Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,

planning and evaluation stages?

Lyndsay Essex

Cameras

However to film the first evaluation question answer my own stills camera (GE HZ1500) was used, as the camera is designed for still photographs with an added video-recording feature, so the film quality was not as good as the film itself. However, this wasn’t important as the information within the video itself was the focus.

During production, a Sony Handycam camera was used with a tripod. This was a video camera, rather than a stills camera to make the recording better quality, as this was a silent film the sound quality wasn’t important.

Both of these cameras have a tripod connection for steady filming and also meant I could film largely without someone holding the camera, and computer connections to make uploading to the computer easy.

iPodThroughout the year I have used my iPod to hold multiple example short films of varying length and style together in one place, this meant that I could watch them as I work with them during the research stage, despite the school computers blocking the sites I needed to watch them, or lacking the software needed to play videos.

Internet

The internet was really important in research, planning and evaluation. I researched short films, reviews and film posters on the internet, using search engines and specialised websites like the BBC Film Network site, which is a database of over 300 BBC funded short films. Youtube was useful in researching international short films (Such as short films entered into Cannes Film Festival) and uploading both the finished product and evaluation video. The blog was essential, as all of the work I produced was uploaded to my page.

Social Networking.

• Social network sites were used in the research stage, as many short films, such as ‘Sea Wall’, have a Twitter account, with updates about download options and other pieces from the people involved (Writer, actor, director, etc.). Because of these sites, when searching for short films, many of their twitter and Facebook pages appeared in search results.

• This film also uses a Tumblr and a Wordpress account as it’s main website, which worked well to reach a large audience of mainly teenagers and young adults, as the ‘reblog’ feature allows certain posts to be spread through the site, and so the film would reach an even wider audience.

• This would also be useful for the music aspect, as the band would be advertised at the same time as the film would be.

Sea Wall & Sorry I’m Late - website

Many Short Films have their own website, featuring the film itself and other videos, interviews and information. If this was a real film, a similar website would have been created, as the poster and magazine article give a link to the website where the film would be released.These were useful in the research stage, in looking at language used to refer to short films, layouts, colours etc.Both of these examples are quite simple, others have colour schemes and themes which continue into the films themselves.

Photos and

videos

The short film itself was made on iMovie, so is for the stop motion opening I linked photos together quickly, and the rest of it’s made up of clips, it wasn’t all filmed in the same order, and not all filmed material was used in the final production. Photoshop was also used, mostly in the magazine review, there’s an example here of where I deleted the background of the photo to use in the magazine review, to fill a space and use as a, like many articles seem to have, a studio-style photo, taken specially for the article.

MusicI used Garageband to research the different kind of music that would fit the film style. I listened to the tunes on Garageband, because you can access it through iMovie, so it would have been easy to use. I listened to things to fit the different moods, styles, paces of the clips, and all of it was acoustic-type, no electrical sounding things with backbeats and stuff, just guitar, piano, and violin.Instead I used a piece recorded on Garageband. I transferred these to iTunes, so that I could access them through iMovie and add them to the film, to make sure they to fit in with the film clips.But this wasn’t used in the evaluation stage.

Excel

I used the Microsoft Excel in research, but nothing else. This is my Coding Schedule, something I used to look at conventions and themes in short films, to compare them and see what forms and conventions would work well in my film and what I’d be going against.

Conclusion• During the research I used a range of technologies

to effectively find various examples of short films to draw ideas from, whether they’re ideas on forms and conventions I would follow to create the desired effect, or those I would go against.

• In the production of my piece I combined the film clips I had recorded with editing software and recorded sound to produce a 2 minute piece of a preset genre to appeal to a target audience.

• Whilst evaluating my work I used the internet to both display my work and gather information from it, whilst using Powerpoint presentations, videos and blog posts in the evaluations themselves.