people to create blogs and share posts online. We used it convey the making of our film from Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production. The site was easy to use and very accessible to online audiences.

Youtube.com is a website where people can upload and watch videos of all kinds. We used the site to watch scenes of films which we want to reference in our film as well as use it as a hub for us to upload it.

IMDB.com is a database of all forms of films and TV shows. We used it for the specific details on our film inspirations such as the films release date, cast, directors or a films budget and box office ratings.

Google Forms and Survey Monkey are websites where we could create questionnaires. We used them to get feedback from our audience on our film as we were producing it. We created one based on a written synopsis of the film, the rough cut and one on the final cut of the film.

Pre-Production: CeltX

CeltX is a free all-in-one pre-production software that allows you to write full length screenplays as well as make production notes and story-boarding ideas.

We utilised a computer and wrote all of the drafts of our script using this CeltX software. CeltX was very practical and easy to use so there was no difficult in the writing process of the film. It taught us how to format it and structure a standard script. If we wanted to make changes to it, we would print it off, annotate it with notes and then make the changes needed in the software once more.

Some of the dialogue and scenes were cut out of the final film but the vision is still prominent.

Pre-Production/Production: Canon Legria HF G25 Camcorder The Canon Legria HF G25 Camcorder is a

professional piece of hardware that has wide angle lens, manual controls and has a built-in microphone.

We used the camcorder alongside a tripod in both our preliminary exercise as well as our short film. We tried to use it to its fullest capabilities such as getting focus pulls and using camera movement and unique framing for cinematic effect.

However, the camera did lack the option for us the change the lens. This could have changed the look of some of our close-ups with a telephoto lens.

Production/Post-Production: Pixlr Express Pixlr Express is a free photo-editing

website that anyone can access. It provides features such as cropping, altering of the saturation, contrast and brightness of an image as well as providing filter effects on the image and unique fonts.

I used it to create my poster design for “Virago”. I tried to use the most amount of features Pixlr Express provided.

It took me three drafts to eventually construct my final poster design.

Post-Production: Adobe Premiere Pro Adobe Premiere Pro is a high-end and

sophisticated editing software that allowed us to achieve many possibilities in visual effects and cutting the film into a cohesive narrative.

With Premier Pro, we were able to use all of the three main continuity editing techniques (Match on Action, 180-degree rule and Shot-Reverse Shot) successfully and clearly shown in the final film.

We also utilised its more creative effects such as altering the films saturation to monochrome, changing the contrast, creating a ghost-like effect by delaying one clip over another and morphing the shot.