EVALUATION
Question 4 A2 MEDIA STUDIES CLARA BARROSO
EVALUATION
Question 4
HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
I
have used wordpress to show all my coursework tasks for my A2 media studies coursework. The good thing about wordpress is that you have many different ways of presenting your work. Especially the fact that I wanted my blog posts to stand out from one another. That was the beauty of using wordpress and the freedom to present your work in many ways, showing your technical skills through ways of representing your work (with boundaries). Sometimes, showing my research or planning through simple block of text on a blog post, is usually the best way, as you can also show your work through different uses of new media technologies that would make my blog post more interesting to read and to reach to the target audience to read about my research and planning before they reach out to the three production tasks. Some of the new media technology and softwares that I used along this course was either taught by myself with the use of books and the internet or it would either be taught by the teacher. However, I was always very interested to learn more about the softwares that I was provided with and learning by myself different tools from that specific software, that I knew it would help me to use further on when it came to the time of starting to create the three production tasks. Within the use of using wordpress
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EVALUATION- QUESTION 4
as my blog platform, I was able to embed video that would inspire me or videos that I would upload myself onto YouTube to be as part of a particular blog post. Not just this, but I was also able to upload PDF’s into Issuu (company to upload digital content) and I was also able to upload any Word or PowerPoint documents onto SlideShare and then embed all these files onto a blog post as part of my coursework. I used all these different websites to upload the majority of my research and planning blog posts. And from all these websites, my most viewed posts would have to be on YouTube, especially as YouTube being known as the creators website, where people can upload their content onto a Youtube channel. However on the other hand, many people do also take the advantage of Youtube, not being aware of the content their posting and not thinking that it could harm or make a viewer sensitive. Most of my blog posts are done as a video, which then I would post onto YouTube. I have also gained my inspiration to create my short film, from viewing different short films on this same platform. So I felt the need of uploading my final short film onto YouTube, as it can potentially help anyone in the future that needs ideas for short film. I also uploaded my final short film onto Vimeo, where is similar to YouTube, however the
uploaded version of my short film seems more professional looking and is in a category of being under as a short film. But when it came to upload or embed videos into a blog post, I would mainy use YouTube, as it’s easier with the unlimited amount of video storage you can upload onto it. For most of my research and planning, I used a variety of different softwares, such as : slideshare, google docs, and Powerpoint. Or I would just simply use the plain text onto wordpress blog posts. Slideshare would allow me to upload any information that I would want to be presented from a PowerPoint. It was an easy software to represent my research or planning towards my production tasks. Showing all my work on PowerPoint would allow me to represent all my raw work and information in very different styles. I was very proud with all the work that I have published using different softwares and platforms, showing all my skills that I have with different softwares. While I was watching other final products and getting inspired by them, I noticed that the quality of other final products, were not as sharp and clear and also not the highest quality. Some of them, the quality would go up to 240p/ 360p. However, while I was shooting and the final outcome of my raw footage is 1080p. The good thing now is that you can create your own short film or shoot something in good quality, it’s affordable and easier than never.
QUESTION 4 While I was shooting, all the equipment that I was shooting with belonged to me. I took all my equipment with me whilst I was travelling to Portugal. I used a Canon EOS 700D DSLR body camera, with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens(if I wanted to capture close ups with great depth of field and good shallow focus between the shots. I also used a Canon 18-55mm f/3.4 lens (if I wanted to capture shots with a weaker depth of field and and more into long shot or extreme long shot). With all this equipment, I knew I was able to create a high quality short film. Therefore I also used my photography skills to always shoot on manual, as I am already used to control the camera by myself rather than the camera focusing by automatic settings. As
I was always shooting on manual, I always had to be aware if the subject matter for thar specific shot was focused, if I was using the right ISO (shutter speed) speed settings, right aperture and also the colour balance with the white tones and making sure if the shot was on the right exposure. With today’s technologies, we are able to record for hours and anything we wish whlisback in time it was all limited. This is another reason, why I took extra equipment with me to shoot. I took 5 extra batteries, so I could be shooting for long hours and also took 2 different SD cards to store all my raw footage. I took SD Extreme 32GB and SD Extreme 16GB, these would allow me to store all my raw footage in the highest quality as possible. With this extra equipment
and my hard drive, I was able to store everything more than once and not be worried about losing raw footage that I shot in Portugal. Another good thing about DSLR camera is the FPS (frames per second) which allowed me to give the cinematic look to the footage that I was filming while I was shooting on 24 frames per second. I decided to shoot on this setting as it’s the one setting that allows me to be working on higher resolution with a softness on the screen with a good standard of frames being shot per second. Shooting within this criteria, would help me while I would be editing my short film, especially if there would be any slow motion that I would want to add onto a specific shot that I shooted in raw.
