The student used various media technologies for research, planning, construction, and evaluation of their film project. Google and YouTube were heavily used for initial research on film genres, techniques, and story elements. During construction, they used a DSLR camera, struggled at first with camera techniques but improved with practice. Editing was done using Final Cut Pro, which they learned to use proficiently. Photoshop was used to create the film poster. Blogging, Prezi, and YouTube were used for presenting and evaluation.

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

2. • The media technologies that I have used for research and planning are Google and YouTube. Before
writing the narrative of finders keepers Google really helped me in terms of how to write stories with
tension and drama. When I was using Google there were variety of case studies of films and stories
about drama and comedy. After analyzing and evaluating the bad & good side of the stories, the
downside & brightside part of a film that made it hit in the industry, I decided to stick with the drama
genre. This is because Google helped me to find and look at the necessary elements and ingredients you
need to create a professional short film for e.g. before doing our filming I decided to look at the
particular types of shot and camera angles used for drama and comedy genre and they were mainly
based around close ups and medium shot. I think Google helped me in terms of understanding how to
use final cut pro, Photoshop and using different technologies for presenting. Google helped me to
develop my independent skills such as planning and organizational skills: I was able to organize my ideas
and plan our film story part by part with which camera angles and editing techniques to use and so on.
• So therefore Google has helped me a lot for my research and planning for our film; I got more ideas
about the story and this year I infer that I used Google more efficiently and effectively since I was clear
about my ideas and concepts of the story. So Google is the biggest resources tool in my research and
planning. In addition YouTube has helped me to understand the film ingredients parts; especially
understanding and applying different editing and camera techniques. YouTube has been the most
beneficial technology for me. It enhanced my understanding of camera, editing, sound and mise-en-
scene techniques further than before. Last year I was confused with some of the effects used in
dramas/film and how it helps to drive audience interest. This year my confusion was removed as I
researched about film techniques and editing. YouTube is valuable in terms of understanding how
different film genres work together to create a successful film. Another way YouTube has been helpful
for me is that for my case studies and I and partner wanted to use comedy and drama genre, and
YouTube solved our puzzle for how would we bring the 2 different genres with a simple story yet with a
powerful moral. YouTube helped us to identify the techniques and elements used in comedy and drama
genre films.

3. • We have also used other website which is moodle to download and adapting pre-production documents
such as for the photo shoot sheet, call sheets etc. Moodle has helped us also by looking since there were
certain links of different websites and ideas for creating short films and film magazine review. Slideshare
has been useful for looking at film magazine review and film poster ideas, codes and conventions. I
believe other than Moodle slideshare has been more useful website for because before doing our print
products work I was confused with the typical codes and conventions associated with film magazine
review and film poster. But Google also comes with this as well, there were images of codes and
conventions highlighted for film poster for instance. Overall Google and slideshare has been more useful
and effective for me but YouTube along with Moodle has also been useful to an extent. My research
skills has improved in better way than last year when I was doing my research and planning work and
the reason it improved is because I used more than one different technology this year rather than using
Google, magazine. Last year I was confused with my idea which has affected my magazine work. But this
year I was more planed and organized with my ideas and work which is why I believe I succeeded in my
research and planning work. So my organizational skills has boosted more this year which also helped
me in my other subjects as well.
• For construction I have used DSLR camera, did photography and lightening. While doing shooting I was
actually nervous this year because it was my first time I used the camera for filming and I made small
mistakes such as forgetting which button to press to stop and pause. I was scared with the fact that I
might end up doing a mistake on few of the shots such as doing close ups, zooming in and out I found it
confusing. But my partner Sammah and our actress was confident in using camera and they helped me a
lot to boost my confidence in using the camera for e.g. most of the park shooting was done by me. As
time went I became more confident in using the DSLR camera. And I was able to spot my mistakes and
correct them. The main difficulties I had was that when I wanted to do long shots and I zoomed in I lost
the focus and the balance which I didn’t realize it and it created more trouble for me when I went to do
editing. So my strengths were developed through my mistakes but as I learned to correct it (I used
YouTube for understanding further how to use DSLR camera for filming) I did more independent
research on how to use the camera such as whenever I was free in my lunchtime I used to go upstairs
and ask for help on the camera parts I was puzzled with.

