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
Here are some example of the gifs I
have used.
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.