QUESTION 4 -EVALUATION
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EVALUATION- QUESTION4 One of the reason why I wanted to shoot mainly my whole short film with my aperture lens (which are my Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens) is because of the shallow focus look in the background, making it easier for the the target audience to identify the subject matter within the shot filmed or used. And also the experimentation that I gained throughout the whole shooting schedule especially on creating cinematic shot by looking soft or crisp especially if I either filming a person or a specific object that I wanted to be focused on by using a great depth of field on the screen. I also used filter accessories for my other pair of lenses, as it would give extra colour to the shot I filming. I would mainly use these while shooting a long shot, extreme long shot, mid shot or even if I was filming landscape. By using these filters it would help to colour correct the shot if needed while editing the short film. There would be shot that I would film as hand held shot, despite the fact that I would know the shot that I was filming would look shaky. But in some other shots, I also used my own steadicam, which allowed me to shoot more of a still shot with no shaky camera movement.
“USING DIFFERENT SOFTWARES
ALLOWED ME TO SHOW OFF
MY SKILLS THROUGHOUT
THIS MEDIA COURSE.” When it come to start working on my post-production side of my production work, I used a variety of different Adobe softwares: Lightroom: I only used this software to mainly edit my photography. I would add filters and adjust the
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EVALUATION- QUESTION 4
settings on the images to make it stand out and to make the raw photograph different from the final edited photograph. I have decided to do use this software to edit my photography for my film poster main image and also all the photography that is displayed on my double page spread magazine article review. Using this software helped me to understand the different stages of editing an image and all the different adjustments on the image. Whilst I was editing, I was keeping in mind that all photography that I was editing and that would be used on my final productions, I would not want it to be heavily edited or filled with too many colours that dont even appear on the raw photograph. In fact, I wanted to keep my images with a very natural and real look, as all my photography were based outdoors. Photoshop: I used this software for the majority of my production work. I used Photoshop to edit all my photography, to remove unnecessary bits that were visible on the photograph. I used all my skills on photoshop to create my drafts for my film poster and also retouching and redesigning my final film poster. As I wanted to do a landscape version of my film poster but i didn’t take and image as a landscape mode while I was in Portugal capturing the portrait version of my film poster image. I used Photoshop to present my skills and my knowledge I have for editing the same image but into landscape to create my my landscape film poster. Indesign: I have used this software, to design my double page
spread magazine article drafts along as developing my ideas and receiving feedback from my article drafts to go back and re-use this software to create the final magazine article. I have also used this software to simply place my final film poster and export it as a PDF, so it can be published onto Issuu and embedded onto my blog. I have also used this software to create each individual magazine evaluation question and the separate evaluation magazine pack with all the questions on it. Using this software was not hard, as I used Indesign on my AS media studies coursework to create my R&B music magazine. So I just used my skills from last year to develop and create new evaluation magazines using the same software. Premiere: Out of the whole Adobe pack softwares that I’ve used. This is the one software that I spent more time on. This software was the one that I was able to use to create videos, to show my research and planning and get used to use the software as it would be the programme that I would be using to create my short film. On this software, I was able to create all my drafts and export them, having the audience feedback and going back to the saved file to edit unit I was happy with my final production for my short film. Doing all my moving image work on this software, allowed once the video is exported to upload onto social platforms, which YouTube and Vimeo, where I wanted to present my short film along being embedded into my wordpress blog for my A2 coursework.