The student used various online tools and software at different stages of planning, filming, editing, and promoting their short film. In planning, they researched genres online and used Google Docs for questionnaires. They wrote scripts in Celtx and used StoryBoardThat for storyboards. Sony cameras were used to film in 1080p. Final Cut Express was used to edit, add effects, and precisely cut shots. Photoshop Elements created the poster. Audacity edited audio and Final Cut Express combined clips for a radio trailer. YouTube and Facebook promoted the finished film. Google Docs gathered feedback which helped improve the film.

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

2. Planning
When planning our film, I used the internet in a number of ways. After
creating a storyline and choosing a genre, I used Google to conduct genre
research, codes and conventions and to find posters of similar films. I
used YouTube to watch and evaluate similar short films to ours. We then
created a group blog on Blogger to upload and showcase our work.
Without the use of this technology it would have been very difficult for
us to obtain this information for research and it made the process much
easier.
As part of the planning process, we also used Google Docs as a platform
to upload our questionnaires on. This was done to ask our target
audience if they liked our idea and whether or not we needed to make
changes, or go ahead with a different film idea.

3. Technologies Used In Creating The Forgotten Truth
First Stages
The first thing we did when beginning to create our film was create a script and storyboard. I wrote the
drafts of the script on paper, and when we were satisfied with the script we used a program called Celtx to
create a professional looking script in digital format which could be uploaded onto our blog. For our
storyboard we used a program called ‘StoryBoardThat’. This program was particularly useful because none of
us were particularly good at drawing, and it saved us the trouble of transferring the storyboards from paper
to digital format, this program allowed us to create a clear, good looking storyboard in a much shorter time.

4. Filming and Editing
To film The Forgotten Truth we used Sony HD 1000 Cameras which gave us excellent images in 1080p. This was a step up
from my AS film which was created on Panasonic Camcorders, with these new cameras the images were a lot sharper and
the audio quality was far superior, giving for a better looking film. The music in our film was obtained from the internet,
from website called FreeSound.org which has royalty free music which you can use at will. This was much easier than
making our own score and saved us time to use on reshoots of shots that didn’t look quite right
To edit our we film we used Final Cut Express. Although I was familiar with the program, we used complex features of the
program, which was a learning curve. With this program we were able to alter the lighting of scenes with different lighting
to make them appear consistent and to keep good continuity by using colour correction, we also changed the colours from
saturated to unsaturated black and white, using grey scale, for our flashback scenes. This program was particularly good for
precise cuts between shots, we were able to edit together very short, quick-fire shots for the jump cut we used when
Damian finds out that he killed his wife Lily. We also used techniques such as cross fades and audio dissolves for the
transitions between scenes in the past and present, we were particularly heavy on audio editing because we used a voice
over in our film, so we had to layer the voice over in with the audio from the images on screen.

5. Technologies used for our Ancillary Texts
To create our film poster and logo we used Photoshop Elements. I
was very inexperienced with this program, but as a group we were
able to input all of our ideas into one poster which looked the best.
With Photoshop were able to merge several images into one, we
used this when slightly fading the main centre image from our film
into the background and then adding a smoky effect to it. We used
the internet again for the font ‘Steel Tongs’ which we used for the
production credits on the poster. This program allowed us to create
a professional looking poster which wouldn’t have been the case if
we used a program such as Microsoft Paint.
For our radio trailer we used a voice recorder for the voice of the
trailer. We then used a program called audacity to lift the volume of
the voice because the original wasn’t loud enough. After the audio
was loud enough we used Final Cut Express again to string the clips
of audio from the film we used and the recorded audio for the radio
trailer.

6. Technologies Used Post-Production
We used YouTube throughout the making of
our film, we uploaded our audience
feedback and rough cut on this website, and
we decided that once we had finished our
film we would upload the final cut here as
well. To promote the film we shared it on
the social networking site Facebook, and we
also used Google Docs again to generate
feedback on the finished product.

7. Problems We Encountered
We did run into some technical issues with Final Cut Express. On one
occasion we almost lost all of our footage, however to our relief we
managed to re-upload our footage from the camera. Another problem I
faced was the faulty internet connection I experienced on the Apple
Mac computers we were using. This was frustrating because the internet
played a huge part in our research, planning and audience feedback and
all of our work was uploaded to blogger, sometimes I found myself
unable to work because of this, which could be seen as a downfall of
digital technology.

8. How I’ve Used Technology To Evaluate My Work
I have used technology throughout my Advanced Portfolio to evaluate and improve my work. A particularly
significant use of technology was the use of Google Docs when asking our audience their opinion on our
rough cut, if it wasn’t for this I believe that our film would have turned out inferior as a result, this use of
technology really helped us improve on our finished film.
In my evaluations I have used Prezi and SlideShare instead of it all just being in traditional essay format to
better demonstrate my use of technology and present my work in a better way.

9. Conclusion
To conclude then, I think that technology played an incredibly
important part in my Advanced Portfolio. Without the
technology our group used, we wouldn’t have been able to
conduct our research, plan, create and showcase our film and
evaluate our work to as high a standard as we have. We did
have the occasional mishap with technology when we almost
lost our footage, however being that this was remedied it was
only a minor speed-bump on the road and this technology
proved invaluable to our success in the production of The
Forgotten Truth.