Evaluation Question 4

By having new media technologies, it has benefited many of today’s most successful film producers when producing and editing their film. It also allows them to meet the high expectations of their target audience, as they try to recreate the similar effect that was planned. Fortunately, we were also able to achieve the correct effect we wanted in our film when wanting to make it as real as possible with the correct use of new media technologies.

When researching for our film we decided to use Google as our source of information on different short films. We also used to it to research about different films posters from current movies to give us ideas on how to create our own posters. It was used to research about different stories about drug use, which we could develop into our film. Not only that but also researching different fonts and titles that we could use in our film as well. Researching different film reviews based on independent films helped us write our own based on our independent film. We then used YouTube to search other short films that independent directors created, but also placed a platform for others to view it.

When planning our film we had to use a digital camera to take shots of different potential locations. This was helpful as when we wanted to make decisions on what location we wanted to use and we didn’t actually have to go back to the original location. We also created a call sheet on Microsoft Word which helped us keep in contact with not only our actor and production team but also our teacher, so if we were having difficulties we could easily contact her. In order to make shooting easier, we decided to create a shooting schedule on Microsoft Word, which allowed us to shoot our film much faster and efficiently

During the construction stage of our film, we were given Canon XCAI camera to shoot our short film with. This gave us an advantage as we were given professional cameras to film with, which ensured our shots would come out in high quality when editing. As we already learnt the basic types of camera shots in AS, we decided to make sure that we used new camera shots within our A2 work. This allowed us to challenge ourselves and develop our work compared to what we had produced in AS. Creating different angles of the same shot was incredibly difficult as we had to make sure that there was continuity throughout the scene. This allowed our audience to see the scene from different perspectives and interesting angles. However to ensure we had the right angles when filming, we had to make sure that the spirit level was balanced and the camera was secure at all times. When choosing the shots, we decided to take into consideration how our characters would be represented through theses shots. For example, the first very shot was a close-up of Leighton’s face. This emphasizes his confused facial expressions as he’s just woke up. The shot then begins to zoom out which shows how the character begins to take his surroundings in. The shot presents the thought process of the character when he wakes up.

For editing we had to use Adobe Premiere. In AS, we had already learnt how to cut in between our footage and place them in chronological order, so when repeating the process in A2 it was done much faster and more sufficiently. The advantage of filming a scene from different angles, allowed us to have more shots to choose from but also more safety shots. In order to illustrate a new scene, we had to edit fades into the end of the scene which created a more efficient transition between the scenes. To do this, we had to select the clip and used the effect controls to place the fade onto the end of the scene. However, we felt that some scenes worked much better with other scene by just cutting them straight after the scene. At the end of certain scenes we decided they would work well with a sound effect. This emphasized the effect of the flashback that we wanted to create. Towards the end of editing we found different ways to present our titles through research, but we needed to make sure that it was placed on the footage in a creative way. Therefore we decided to make our titles change at the same time the beat did in the outro music. In order to save our footage on a reliable source of hard drive, we were give a Lacie. A Lacie is a new portable external hardrive that keeps all the editing we did on Adobe Premiere on it.

When creating our posters we were instructed to use Photoshop. Using Photoshop as the software to create our posters, gave us the opportunity to make them seem as if they were done by professionals. It allowed us to become experimental with our film poster as it allowed us to use different filters. Not only that, we were also able to give our poster more a comedic effect by using a cartoony font. We were also able to resize images and use a lasso tool to get rid of any background on the image that wasn’t needed our poster.

When creating our evaluation questions we used mostly Microsoft word but also Prezi as a creative way to present our work. It was different to a Microsoft document as it was a more unique way to present our evaluation questions. We also interviewed our characters and their experience during the production of the film and if they were pleased with the end results of the film. To edit this we used Windows Movie Maker, which was just as effective as Adobe Premiere.

Overall there is a large variety of new media technologies that were used throughout the making of our film and the different stages within the project.