Arguably the most important new media technology we used in our production was the camera. The camera we used was given to us by the school drama department, who gave us the camera over multiple weekend periods. This meant we had the opportunity to film, make adjustments and re-film parts of our production at a later date, without issues of continuity. Our access to a high quality HD camera meant we had the ability to film footage of a more professional quality, allowing us to access to all our desired camera shots, angles and movements. The camera also had the capability to be used with other technologies or be used by itself, meaning we could access a variety of different techniques, such as tracks and still shots through use of a tripod as well as hand held shots using the hand strap to access shots such as POV shots and over the shoulder shots. Shots with the tripod had the ability to be adjusted to create a variety of effects, such as lowering to create a high angle shot and emphasise our antagonist's dominance, as well as tilting the camera to create a canted shot, symbolising the obscurity and distortion of our production and the antagonist.
The reason for the inclusion of hand-held shots, which appear less professional than shots with the tripod is to promote realism in our production with a more natural appearing choice of shot. Furthermore, we focused the hand held shots on our antagonist while still masking his identity, promoting the fact he is human, much like members of the audience and emphasising the fact any normal person could be capable of such crimes. The camera has also been used throughout the creation of my blog, with a Canon camera being used to film our initial pitch, as well as creating our film draft.
Photoshop
There were many issues i found when first using Photoshop because it is software I was not familiar with. This meant it was vital that we created film posters and magazine covers for our AS production because it gave me experience with Photoshop and also enabled me to get feedback on improvements that could have been made when i created my A2 poster and magazine cover. Photoshop introduced me to a range of different tools, such as the magic wand tool and eraser tool, which I used to cut out the antagonist for my magazine front cover. I was also introduced to a range of different fonts, which gave different poster connotations as well as tools such as the gradient tool and "bevel and emboss" tool, which gave my poster and magazine cover more professional fonts. Furthermore, Photoshop allowed me to change the contrast and brightness of my film poster image, making it appear more dark and also increase the quality of the image by adding a "high pass" effect to a duplicated overlay layer of my photo.
iPhone
My iPhone and also the iPhones of everyone involved in the production of our film were used in a variety of different ways at various stages in production. For example, throughout our planning stage I used the iPhone HD camera to take still shots, such as the shots from my settings post and the images used in my magazine cover and film poster. I also used my iPhone to access the internet, allowing me to watch other trailers as well as search up other magazine covers and posters for inspiration and research into conventions. Our iPhones were also key for communication because we used messaging on iMessage and Facebook Messenger to organise our production without repeated need of call sheets. iPhones were specifically useful for communication because we could contact anybody at any point if any information needed to be updated or changed. Finally, we also used the iPhone voice recording software to record all of our voice overs. We then had the ability to import the voice over clips quickly and easily.iTunes
We only used iTunes briefly in production, however it still played a key role. We uploaded the sound clips we had taken, such as the match strike and voice over clips to iTunes so that we could import them directly to iMovie. This saved us time because we could access the sound clips directly on the same platform.
iMovie/MacBook
All of the editing carried out for our A2 production was done using Aaron's MacBook and iMovie. The reason we chose iMovie is because at AS I used Adobe Premier Pro and had difficulty becoming familiar with the software. In comparison, iMovie is an Apple product, much like my iPhone, which I use every day, meaning getting to grips with the layout and editing tools was much easier. The software allowed us to edit in a variety of ways, such as layering multiple layers of sound and providing us with free effects and music from the iCloud Music Library. We were also able to use a variety of different audio and visual effects in our production, such as the sepia visual effect and thunder audio effect. Furthermore, we had access to tools such as the cutting tool, for trimming clips, film titles and also the slow motion tool, used in our knife drop scene. We made our film using the timeline feature of iMovie. This allowed us to move clips to their desired location as well as having the ability to layer the sound. This gave our production a more crisp and clinical final outcome because we could make minor corrections easily to ensure the film was fluid and there was no clash of sound.Blogger
Blogger has been a very easy to use, simple website to create my blog on. One of the key reasons I have enjoyed using blogger is the ability to access it on different media platforms, such as my iPhone and also the school computers. This means I was able to work on blog posts at any point in time and allowed me to stay on top of coursework. Furthermore, I was able to gain feedback on my blog from both teachers and peers as they had quick access to my blog by searching in the URL.Bubbl.us
Bubbl.us is a mind map creator which I used in the planning stage of my production. The software allows you to create 3 free mind maps before paying for the software and is very easy to use. This meant we could quickly design storyboards and develop our plot.
Social Media
There were many uses for social media in my media production, such as communications and also promoting awareness for our film. As already covered in one of my posts, we used Facebook to create a page for our A2 film and had the ability to inform our audience on the film's progress and also acted as a location where our friends and family could view our film draft to give us feedback and suggest improvements.
Powerpoint/Word
Powerpoint was used in my production when designing our initial plot and a Powerpoint presentation was designed for our initial ideas pitch. I am very experienced with Powerpoint so the creation of our slides to go along with our pitch was very quick and easy to create. I also imported any screen grabs I took into Powerpoint because I had the ability to crop them and save them as an image from Powerpoint because the cropping tool was not available in Blogger. Furthermore, before I was aware I could type posts directly to Blogger, I made my posts in Word and copied the work over.
YouTube
I am very familiar with Youtube because I regularly watch YouTube videos and posted my AS film to YouTube. This meant I had the ability to access other film trailers for my research and planning stage from YouTube and also is where our completed presentation was posted to after completion. This was very useful because it could be viewed by our teachers and examined with ease.
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