EVALUATION QUESTION 4 A2 Media Studies

HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES? Whilst constructing, researching, planning and evaluating my media products I used both physical and digital technologies. Physical technologies are pieces of equipment we used throughout the process, where as digital technology are things such as computer software and social media. This PowerPoint will explain how I used each digital and physical technology whilst creating my film trailer and ancillary tasks.

CAM-CORDER To film our media trailer we used Millie’s family cam-corder. The school has video cameras you can book out but these don’t produce a great quality shot, which Millie and I wanted to ensure to make our trailer look as professional as possible. Millie’s family camera was also used to take the pictures we wanted for our Ancillary Tasks, as again this was better quality than either of our iPhones’ cameras.

The camera had two different lenses, one more zoomed than the other. We used both lenses whilst filming, mainly using the more zoomed lens for close-up shots, which unintentionally gave us a almost soft looking shot as it was ever so slightly out of focus. However, Millie and I believed this added to the trailer as it created a warm and romantic feel to the shots.

PHYSICAL TECHNOLOGIES

IPHONE 6SI used my iPhone 6s in many ways throughout the process of creating, researching and producing my media product. I used my phone to research different film trailers in order to find typical connotations of a Social Realist film, and then made notes either in my textbook or on my blog. I also used my phone to ask my friends to answer a questionnaire on my initial ideas as I could easily contact them in a group chat rather than having to ask them all individually.

I also used my phone to take location shots of where we filmed so I could then evaluate them later on my blog. It was easier to use my phone, rather than the large camera we filmed with, because it meant I could take the photos without needing to get the video camera off Millie.

APPLE MACBOOK PROTo edit mine and Millie’s footage we used a software called iMovie which is only available on Apple products, which we luckily had access to in the school. However, when it came to the Christmas holidays Millie and I really wanted to get the editing done, so we used my mums MacBook which we then downloaded iMovie onto. This enabled us to edit throughout the holidays and get ahead on the whole process.

We also had to use a SD Card adapter to get the footage off the video camera and onto the laptop. We had originally rented one from the library at school but these are known to be temperamental so after trying the school one a couple of times we asked a friend to use his personal one which was a lot more reliable. Millie picked the SD Card up from our friends on the way to mine and we then managed up upload all the footage onto the MacBook.

DELL LAPTOP As well as my iPhone, I also used my laptop to complete a lot of research and create the majority of my blog posts. Using my laptop to do the majority of my work, along with my phone, meant that I was able to edit and complete work whenever I had a free moment and during my free periods at school, as I regularly took my laptop into school with me for reasons like this.

My laptop also featured in the trailer itself, as Millie and I wanted a shot of our protagonist Alice scrolling through ‘hate’ on social media. We chose to use my laptop over Millie’s as my keyboard lit up and this was really effective as the shot was filmed in the dark room at school, so this lighting really added to the shot and gave it more depth. The light also reflected onto Alice’s face which enriched the image of Alice being isolated and lonely.

RECORDING STUDIO AND EQUIPMENT

Since Millie and I wanted to record our own version of Sam Smith’s ‘Leave Your Lover’ we had to use the schools recording studio to do so. This process took a lot longer than we hoped it would because the recording studio was out of action for a while. So Millie and I improvised and brought in Millie’s microphone from home and recorded it using the software, Logic Pro, they have at school but with our own mic. We also wanted to include a piano part which we asked our friend Molly Grant to play and we organised to use Miss Staten’s electric piano, which enabled us to achieve a smooth and natural sound. After a couple practise runs, Millie and I managed to record the whole thing through and after we were…

…happy with the recording of the base line, we then decided to add harmonies. We added two more melody lines, one with myself singing harmonies and another with Millie. We then placed these all together, and made sure they were all in the same timings, using the software Logic Pro.

RECORDING STUDIO AND EQUIPMENT CONTINUED

RECORDING STUDIO AND EQUIPMENT CONTINUED

When we first started practising Millie and I realised we needed to transpose the chords Molly had in order for us to reach the lower notes, as Sam Smith has a much lower vocal range than Millie and myself. So we used the transpose button on the piano (shown above) to find the correct key we needed.

We also had to use this headphone adapter so that both Millie and I could hear the melody line whilst recording our individual harmonies over the top.

