The document discusses the various media technologies used at each stage of creating a short film. It describes using Apple Macs with Final Cut Pro for editing, Pages for designing review pages, iPhoto for image editing, YouTube for inspiration and sharing the finished film, cameras for recording footage, and Prezi and SlideShare for evaluations. Several challenges are noted, such as software freezing, difficulty changing transitions, uploading videos to blogs, and learning updated interfaces for Prezi and Final Cut Pro. Overall, a wide range of technologies were used for construction, research, planning and evaluation of the short film project.

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

2. • In the process of creating my short film, I used a wide
variety of technology in order to produce the best
quality of work that was achievable. Besides this, I
used a lot of Internet websites which allowed me to
find out background information about other films
and allowed me to see conventions which I chose to
follow.
• In this presentation, you will see each of the
technical equipment that I used and the webpages
which helped me most throughout the process.

3. Apple Mac
Apple Macs are provided by the school – last year there was nine in the media
room, however there is an additional 10 in the English/Media room next to it. These Macs
are updated and have new software on them, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Presentation
etc and Final Cut Pro; this is the editing software that I will be using to create my short film.
For my AS coursework last year, I used the Macs on a regular basis; this gave me the ability
and experience to use them efficiently this year. The new Macs have no major differences to
them, which made this task a lot easier as we didn’t have to learn many new things.
There was a small drawback which affected the time we had to complete the task. Because
the new Macs which Sophie and myself were using were in a different room which made it
hard to get access to them when there was a class taking place in that room. When this
occurred we had to improvise with other technical devices in school, so decided to do blog
work on the schools laptops.
When using the school laptops, I was able to get blog work done much quicker as they
laptop keyboards are much easier to type on and I was able to concentrate more seeing as I
worked in the schools library. However the laptops took a very long time to log seeing as the
connection is poor on them, which wasted a lot of time.

4. Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is an editing software provided on the Apple Macs which we have in school. It
has a variety of editing features which effectively make your “film” look professional – these
include transitions, effects, sounds, blade, trim, and many more. I decided to use this to
edit our film as I thought it would be more suitable seeing as it is more advanced and
developed in comparison to IMovie. When I first used Final Cut Pro, I found it very difficult
to use as it was different from IMovie, which I used to create my practise short film. There
were several new features to learn about, however this was soon overcome by the videos
on YouTube. All of the key buttons, such as blade and trim where located in different places
to IMovie so it proved a task just to find these! Once I experimented with clips on Final Cut
Pro and got some practice, it soon became very easy, seeing as I became used to the
settings. I also found that applying the music, effects and transitions were much easier
using this than IMovie as they were easier to locate. With the effects and transitions, you
could preview what they looked like before applying it to a selected clip in order to see if it
would work well – I liked this a lot as it helped to save time. Another feature which I liked a
lot was how you could apply clips above the project timeline – it made that clip fit in more
smoothly with the film and overlap the previous scene slightly. Similarly, I liked how easy it
was to apply as many music clips to the timeline as wanted. This enabled me to have
several sound effects and music to be played at the same time to create a more tense
mood.

5. The blade button came in very handy in the process of this as it allowed me to place the
clips where I wanted. It was very fast and effective as well as precise and accurate as to
where I wanted the clips cut. However throughout the creation on my short film, I found
several drawbacks which hindered the time I had to complete the task. Firstly, I figured
out, like with most things, you need a lot of practice on Final Cut Pro before you can create a
good quality film. Secondly due to all of the content and data on it, it froze a lot (sometimes
up to half an hour) which hindered the time I had and made it difficult to get on with my
work. When this occurred, I planned what I could do on planned, ready for when the Mac
started to work again, however it was very frustrating as I just wanted to get the task
completed. Another problem which Sophie and myself came across was that we had great
difficultly changing the duration of the transitions (fade to black). We wanted to make the
fade longer so it had more of a dramatic effect. Teachers did not know the solution to
this, so we figured out that by adding a title page in the middle to two fade to black
transitions and cutting it, allowed us to have a longer fade to black.
Another problematic issue was the voiceovers. Once we figured out
how to apply them to the project, I adjusted the volume of them
due to them being faint on top of the background music. This took
a lot of time as I could not get the sound to sound ‘normal’ without
sounding muffled. In the end, I adjusted each sound to the same
percentage as well as the background noise, however one
voiceover clip did not respond well to this and is quieter than the
others.

