Research and planning stage
Hosting sites like Youtube were used often in our research and planning stage, to both present our work and look at existing works for inspiration (for example, we could search for short films to watch to help us with creating ours). Youtube was useful to use as it has a very simple layout and an easy process for uploading so it made uploading videos quick and easy. We used it to upload various videos like our rough cut, animatic and final cut, and of course it helped us in the research stage when we were looking into various short films for inspiration. It also came in useful in the final stage of evaluation, when we uploaded the Director's Commentaries. We also used another hosting site called Vimeo to upload the video we made for the Production Progress Review. This again was simple to use, however we only used it once as Youtube felt more comfortable to use. To upload text documents we used Scribd, which came in useful for works like the script, props list, and storyboard. It helped to make our blog posts look a bit neater aswell, and also kept the documents organised. We also used Blogger to present all of our work.
Our animatic on Youtube
Construction & Feedback
Some of the recording devices we used was to create a film included HD cameras, recording kits, Soundtrack Pro and audio recording kits. Compared to old media technologies, using digital cameras and kits are much easier, as they can be uploaded through the use of a USB and separate takes appear as separate files, so editing is an easy process. We also used various ways to collect our feedback, sometimes we recorded it with an HD camera, and in other cases we just recorded the audio with a recording kit. We then uploaded the recorded feedback on Youtube and Soundcloud (a music hosting site). Recording the feedback in such a way - as oppose to writing it down - is brilliantly effective, as it means we can easily access the feedback if we want to in the future by either watching it on Youtube or listening to it on Soundcloud, thus saving us time when we wish to make improvements
Soundtrack Pro is software which allows us to edit audio and overlay it on to our film (it also allows you to use it's own foley sound, means we don't have to record every sound ourselves). Again, this is another device which made our construction phase a simpler process, as its a very easy software to use.
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| Our audio being edited on Soundtrack Pro |
Our rough cut feedback on Soundcloud
Editing software
The main source for editing our film is through Final Cut Express. We've had lots of experience using it from our preliminary task last year and and our 2 minute film opening that we also did the previous year. It's a video editing software that is simple to use, as we just upload our shots, and then edit them into the film we want. In editing terms we've only really ever used Final Cut so we can't necessarily compare it to anything else, but it definitely feels simple to use, and cut a lot of time out of what is quite a long winded process. We also used Soundtrack Pro to add sound over the top.
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| Us using Final Cut Express to edit our short film |
Ancillary product software
To produce our ancillary products (magazine review and poster) we used Quark Xpress and Photoshop. It was my first year of using both software, and I had practise at the start of the year with Quark when we did our draft magazine review and mock magazine cover. Quark Xpress is easy to use, however Photoshop is a lot more complicated to use than Quark, so Connor (who has lots of experience with it) had to help us with it.
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| Quark Xpress was used to create this magazine review |
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| Photoshop was used to create this poster |
In order to organise ourselves properly we used the social network site Facebook in order to communicate with actors and people in our crew. This was invaluable, as Facebook chat allows you to see when someone has read a conversation, and the group chat feature means that you can have a conversation with multiple people. This is far more advanced than texting or calling each person individually, and it helped us to organise when we were going to be filming next.
Another thing to help us with organisation was the school's booking system, which allowed us to book our equipment, and also see when everyone else has booked theirs so that we didn't clash. This was invaluable, and without it I can imagine the process of booking equipment would have been quite chaotic: this made it foolproof.
Another thing to help us with organisation was the school's booking system, which allowed us to book our equipment, and also see when everyone else has booked theirs so that we didn't clash. This was invaluable, and without it I can imagine the process of booking equipment would have been quite chaotic: this made it foolproof.
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| School Booking System |
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| Screenshot of a conversation on Facebook
Overall, these new media technologies have helped us to complete our various products to a high standard, and made each process of our course much easier. They have enabled me to produce work, edit and construct, record and evaluate, and display work in an effective and creative manner.
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