1. How did you use new media
technologies in the
construction, research, planning
and evaluation stages?

2. CONSTRUCTION
For the actual filming of my production, I used a Panasonic
SDR-H85 HDD camera, which I borrowed from college, this is
of a reduced quality however I knew how to achieve a respectable
quality from my AS piece. Once I’d filmed my short film, I
uploaded my recordings onto the Macs at college, we had to
convert these into a DV format to enable me to important these
into iMovie. I then re-ordered these clips, and cut the necessary
clips to enable continuity, I didn’t make much use of the editing
software just simple cuts and a cross fade as we wanted it to
remain realistic.
When it came to my print products, I used a Sony still digital
camera to take our image for the film poster, we then used
Microsoft Publisher to edit this image by changing the contrast
to making it spooky, we also added our titles, tag line, logo’s etc.
For the film review, we used Microsoft PowerPoint to create a
template for our review, we chose to take a ‘freeze frame’ from
iMovie to add to our review to create cohesion with our short
film. We then used Adobe Photoshop to create our logo for the
magazine ‘filmoria’. Using the two different software's allowed me
to create an overall good quality final product.

3. RESEARCH
Research is now much easier than it used to be this is due to the impact of
the internet, this allows information to be available conveniently. My first task
was to research into a variety of short films to find conventions of my genre, but
also to gain inspiration. I started with YouTube, where I watched short films
such as the short film ‘bump’. Using Google helped me to discover the film
‘Blair Witch Project’ this was the big inspiration for our short film. I then decided
to do analyses of the clips and films I believed was similar to my initial idea, and
I typed these up on to Blogger. I also chose to research into the ‘Blair Witch
Projects’ directors through Wikipedia, this helped me to understand how they
were typically recognised and what I could do in my work. Also for our target
audience research we used the Panasonic SDR-H85 HDD camera to
interview people, we uploaded this onto YouTube to enable us to put it on
Blogger.
I then chose to research into horror film posters, I chose to use Google images
to discover these, I found 3 posters I liked and chose to analyse these I did this
on Microsoft PowerPoint and then use Slide Share to upload this onto
Blogger.
When researching into magazine reviews I found there was key conventions
that had to be followed, they were very similar though main difference was
either formal or informal. I then decided to write these conventions up onto
Blogger.
I believe this is was the stage I used new media the most , before this
technological research would have been difficult and expensive, but now we
can use the internet to get the clips we need.

4. PLANNING
I have to admit that throughout the
planning stage I didn't actually use many
new media technologies, and instead
used the old fashioned paper and pen
method instead. For example,
brainstorming ideas, writing the script,
and creating a storyboard to help
me with filming. I also did a sketch
design for a possible film poster idea.
The only new media I used was the
Sony Still Digital Camera to take
photo’s of these techniques to put onto
Blogger. I think we didn’t use as much
new media as in planning you need to
be as creative as possible with your
imagination and your ideas rather than
using material given to you by the
internet for example.

5. EVALUATION
To complete question one of my evaluation, I
recorded a directors commentary using AVS4YOU
by creating an audio file over my short film then
posting this onto Youtube. For question two and
this one 4, I created a Microsoft
PowerPoint and again uploaded it onto Slide
Share and then onto my blog. In order to receive
feedback for question three, I uploaded my
completed short film onto YouTube and used
social networking such as Facebook to promote
it, I then created a Wordle out of my feedback.
Although I used a lot of new media in this stage, it
wasn’t as necessary as in the other stages,
however I believe it made the evaluations more
accessible to others and more enjoyable to create.