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

With my soap trailer this year, I have used a much wider range of technology than I used in my foundation portfolio, the screenshot above shows the flower scene being edited on Final Cut Pro X. The top left of the screenshot shows all the .wav audio files I used in my trailer, this included the voiceovers and sound effects. On the top bar, the .mp3 file of our song is highlighted as it had just been dragged and included in the project, this had to be exported via a memory stick from a standard windows XP PC, this required some file conversion from .wmv , by extracting the black screen and just using the audio file.      

This image shows the most complex use of the functionality available in Final Cut Pro, you can see 3 ovals on the preview box, the outside oval is used to change the lighting effects, the second circle effects the hue/ saturation levels and the inside circle is for the brightness. With some adjustments and some video effects such as the hard lighting colour preset,I was able to choose and customise my final colour correction for the final render and the completed copy. It also shows footage recorded from the Sony HD camera, this allowed us to have full 1080p footage to record and edit with, this made post-production much easier and allowed a more professional final piece.

The above clip showcases the use of title creation in Final Cut Pro X. I had some prior experience at using titles and transitions from both last years coursework in the foundation portfolio by using Adobe Premier Pro, I also have a large amount of experience using the editing programme Pinnacle Studios 14. With this knowledge, I was able to manipulate the title to insert my own texts and fonts. With my understanding of colour correction, I was also able to change the saturation and gives the title more of an edgy and modern feel, as opposed to the standard red, I went for a contrasted yellow with a red hue. I also used some time manipulation on this title sequence to ensure it was in synchronisation with the audio overlay.

The above image shows the Sony HD camera we used to film our production. This used an SD card which made capturing and adding the clips to the time line very simple, as oppose to the Canon standard definition camera which used tapes last year, the footage had to be extracted from the tapes and converted into a.WMV file, this lowered the quality of the clips which in turn, lowered the overall quality of the final production. With the HD Sony camera, I was able to record in 1080p, I was then able to directly extract these files onto a memory stick, which let me edit the clips in full quality and also render them with good colour correction, which allowed for a more professional and authentic final piece.

For the planning of the production, I used Youtube to watch and analyse previous soap trailers from previous the BBC youtube channel, this allowed me to take conventions from the trailers which I could then use as inspiration for my soap, I have some previous posts on this blog with evidence of this, I also used Youtube to upload my final productions, this allowed me to get another medium of feedback and evaluation from the web 2.0. Getting the full advantage of Web 2.0 has allowed me to produce an authentic and realistic products. It has most greatly benefited the evaluation and planning, as mentioned in the Audience Feedback evaluation task.

I also used Microsoft Office to an extent for my panning and evaluating. I used Microsoft Word to create a list of aims for my films, as well as a time scale with the planned finish times for each stage of the production, I also use Word to write scripts for my evaluation tasks and have also used it to spell-check and grammar check my blog posts. 

The digital camera we used for location photos and concepts was the Fujifilm finepix S5800. This was an 8 Megapixel camera with a 10x optical zoom, this allowed for high quality location photos and gave us a good concept of our filming location.


Excel was used for my questionnaire feedback, I produced an excel spreadsheet displaying my results, this allowed me to see what aspects of the trailer needed to be changed in the form of a graph, it made the results more coherent and easier to indicate the weaker areas of the trailer, I go into more detail with this in my Audience Feedback post. 

 

Finally, I used photoshop to produce both of my ancillary texts. I explored the use of blending options and partial glows on texts and images with my TV Listings magazine. Photoshop was very useful in the construction stage as it has a wide array of tools and editing effects such as crops, glows, shadowing, tiling etc which allow a wider range and more diverse design for the ancillary texts as opposed to using a simpler programme such as Publisher. My skills in Photoshop have greatly developed over this advanced portfolio as I had to be more creative with my poster and TV listings magazine, this is because all my own images had to be used, in the foundation portfolio, we were allowed to use third party images for posters, taking our own photos on the HD canon cam allowed for more freedom with the storylines and images as we could plan what is in the camera shot, as we used our own pictures they would have a direct link as they were taken purely for the purpose of the magazine front cover. With my poster, I used a screengrab from youtube of my production and added text layers and some shadowing to the image, this created synergy as the final production and the ancillary texts all had similar construction components and a running theme. 

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