IPAD During some of the time we were organising filming and filming the trailer itself, I unfortunately had a broken phone. This meant that I had to use my iPad in order to keep in contact with Millie, Ann and Flo, this was surprisingly harder than I thought as my iPad only worked on Wi-Fi and not mobile data. This resulted in Millie and I having to plan further ahead than normal, as it wasn’t certain that I would receive the messages straight away.

I also used my iPad for research purposes, as it is a lot easier to carry around rather than my laptop. I completed all my research for my Ancillary Tasks on my iPad whilst in free periods at school, this meant that I had more time to focus on the editing of our film trailer when at home.

SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook

TwitterMillie and I used Facebook in order to contact Ann and Flo in a group chat, as it makes deciding dates and times a lot easier. Another options would’ve been iMessage, however not all of us had an Apple phone, so this wasn’t possible.

We used Twitter to create online profiles for each of our characters, as well as some extras we made up. The use of social media added to the realism of the trailer, as in real life social media is unfortunately widely used for bullying.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTINUEDYouTubeWe used YouTube in order to upload our first draft and our final draft of our film trailer, which we could then embed into our individual blogs. This allowed us to evaluate our first draft and publically say what we needed to add and improve. When uploading our first draft we had used the Sam Smith song ‘Leave your Lover’ as the soundtrack, when we uploaded it onto YouTube and watched it for the first time we realised that the music had bee cut for copyright reasons. So Millie and I then decided to record the song ourselves.

BLOGGER Blogger was a major part of my Media Studies Coursework as it was the website which we kept our on-going blogs on. This was great because we could access it from school, at home and it even had an App on the App Store that I had downloaded at the beginning of the year which allowed me to blog on the go. I used Blogger last year for my coursework so I was familiar with the way it worked, which saved me time and meant I could get straight on blogging.

SLIDESHARE Slideshare is an online website which allows you to upload PowerPoints which you have made. This is extremely helpful as I can then embed the PowerPoints into my blog posts and I will gain credit for using multi-media within my blog. You can also upload many other documents to Slideshare, such as a PDF file, a video and a word document. This gives me a wide choice in how to present my work and my blog, which is important to gain the higher marks.

IMDBI used IMDB in order to collect information on the takings films made, the genres they were classed as, the key actors and actresses they had casted and much more. All of which I have included in my research throughout this coursework. IMDB always up to date which helps is very important to my coursework as part of the Media Studies A-Level is looking at contemporary media, so having facts and figures which are current and correct is vital.

ONLINE GIF CREATOR

While creating our production logo gif, Millie and I had to use two different online creators. This was because the first one (imgFlip) we used put a watermark on the bottom right an side of the logo and this gave an unprofessional finish so Millie and I then searched around for another website which didn’t add a watermark (GIFMaker.me). This took a while to try do as we had to upload each image separately to every website and the chose the correct speed we wanted them to play at. However, this was worth the time and effort as we were left with a much more professional looking production logo which Millie and I were more satisfied with.

DA-FONT Whilst creating our production logo and choosing the font for the title ‘LovingYou’ when appearing at the end of our trailer, we used the website DaFont. This website has a very wide range of fonts to choose from which all fall under different categories. When choosing the font for the production logo, we needed something which was bold and stood out as the space for the text was rather small, so we need to make sure the audience could read the name ‘Three Strikes’ clearly. We finally decided on the font ‘Pirulen’ as it was simple and wouldn’t draw attention away from the animation of the logo.

After Millie and I had finished editing our film trailer we then needed to add the title of our film to the end of it. So we again headed to DaFont to find once we wanted. For this title we chose a handwritten font called ‘Colors of Autumn’ as this was close to what we found we liked when we both individually researched into other similar film titles.

IMOVIE iMovie was one of the key elements to creating our film trailer, we used this software to edit our clips, put them together and then add our soundtrack. We used iMovie as we were able to access it both at home and at school, as my mum had the software on her Apple MacBook and this meant we had more chances to work on it, such as weekends and over the Christmas holidays. iMovie is also very simple to use and navigate. It also helped that Millie and I had used it together in Year 12 to create our ‘film opening’ for last years coursework, so we knew how a lot of things worked but if not we always had the support of our teachers who were happy to help.