Evaluation Part 4 - Dom

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the whole process of researching, planning, filming and editing all our products we usesd a vairety of different new media technologies:

• The internet - BBC iplayer for Shorts(http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/), Virgin Media short (http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/) - For research and Planning.
• Blogger - To record all the processes of the Main product and ancillary tasks.
• Sony HD camera - To film
• Voice recorder - Recording the voice overs and some foley
• Final Cut Pro - Image editing, titles and credits.
• Garage band - Sound
• Photoshop - Poster editing and Review
• DaFont website (http://www.dafont.com/) - for title font on poster
• InDesign - Review
• Facebook - Audience feedback on all stages of the coursework.

My role in the group was: 

•  Cameraman
• Props manager
• Location manager
• Editor
• Poster creator

The Internet
The Internet has become a useful for people all over the world. It is a relatively new media technology that has become one of the building block for thousands of businesses, helped people to socially network with people from all around the world and has become a tool that people everywhere use daily. 
The internet has provided me with so much throughout all the stages of this portfolio, ranging from short films for my research that I could watch online to information about short film distribution and the change in British social realism in the last 10 years. I used the internet to: 

• Watch the short films that I have written posts about previously (http://advancedportfoliosmalley.blogspot.com/2010/01/dom-fade-to-black-research-and-planning.html)
• To blog all all the stages of the project using the blog service blogger
• To gain the font for title and credits and the film and also the title of the poster.
• Google images gave us the small images on the review (Tweedledee and the cards.)
• Youtube has been used to upload our animatic and final product and also for audience feedback.
• Social networking sites have been a great source for gaining ideas for the name of the film and also for more audience feedback.

Sony HD Camera

The Sony HD camera we used was provided to us by the college. We were lucky enough to have the use of the HD camera as some people had to use regular hand held cameras . The quality that you recieve from the HD camera makes such a massive difference to the finished piece as it makes it look much more professional and like a proper short film. The camera was easy to use and because I was the cameraman I am grateful that we were allowed to use it. The camera itself has a excellent white balance that madea real difference on our ilm as last year I had a problem with the white balance on one of the othe camera's due to the weather constantly changing whilst we were filming.

Final Cut Pro

We chose to use final cut as it is a much more professional programme to the alternative we had which was IMovie. Also I have Final cut express at home which is a very similar programme and used Final last year for my foundation portfolio and also for my Film AS film this year so i know my way around the programme.




We Created the film by: 

• Importing all footage from the camera into Final Cut
• Next we dissected the different shots using the slice tool.
• We then chose the shots we wanted and put the ones we didn't back into the library of clips in case we decided to use them.
• We then ordered the clips by dragging and dropping them into the order that the shot list and animatic had laid out.
• We had to edit some of the shots to make them longer and shorter. For example the scene when Tom is eating the pizza we used the speed tool to cahnge the speed of the pizza disapearing to make it a lot quicker (balancing it with making it still look realistic.) and also the bits when he is eating the pizza is slowed down using the same tool.
• To put the film altogether we used a mixture of cross dissolves and fade in and out's to keep the film flowing. The fades in and out are usual used when it is going from the park and real time to their internal monologues. and the cross dissolve was a really nice visual image for the scene when Kate is writting in her diary on her bed. 
• Next we put in the title using the text tool and placing it in the bottom right hand corner when the couple are in the park. We did this by putting the text layer on top of the video layer and placing the writting where we wanted it. 
• The credits were easy to do as they were just text on a black background.

 Garageband


(Above is a Youtube tutorial of how to use Garageband for a Mac.)
Garage band is a sound editing software tool that has various different aspects, ranging from recording live music tracks to film sound and foley. We used garage band to put all the sound diegetic and none diegetic into the piece.
What we did: 

• Imported the pre recorded voices that we recorded using the voice recorder and the video.
• Cut and split the track to enable use to move it around to fit the piece well.
• We then added another lay and imported the music that was recorded using the voice recorder thanks to Karl Williams (who is also the voice of Tom).
• We cut the music to come in and out at the rtimes we wanted and also had to copy and paste a tiny section of it to make it sound right as it faded out.
• We made it fade out by adjusting the levels of the track.

 Photoshop

 http://www.5min.com/Video/Photoshop-Video-Tutorial-Chroma-Keying-3768921
Above is a link to a Photoshop tutorial
Adobe Photoshop has become a brilliant tool that lots of professional photographers and publishing companies use. The programme is designed for image manipulation and editing. We used Photoshop in both our poster and our review and it was a brilliant tool to have. 
How we used Photoshop (Poster):

• We imported the image that we wanted to use.
• Cropped the image by setting the page size to a A3 portrait and Adjusting the size of the photo to fit the frame.
• I then added lots of layers into the project in order to put the text etc.
• and the poster was made

 How we used Photoshop (Review)

• Imported the picture of Tom and Kate in bed
• Then created text boxes for the directed by, title, etc
• We then inserted the pictures of Tweedledee and the cards
• Next we used the colour replacement tool to change the colour of the cards from standard red and white to the themed colour of green and orange.

Social networking sitesI used Social networking sites in order to gain audience feedback and for research and planning. 
I created a group on Facebook dedicated to the the project and made all the other members of the group admin to the group so they could change things around and update it as the wish. We uploaded the video to this group to gain audience feedback. The idea for the film was copied onto the group and we received feedback on that and also people were given the chance to help us decide the name. The film was also put in the group and we got feedback from that. I also posted the video on my status and i gain the majority of my feedback from that.