4. • Now I have confident with how to shoot with different camera angles and how to
do still shots and not lose the camera focus. Before I wasn’t experienced with it but
my little mistakes helped me to understand camera angles and parts. For
photography it was equally done by my both of us, my partner and I sorted out
which particular part we want to photo shoot which made it easier for us to finish
our shoot before we were meant to finish. As I was already experienced with DSLR
camera I was still having some problem and that was having blurry images. While I
was doing practicing doing photo shoot all the images came perfectly fine but
when it was my turn to do photo shoots some of the images came blurry and they
weren’t in focus. When I practiced again I found out that while pressing the click
button I kept pressing a wrong button. Last year for my magazine my friend did my
photo shoot and this year it was my turn which I wasn’t willing to do it but I forced
myself to do more than my partner did and I enjoyed doing the photo shoot. For
lighting we didn’t had to do much because the lighting that was set up gave more
bright images so we didn’t need to use any other effects to create more different
lightening.
• In construction process my main difficulties were using different type of shots but
one my strength for construction was that because of my independent research I
was able to understand the pros and cons of using the DSLR camera therefore I was
able to quickly pick up on my mistakes and correct them. And the weakness was
that it created more trouble for me as I had to re-shoot some same scenes more
than twice to make it perfect. Additionally because we had bit of location issues it
helped me to understand and practice more with the DSLR camera. We had no
voice over for our story so we only used the DSLR camera and tripod. I didn’t had
any trouble setting up the tripod as my friend Geneva helped me with camera and
how to set up the tripod as well.

5. • The technical skills we have developed as a group is managing multiple tasks, time management and problem
solving. It was quite an unfortunate for us to start our shooting late but as a team I believe we did well in
managing the time we had left, we were able use our free time effectively for doing our filming and editing. For
e.g. the time we had for shooting was also the time we had to start our editing which created a problem for us
as our actress wasn’t available the time when I was free and my partner wasn’t available when I was free, so
the only time we had left was lunchtime and after school. We didn’t want to do after school because we
wanted bright sunny weather and it was impossible to do after school but weekends helped us in doing our
shooting. But whenever I wasn’t free my partner and the actress was available which irritated me because of
the time stress my partner was rushing and even though she was experienced with the camera she rushed it to
do most of the scenes which later created more trouble for as we missed the rough cut version of our video.
Then I had to do my own independent audience feedback. But however even though we didn’t had enough
time to finish our filming and to do our editing as we re-filmed some scenes we were able manage multiples
tasks as we had only one day to finish our editing since we did the shooting in weekends and we had Monday
to finish it: I did 4 hours editing and the rest of editing was done my Sammah which I was impressed because
when I came at lunch she removed the little mistakes in certain scenes. After that we tried to improve our film.
• So altogether our problem solving, time management and managing multiple takes improved especially for me
as I my partner was away and ill most of the time so I took most of the responsibilities and editing work. Yet at
the end as a group we did quite well and I was impressed with Sammah’s editing techniques. My problem
solving skill enhanced because when I was editing there was some scenes which were bit blurry pr shaky and
luckily I was able to cut certain scenes and put a different scene which came out really good since it was more
clear. And I had to revise for my mocks as well so I divided my time for re-shooting, editing and revising for my
mocks. I have improved a lot for my time management; last year my time management was a disadvantage for
me because it affected my work in a negative way as I was rushing and was doing late work. But this year for
editing and filming I didn’t had this issue I couldn’t compromise the free time I had so whenever I was free I
would call my actress to ask if she’s available and whenever it was possible I would go and re-shoot some
scenes we had to improve.

6. • Before using the final cut pro I used YouTube to search on how to
use final cut pro but I was quite anxious because like I wasn’t
experienced with DSLR camera , It was my first time to use the
final cut pro by myself but my mentor helped me also helped
which didn’t helped me at all. Due to panicking I lost my courage
to try out the final cut pro but at the 2nd day of the editing my
friend Geneva who’s an expert in final cut pro and DSLR camera
explained to me how to use certain parts , when , how and why
not to use it. After that I became really good with using final cut
pro and I began to edit our film perfectly such as where and when
to add silence, music, remove particular scenes, how to add black
and white effects.
• Whenever it was Sammah’ s turn to do shooting I used that
opportunity to see other people using effects in final cut pro which
helped to add the transitions, cross fading effects. On the other
hand as I was more experienced and skilled with using final cut pro
it really aided me on my last editing day as I finished the most of
the editing part of our film in 4 hours and the rest were done my
Sammah. Now If I were to go another short film I believe I will be
able to finish the editing by one week.

