EVALUATION 6.

Harriet Bibby.

The question:

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What technologies did I use within…

Planning and research - Within my planning and research I used the internet as my

resource – this was obviously fairly easy to use as I use the internet and different websites on a daily basis.

I used the UK Film Council’s website in order to find statistics of the UK’s favourite genres and films and related this to my chosen genre.

I also used the website Box Office Mojo and IMDB to research further into my chosen genre to understand my target audience.

Before constructing my product, I also watched many DVDs from my genre to understand what to include within my opening.

I also uploaded all my research onto my blog. This was new to me as I had never used this site before, however, this soon became easy for me to use.

Planning and research – What helped and hindered?

The internet was my most useful source during research and planning and was the one I felt most reliant on. This source generally didn’t cause many problems, however, sometimes the internet/computer systems at school failed, meaning I had to complete a lot of my research at home.

I found the UK Film Councils website to be extremely helpful and easy to use – I faced no problems when finding the information I needed using this website. (I found this again when using Box Office Mojo and IMDB).

When watching DVD’s I found I understood the genre a lot more, however, I didn’t find this to be the most effective way to research into my genre as it used a lot of my time up through watching the films and making notes afterwards –therefore I found the film websites to be a much more useful and effective way to research into my genre.

My Uk Film Council research.

IMDB and Box Office Mojo research.

Construction - During the construction of the film, I firstly had to get to grips

with the digital camera we used to film. At first this was fairly difficult for me as I had never properly used one before, however, after several attempts and practices I found this easier to use.

I then used Movie Studio Platinum to edit and create the video. Because I had never edited anything before, this was extremely new to me and I often found it difficult to use.

Our group also had to use a sound recorder and microphone to create a Foley sound of the body being dragged to overlay onto the video. This was reasonably simple and easy to use – we just had to make sure we turned it on!

We then again used movie studio platinum to add this sound to our product.

Throughout we also used multiple websites to search for music to overlay onto the film. This was easy for us as we knew which sites to look for and how to use them.

We also had to continuously update our blogs during the making of our film.

Construction – What helped and hindered?

When first using the digital camera I felt it was overcomplicated and difficult to use, however, nearer the end of our filming I found that it was much easier than I had anticipated and was the best resource to film our opening.

Again, when I began to experiment with Movie Studio Platinum, I found it very difficult. However, I think that through creating our preliminary tasks, this gave me more confidence and I eventually became used to the aspects involved within the software.

Creating the foley sound to overlap onto our piece was reasonably simple. The most difficult aspect that we faced when doing this was matching up the sound to the action on screen. During our first attempt, the movement and sound didn’t match – making it poor quality. This meant that we had to re-record the sound after perfecting the pace of the footsteps and dragging.

Using Movie Studio Platinum.

Us filming.

Will get these pictures off billy today!

Evaluation - & What helped and hindered?

During each evaluation, I have used several different software's and hardware’s.

Prezi is a website used to create animated presentations. I used this for evaluation one and found it fairly easy to use, however, at times found the website to be slightly temperamental when inserting images and videos. On the other hand, I really liked the fact that the site automatically saved your work.

Powtoon is a website again to create presentations. I found this difficult to use at first as the layout of the site was confusing. However, I eventually got to grips with the features.

I also used Microsoft word for one of my evaluations. This was extremely easy for me as I had used this software many times before – however, sometimes as school this software ‘stopped responding’ which meant that I lost my work several times.

I have also used PowerPoint for one of my evaluations. Again, this was very simple for me to use as I have used this software a lot. This software was also very reliable as it never crashed or lost my work.

For one of my evaluations I also chose to write a script (using word – this was very simple and easy to use) and record my voice for this. (I used the sound recorder to do this which was also very simple.) I then uploaded this onto movie studio platinum and used the snipping tool to take screenshots from my opening - overlapping this with my voice recording. This was fairly easy for me to do – however, I found that it took a lot of time as I couldn’t upload all the images at once.

I also simply used blogger to upload one of my evaluations straight onto my blog. This was probably the easiest software to use as I simple typed straight onto my blog.

To upload some of these onto my blog, I had to use Slideshare. This was an easy software to use, however, in school the filtering system stopped me from using this – the embed code would never show. However, using this site at home was quick and easy to use.

Scripted audio.

Prezi. Word Document. PowToon.

Blogger.PowerPoint.

Technical aspects -

Lighting – Within our group, we didn’t have to create the lighting used, we simply chose which time of the day. This made it much easier for us whilst filming and also created a more realistic atmosphere.

Sound – we used Foley sound for the majority of our opening. Although this may have been more difficult than simply using the sound from the filming, however, I believe the end result was much better.

Editing – Movie Studio Platinum was probably the best software we could have used. After getting to grips with the setting, it was simple, fast and effective for me to use.

Technical aspects – What helped and hindered?

Lighting – Although I was pleased with the final outcome of the lighting within the piece, I found that when filming (due to the time of year and weather) it often became reasonably foggy. At first I thought that this may effect our opening in a negative way, it actually improved the mise-en-scene and it made the setting appear as more spooky and secluded.

Sound – Firstly finding the right song that we could actually use within our opening was very difficult. Because we wanted an upbeat, classical song to add to the eccentric tone of the protagonist, it was difficult to find a song that wasn’t overly comical. However, we eventually found two songs that we believe suit the tone and the main character of the film and they were easy to upload and add to the piece using Movie Studio Platinum.

- We also used foley sound. This was difficult as we had to ensure the movement on screen matched the sound, however, we eventually found the correct time to add this sound in.

Editing – Editing was reasonably easy once I had gotten used to the software (Movie Studio Platinum). We faced no major problems when editing our piece and I also liked the fact that this software allowed you to see where you had to cut on each clip – very helpful!