Evaluation Question 6

1. By Bobbie Brader

2. For the research and planning, we used various pieces of software to make our
work interesting and to get the most amount of multimedia into our coursework
as we could.

3.  Within my research and planning, I did a lot of work on the computer.
I used lots of different software such as ‘Prezi’ and ‘Blogger’, which
you need internet access for. These helped me document my work
in many formats with different kinds of multimedia within them, two
sites that I used frequently during this process were ‘YouTube’ and
‘Google Images’. These were to show examples of the kinds of work
that I wanted to produce.
 There were various software that I used also, ‘Powerpoint’ and
‘Word’ were ones that also helped me present my work in a high
quality manner.

4.  During our research and planning we also used cameras and
microphones. This was to film our ‘Target Audience Interviews’ blog
post and our pitch. We edited the Pitch with Movie Studio Platinum
by putting a title ahead of the pitch and fading it into it.
 For the target audience interviews, a pistol mic was used to capture
the sound and for the pitch, a boom mic was used – without the
dead cat (we filmed inside so didn’t necessarily have to have a dead
cat over the mic because there was no wind to interfere with the
sound), the reason we used a boom mic for our pitch is that we were
further away so the pistol mic would have had a worse quality
sound.
The PitchTarget Audience Interview Target Audience Interview (2)
Target Audience Interview (3) Target Audience Interview (4) Target Audience Interview (5)

5. For the construction elements, we needed to learn how to use camera, mics
and lighting and how to use a range of software on the computers, ranging from
‘Movie Studio Platinum’ to ‘Photoshop’.

6.  We used various lighting which was fairly easy to use as it had a
simple on/off switch. For most scenes, however, we used natural
lighting (outside lighting, no unnatural light) for the most part.
However in one scene, we didn’t have the right technology to use
‘professional’ lighting and therefore used a torch on my phone over
the top of a handheld camera to create a gloomier feel to the scene.
This worked well because the light wasn’t too harsh or bright so it
added to the aura of our film opening.
 Lots of the lighting I hadn’t used before, but they were quite easy to
use, just fairly awkward to get to and from places as they were quite
delicate.

7.  We used a camera effectively in our piece and I learnt how to frame a shot
according to the content in the shot. I also learnt about different types of
shots and how to frame the shot so that you don’t see something that
looks out of place in the shot.
 I also learnt how to transfer rushes from the camera to the computer ready
for editing.
 Another thing that links in with camera is that I learnt the value of a tripod
and how it makes filming so much easier, especially for the scenes where
we used reporters, it helped focus and frame the scenes perfectly.
 I hadn’t used a camera like this before, apart from in the ‘Research and
Planning’, as I’ve never been on the ‘production’ side of things, I’ve always
been on the ‘performer’ side.

8.  I learnt that when filming the microphone is very important. During filming,
we encountered a few problems regarding microphones. We used the
boom mic with the dead cat on for all scenes, when we filmed one
reporters’ scene, we filmed it but the person who was listening didn’t say
whether it was turned on so we had no sound. But microphones are very
handy during filming as it gives you better quality sound which adds to
your film opening.
 I had used a boom mic (with a dead cat) and a pistol mic in the ‘Research
and Planning’ but never before that so there were a few difficulties, as I’ve
explained above with using them, if they hadn’t have produced a good
quality sound, I don’t think that we’d have used them as they are quite a
pain.

9.  We used ‘Movie Studio Platinum’ to edit our film opening. It was quite difficult to use because there
was so much stuff that you could do with it that it got a bit overwhelming. In the ‘montage’ scene
when the four reporters are all talking on top of each other, it was difficult to edit as they weren’t
speaking at the same time, we had to use different effects to create a filter so the audience doesn’t
realise this.
 Filters were a key thing to learn how to create and put on. It embellished our piece, I think a key
place where we used this would be the park scene as we put a slightly darker, greyer filter over the
top of the scene, the colours that it was before didn’t connote what we wanted it to and by using the
filter it conveyed it better than before.
 We also added various sounds and sound effects. We found that it was easy to fade the sounds in
and out, and to have two sounds playing at once. So we had a heartbeat, then layered over the top
some music that we downloaded. However, there was an occurrence of a problem when the
volume of the music wouldn’t go any lower so we had to leave it. The quietest it could go was still
too loud.
 We also learnt how to transition frames and shots so that they created the best feel and
atmosphere for our film opening. We mostly used straight cuts and match cuts in our film opening.
We tried to use more extravagant transitions but they didn’t work in a positive way to help convey
the genre of our film opening.

10.  We used photoshop to create our studio logo; “Watermelon Studio”, and to
create news titles at the bottom of the screen when two of the reporters
are speaking.
 The studio logo was originally a gif where a watermelon exploded and the
words “Watermelon Studio” would come forward to the front of the screen
from out of the watermelon. We had some technical difficulties with this
whereby the gif kept replaying the first second once the words were added
so then we used a picture and added words over the top which was
relatively easy.
 We also had difficulty with the news titles. When we added them to ‘Movie
Studio Platinum’ originally they were in the middle of the screen, so once
we had worked out what the problem was, it was fairly easy to fix, and we
got them to the bottom of the screen.

11. For all of these, what did I learnt about them?

12.  In conclusion, the easiest technology to use was ‘Word’ and ‘Powerpoint’,
although I found it rather difficult to upload the things onto ‘Slideshare’.
The lighting was quite easy to use too.
 I think the hardest technology that we had to use was the microphone,
‘Movie Studio Platinum’, and ‘Photoshop’. I think that if we hadn’t of had
so many problems with the microphone regarding batteries not being in
and not turning it on, I would have a better opinion on the usefulness of it.
 Finally, I found that the school blocked some useful sites, presentation
sites that I wanted to get onto so that I could expand the use of multimedia
in my Blog. Also, the school computers/software didn’t let me download
presentation programmes so I found I couldn’t use them either.
Final Piece