Evaluation 4 (Jodie Taylor)

1. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
Jodie Taylor
Evaluation question four
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Sub Question covered:
How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there
examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creativity?
New media technology relates to the physicalhardware and softwareused during the
construction, research and planning process of our fiveminute short film. Through the
proliferation of technology,we were able to use many multifunctioning devicesin order to carry
out exercises. A computer and mobile phone allowed us to do tasks such as basic posters and
taking locationphotos etc.This is due to an increased demand fornew technology whichhas
allowed us to do several things on the same device. As for the Fujitsu computer, we were able to
post blogs, create a movie on Adobe Premier Proand use several websites forresearch. These
are just a few of the things we wereable to do. Much hardware was featured in production just
as softwarewas. Hardware included everything from the Cannon Legrea HFG 25 to the
television featured in one of the shots to edit the news flash into. The skills fromAS level media
studies were certainly transferred across to build and progress forfurther media activities. Our
intensions were to create a product of professional standard and worth, to meet the genre’s
criteria.
Software
Blogger
The majority of work conductedwas posted on the host, blogger. Blogger in itself can be classed
as social media. This is the online softwareI used to post planning, production and evaluation.
To enhance and personalise our blog, I ensured the page looked professional and related to our
genre by changing many aspects of it. Grey was used as the background colour as it allowed the
red writing to stand out and be readable and clear. The colours were conventionalfor a thriller
genre, being desaturated to exhibit a sense of danger and threat. For the background a gif
animation was used. This was a gun propelling a bullet whichsymbolised our genre, whilst
reflecting back to the pivot of our plot, an assassin who uses the weapon of a gun to kill.

2. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
Blogger is a really useful website; howeverit has its negatives. It was difficultforadding
multimedia platforms such as videos, sound and images, as they were displayed really jumbled,
whichdidn’t appear professional. A solution to this was to use different presentation techniques
such as Prezi,PowerPoint,slide share and Microsoft word.
Prezi/PowerPoint/MicrosoftWord/MicrosoftExcel/Social Media/SlideShare
Prezi was useful and there were many creativetemplates available, whichallowed different sub
topics to be explored in a mind map style. During the time I was constructing Prezi’s there was a
fault present on their website which prevented me from typing as it was really slow,which is
the reason I conducted more essays on Microsoftword,PowerPointsand slide shares as I
couldn’t really detect a faultwith these soft wares. Perhaps many students across the UK were
using this softwareat the same time, slowing the website. PowerPointwasextremely helpful for
exploring a topic in more detail, as I tended to assign a topic to each slide. MicrosoftWord was
useful dually for essays whichwere uploaded via google drive, alongside the creation of a shot
list template as it was easy to insert a table into various columns.
MicrosoftExcelwas used to create the charts regarding the results to our questionnaires; this
was really useful as data couldbe represented in a clear, coherent and efficient manner. There
were twotypes of questionnaires conducted,before production to aid construction and post
production to aid evaluation of the near final outcome. The projectitself was introduced
alongside its aims, considering all ethical aspects by asking non sensitive questions to the
people of Barnsley. The very first questionnaire was conductedon MicrosoftWordand printed
through the hardware of a Brother DCP-J552DWtogive a potential audience. The second
questionnaire was displayed by the multifunctioning deviceof a smart phone (iPhone) in
YouTubeformat. There were negatives to this method, as an audience had limited viewing to
judge our movie, as the iPhone screen isn’t very large. As a group we were prepared for
constructivecriticism as this helped improve the movie further. The questionnaires were an
extremely important part of production, therefore the data needed to be presented correctly.
Through the use of social networking, we were also able to communicate with a large audience
and receivefeedback through sending our rough cut to multiple friends on Facebook,they
viewed it then gave us feedback of which weinputted into the charts on Excelas additional
guidance on a larger scale.

3. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
Slide share is my personal favourite as I could combine both PowerPoint or MicrosoftWord and
this softwareto present my research in a precise manner or in essay style. Slide share is difficult
to add images and large amounts of text, as I found with my independent distributor research
before converting it into a PowerPointthroughgoogle drive, this is shown below. Before
converting the information, I had to attach a screen shot by the snipping tool to present the rest
of the research as it was far toolarge to attach in slide share, this appeared unprofessional
whichis the reason I changed the format.
Google/Research
During the planning stage, research was essential. Eachgroup member constructed their own
individual narrative, then collectively afinal one was chosen. Research purposes helped enabled
the construction of individual mood boards and storyboards. Google was the main search
engine used to find images relating to our narratives. This had many benefits as each member
Before After

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
could express their plot through imagery, rather than just explaining it on word, as illustrations
are a key aspect to media studies.
Google was used to search similar short movie ideas and the conventions of these, to aid my
original idea and make it more specific.I found many ideas from searching ‘short filmideas’, the
most helpful site I found was ‘the student room’ which had many reviewsand comments to help
me understand what was particularly popular. Short of the week was also a very useful
influential site displaying many short movies.
For further research into similar movies, IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes were also beneficial
alongside Wikipedia especially forratings. For film influences IMDbwas useful whilst Wikipedia
provided information on the releases and narratives rather than just reviews. Although reviews
were helpful on detecting the focus of popularity on films, Wikipedia provided factual
information. The information was easy to understand as the key aspects are presented in a box
with the DVD/poster image at the side of the screen, howeverI ensured I didn’t depend too
much on Wikipedia as anyone can edit the website meaning some of the information is invalid,
IMDb was much more reliable in terms of being privately ownedand edited.

5. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
One of the very first websites I researched into was the BBFC (British board of film
classification) to view the specific details regarding each classification. To show our
understanding of all of the ratings, list fromthe BBFC website was posted on blogger, at this
point we were unaware of the rating for our movie, howevernow we wouldcategorise it as a
12A, as there is a minimal usage of weapons. We would not categorise our movie as a 12 as it
doesn’t contain harmful language or death isn’t displayed, therefore weleft the option open for
parental guidance to viewing, being accompanied by an adult. This was done purposely as the
rating 12A addresses a larger potential audience being suitable for a variety of ages.
Arts of the title was another useful website of whichI conducted a mass amount of research on
for title sequences to influence ours. Other beneficial websites included freesound, used during
the editing stages of production. Freesound is a non-copy write site containing both diegetic and
non-diegetic sound of whichwe embedded in our movie. This was the only site we used to
source sound as it guaranteed all the sounds we required legally and it was entirely free! The
only negative to free sound was that there were particular sounds whichwere not exactly as we
would want them, therefore we had to compromise and use what was available.

6. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
During research, I looked into similar movies. Our movie is specifically shaped to be like Atomic
Blonde, an influence, being of a crime/mystery thriller genre with a female lead. As shown
below, the fight scene is similar to ours, as the male tries to killher, howevershe grasps the gun.
This is much like our movie, as the stalker followsCharlie in hope to hurt her; howeverhe
doesn’t succeed as she kills him.
YouTubewas a key site to our movie. Hosting the video here meant a large potential audience
were able to view it for free. Many even use YouTubeto view broadly rather than specifically,
therefore we accessed the opportunity forindividuals to stumble upon it.
For my individual narrative I used the website ‘Storyboard that’. This was also used in the
construction of the group storyboard, as I recommended this to the other members. This tool
was free and easy to use, enabling me to show the narrative in separate stages using the default
backgrounds. This site had weaknesses in supporting our project as a whole, as full paid
membership and login was needed to access all of the features whichperhaps could have been
helpful and expanded our creativity.

7. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
Marketing/AdobePhotoshop
Post production, a poster was created regarding ‘the next target’. This was a marketing device
for our movie, displayed below is the final outcome. Individual posters were created using any
softwarepreferred; howeverthe final poster was conductedon Abode Photoshop.
Final poster, created on Photoshop.
My individual poster, created on PowerPointusing ‘DAFONT’.

8. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
Photoshop had limitless possibilities. Being installed on every computer in college was
advantageous as wecompleted the poster using all of the features required without paying full
membership. This included the merging of images through effects,the blurring of backgrounds
and endless functions to create a professional outcome. Last year I didn’t particularly conduct a
mass of workon Photoshop therefore I lacked knowledge in its basic functions. After watching
several videos addressing the basics on YouTube,I learnt new skills enabling me to help
conductthe final group poster. I found that Photoshop allowed a variety of actions to be
performed to enhance the background image, this occurred through separate layers containing
different effectsand colours. As a beginner, this appeared to be complex to start, howeverbeing
part of the technologicaladept generation I was able to figure it out.
CELTX
The script for our movie was conducted on the software CELTX.Through using this software
last year I had adapted to its functions whichallowed script writing to be efficientand easy.
CELTX itself is really beneficial forany professional script from a screenplay like ours, to audio
play and documentaries. It allowsthe basic saving and amendments of scripts whichwe found
very useful in that we did edit our narrative multiple times to suit the audience of a 12A.

9. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
AdobePremierPro
The editing process tookplace on Adobe Premier Pro, the 2018 version, provided by college. I
was already familiar with the software,using it last year and for editing music videos in my own
time, howeverworking as a team meant I learnt various new skills to embed on future projects
of my own. The editing took place in stages to maintain a chronological outcomewith
continuity;this meant all shots were embedded to fit together correctly.Themost challenging
part of editing was to input the news report onto a still television. A non-copy write template
was used and although appeared amateur, this movieis independent with a low budget
meaning that this is all wewere able to achieve having the resources we had. Premier Prohad
various effectsto enhance the quality of our movie, (weused cross dissolve, fade to blacketc.)
Hardware
Camera/Equipment
For the physical shooting of the movie, a Cannon Legrea HFG 25 was used. This digital camera
had 1080p quality,capturing all detail. In my opinion the Cannon Legrea HFG 25 was such an
improvement on the Panasonic HD v550 used last year. This had multiple functionsenabling the
quality of our movieto be of a professional standard. This camera was very lightweight which
enabled us to use tracking shots, as it was easily portable. Due to gaining many skills on last
year’s production, although the camera was much different, knowledge was transferred directly
across. Before producing the short moviewe performed preliminary tasks. These exercises
addressed unrestricted, restricted narration and a journey using elliptical editing. These were
basic skills to use during our movie and helped us learn some of the functions of the camera.
Both elliptical editing (Charlie getting ready, walking etc.) and restricted narration were used
(The man in black is seen walking behind Charlie, the audience are aware before the character
is) proving the tasks beforehand were useful.
The camera was rested on a basic tripod to remain stationary during shooting. The tripod
enabled us to pan through moving a stylus, whichwas useful, howeverwe decided to reject the
use of panning as it was cliché.

10. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
Although the equipment was satisfactory being of better picture quality, it also took
cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound and editing to build a high quality outcome.
Marketing/Radio trailer
As part of a marketing technique weconducted a radio trailer whichcontained both diegetic
and non-diegetic sound from the movie. Other information such as the release date was stated
through an additional recording. This was conducted on a H1 zoomrecorder to enable
The camera used during
production this year.
The camera used during
production last year.

11. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,
planningand evaluation stages?
maximum quality of sound, as this tended to blockout background noises. The recordings were
easily transferred as an MP3file and placed into Adobe Premier Pro to edit the sound into
continuity.This was then placed with the background of our poster, whichwouldn’t be
displayed on the radio howeveris used in preference to a dark, plain screen. Below is the image
I tookof the H1 zoomrecorded used.