6. Pages
I used Pages on the Mac to create the magazine film review page. I had
previous experience of this from my AS work and from when I used it in
my own time. It took longer than anticipated to create as I couldn’t figure
out the way that I wanted it to look. I liked using pages as it allowed me
have different affects on the pictures and text boxes. As you can see, the
film recorder in the top right hand of it, it faded around the outside. I
chose to do this as it fit in with my review page better and looked more
subtle. As I am getting more experience, I am becoming more
comfortable with using it.
Grab
During the process of create my ancillary task, I used the grab tool several
times on the Mac in order to get my poster onto my blog. When you create
a document on Pages, it doesn’t save into a picture, which made it very
complicated to upload it to my blog. I asked the schools technician on how
to overcome this problem and he informed me how to do so straight away.
I followed the steps he said on how to do it and now I can use it all the
time. This enabled me to upload it to my blog once I had to convert it into a
JPG. By ‘grabbing’ and ‘selecting’ the document, it allowed me to print
screen it into a picture which made it easier to upload.

7. IPhoto
When I created the first ancillary poster, I used IPhoto to darken the
image to make it look more sinister and disturbed. However
because of the image we used, we had a talk with our teacher and
concluded that it was too distressing to use – the audience may be
put off due to the young school girl being tied up with duck tape
across her mouth.
Putting this aside, I then used IPhoto to make the picture I used for
the magazine film review. I dulled down the picture, to again make
it look more cruel and on edge.
As you can see from the image on
the far left, the darken button
clearly informs you on what it does.
You click continuously on
it, depending on how dark you
want it to go. I liked using this as it
allowed me to edit it to the extent
in which I felt looked best. Most
photo editing sites have specific
percentages in which you edit it to.

8. Safari
Safari is the Macs internet search engine. I think this is a very fast and
efficient search engine and I enjoy using this. I used this a lot as I spent most
on my time on blogger as well as Final Cut Pro. At some times of this
process, I had poor internet connection however once I asked the
technical, this problem soon got sorted by reconnecting.
Blogger
Blogger is the blogging site I used to display all of my work. I previously used
this before for my AS work so I knew how to work it effectively. I spent a lot
of time on this website as I find it easier to blog my work straight away
instead of writing it on paper first. There has never been any major
problems when using blogger, however it is very hard to upload videos.
There are displayed in the actual post however when it is published, it never
seems to play or show the content. I have not overcome this problem
yet, as I am planning to do it when I do the finishing touches to my blog.

9. Youtube
YouTube has been a great help to me throughout this process. It has allowed me to
view videos in which became an inspiration to me and help me view videos which
helped me identify typical conventions (Cupcake and The Lovely Bones). Without having
access to YouTube, it would have hindered my progress of the project and would have
prevented me from doing work on time.
As well as this, I uploaded my short film to YouTube which allowed me to promote it
and get easy access to it when I am not at school. I am now able to view it at any place
where I have internet connection and at any time which makes it easier for me to refer
to it in my work. As I mentioned, by uploading my short film to YouTube, it allowed
everyone to view my film as I uploaded it on a public setting. This enabled my film to be
promoted as it will hopefully get several public viewings.
I enjoyed using Youtube as it allowed me to investigate other short films however a lot
of the time is was blocked by the schools IT system. This delayed my time when I
needed to use it – when this occurred I got on with other work which needed doing
however this meant that it took other tasks longer to get completed.

10. Camera
For the recording of my short film, I used the Panasonic Cam Recorder which is supplied by
the school. These camcorders are very basic and are not very technical, however I used a
high definition camera to shoot our film. I found that these provided a very clear and
precise picture which made our film look professional. I liked using these cameras and I
would use them in the future. However there was a lot of footage on them which other
people had filmed beforehand. This made it slower to upload our footage onto the
computer. Besides this, the camera we used ran out of memory so therefore I had to
change to another Panasonic Cam Recorder.
Tripod, USB lead & Charger
When filming the short film, I used a tripod. This made the filming so much easier as it
prevented the camera from shaking. However sometimes it was hard to get the angle
that I wanted due to the tripod not being tall enough or not being able to get in the
desired position. Once I had completed filming, I had to use the USB lead and the charger
to upload it onto the Mac. This enabled me to upload it straight onto Final Cut Pro which
made it much easier to edit my clips.

11. Prezi
I used Prezi in the final stages on the process. I used Prezi in the evaluation of my media
product as I felt that is was an effective way to display text about my short film. Besides
this, it makes it more interesting to read by the effects, fonts, colours and styles that prezi
provides for your text. I used this last year for my AS evaluations and found it hard to use
at first, but I soon got used to it. Due to this, I thought that it would be a fast and
effective website to use for my A2 evaluations. However when I came on to using it, I
found that there was a new layout and design. This was confusing and I had to learn how
to use it again – they did provide a video which helped and I soon realised not much had
changed but some key features of it had changed.
Slide share
This is a website which enables you to upload your presentations and it allows you to
embed them into other websites. This site has been very helpful through the A2 course
as it has allowed me to upload my presentations to Blogger. The only difficulty I had with
this site was learning how to embed the presentation onto my blog. Also I noticed when I
viewed the presentation online, some of the font was cut off the edges as I had it on a
large font. To overcome this I had to change the original document and upload it again.
This was not a big issue however it did take time which was limited due to deadlines.