7. • Film magazine review was done by Sammah and the film poster was done by me.
For film poster we had to use Photoshop which was an application I was already
knew how to use it. Photoshop is my favourite technology because last year when I
was doing my magazine I had to add effects and changes to the images. So this year
I enjoyed doing my poster on Photoshop because I love using Photoshop as I use it
edit images and it was for me to try out layouts with Photoshop. Photoshop is a
comfortable and simple technology to use for images and because I knew where
and what tools to use I was more comfortable using Photoshop for editing my print
product than any other technologies.
• However before doing the actual poster I tried editing the images i.e. I wanted to
see whether adding brightness, contrast, more saturation would make the image
more darker or not but while I was experimenting with Photoshop tools I realized
the main image I intend to use would lose its natural beauty of it so I left the main
image in the poster without changing anything. Hence I didn’t have to use any
effects or change anything for the image to make it perfect. Since I didn’t do the
film magazine review I would still agree with my last year view of Indesign: when I
was doing the magazine page I had troubles with adding boxes and colours with
fonts in Indesign, It wasted my time.
• The main trouble I had was making the image bigger and there were more than
one tool in Indesign to do that which created more perplexity for me in
understanding how to use Indesign effectively. But my partner wanted to do the
film magazine review so I agreed to do the film poster. But In some parts of it I had
to help out my partner since she struggled with font’s type and effects which I
knew how to do it as I had the same issue last year.

8. • For presenting free applications I have used prezi, slideshare, time
toast, Emaze, vlog, YouTube, blogger, whts up, blogger and
instagram. For the evaluation questions I’m going to use Emaze,
Prezi, YouTube ,vlog and slide share. For most of my presentation
work I have used Prezi, Emaze, whts up and YouTube. I find more
comfortable in using Prezi as I used it last year more often. Prezi is
an easy technology to use in terms of having and using all the
features together (it’s less time consuming), it makes it easier for
me use all the features together. I have used Emaze once only but
Emaze is beautiful when it comes to showing & using your creativity
+ initiative in a different.
• Using blogger I have developed my web design skills: Last year I
wasn’t sure on how to blog properly as it was my first time but this
year I blogged every week in relating to my final film, film poster ,
audience review and film magazine review. I’m now more
experienced with blogging than I was before. Leyton media hub has
also helped me as I had the opportunity to look at other people’s
blog for their work, blogging skills and so on. For my evaluation
questions I had to use a book called ‘Key ideas in media’ by Mike
Edwards which I borrowed it from the library. Which really helped
me to do my question 1 and other questions and in return I didn’t
had to look at other people’s blog for how they answered their
evaluation questions. I haven’t used wix, spider scribe or Glogster,
podcast before as I’m not comfortable in using them.

9. • For research and planning I used time toast for scheduling deadlines,
meeting deadlines and prepare for next assignment and the BBC
weather website to check the weather update whether it’s bright
sunny weather or not. Whts up helped us more with our group
conversion to discuss our plans, ideas and problem solutions. Also
whts up helped us with audience feedback for film poster which
helped me to change my ideas for the poster in terms of which font to
use.
• On YouTube I uploaded my audience feedback for my film review and
print products , I have youtubed my vlogs on my blogger which made
my blog more visually more exciting to read. Prezi was used to present
my case studies as I thought it would be more interesting to use prezi
for case studies since its lot of written work.
• Slide share was used for film magazine review and film poster case
studies which again helped to condense down the amount of written
work for my readers to understand the link between the print
products of ours and the case studies. All these technologies vastly
improved and demonstrate my research & planning visually in an
effectual way. For audience feedback I have used blogger, vlog, whts
up and instragram. Instragram is famous for its photo sharing app
hence I was able to display my film poster and film magazine review to
audiences.

10. Since I’m really experienced with blogging, it has now
become a part of my hobby and therefore I love
blogging now. And vloging makes it more fascinating
and pleasing to watch therefore I have used vlog as a
way of attracting my readers and to make it more
exciting for my film, film poster and film magazine
review.
I have also used blogger for preparation of my tasks,
which tasks we should compete or not. At the end of
our film review I wrote a little evaluation it. I could
have use sound cloud or other technology but I didn’t
want to use application that I don’t know about it or
use it. I was happy with my chosen application rather
using application in order to increase my creativity. It’s
more about how you use the application in presenting
your work and how you want to present it.