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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.
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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.
Google
Google is the is the search engine what I use at home and
when I am not on the Macs. I feel that Google is the most
used search engine, therefore I feel that the information
found on it is reliable and results are found efficiently. These
two search engines were also available at any time because
the school pays for Safari and my parents pay for the
broadband at home.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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 through the media as hopefully, it will
get many public viewings.
I enjoyed using YouTube as it enabled me to investigate other short
films however a lot of the time it was blocked by the schools IT system
to prevent it being misused by younger years. This delayed my time
when I needed to use it – when this occurred I got on with other work
which needed doing. However this, of course, made my other tasks
take longer to complete.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.