How did you use media technologies
- 1. HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
- 2. RESEARCH AND PLANNING STAGE During my research and planning stage, I used YouTube to research both professional and amateur short films. Using YouTube, I was able to observe how other filmmakers used film techniques and how I could incorporate these techniques when crafting my own short film. One of the short films I learnt a lot from was the short film Red produced by amateur filmmakers. The lack of dialogue in Red showed me how not having your main characters speak creates suspense in the audience. From this I developed my short film and made the creative decision to not include dialogue in my short film which helped create an isolation effect on the main character. This highlighted the loneliness associated with having an eating disorder. However, YouTube does have limitations. Short films from professional short film production companies are less likely to be uploaded on to YouTube or come at a cost to watch. Due to budget limitations my group and I decided to only watch free short films. The professional short films could have taught me more complex techniques and further strengthened my research.
- 3. CONSTRUCTION STAGE When constructing my short film's promotional campaign I decided to use Adobe InDesign to construct a film review page. With my design based on the professional magazine Little White Lies. I immediately took advantage of the wide range of font styles available to find the perfect font to match the genre of my short film and full fill the target audience's needs. With my genre being drama and my target audience being 16+ I chose the font style Arial. This helped me to clearly present my advertisement of my short film and present the information needed for my short film. This software also allowed me to use layers which sped up the process of constructing my review page by allowing me to separate the different conventions of my magazine reducing the chance of any work being deleted.
- 4. CONSTRUCTION STAGE Another aspect of media technology I used during the construction stage of my short film was the editing software iMovie. iMovie allowed manipulate my short film’s timeline and to create a flash of shots during the opening and ending of my short film. The flash of shots at the beginning of my sort film allowed me to be creative by showing the audience previews of my short film in order to clarify the narrative. Without them the audience might be confused by the shopping scene which at first seems like a normal action. The flash of shots at the end of my short film helped me show the inevitability of an eating disorder by suggesting the process will just keep repeating until someone intervenes. However, the disadvantage of using iMovie is the quality when watching back your short film on the software was a lower standard than if you watched a clip on YouTube for example. This slowed down the editing process as at times I had to upload the footage to clearly see some of the editing techniques we used such as watching the timing of transitions.
- 5. EVALUATION STAGE For my evaluation stage I used gif.com to create gifs for my blog to help me be creative. Using gif.com I was able to present small parts of my short film without requiring the viewer to watch the whole film. I created gifs by manipulated the timeline and trimming a YouTube clip. Therefore this made it easier to help the reader to understand which part of my short film I was talking about. Gifs also replay the content without taking too much time. Using gif.com I was also able to produce gifs that also included sounds from my short film to analyse my use of sound conventions. Without gif.com I would had to describe elements of short film without any examples and therefore making the explanation and analyse more confusing and less interactive.