Evaluation Question 4

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Question 4 How did you use digital technology?

• Holly Peacock

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Overview

• During the production, research and planning for
  our short film Ouroboros, we used various
  technologies in order to get the desired effect
  across to our audience and to feel satisfied with
  what we have produced. Without the use and access
  to certain technologies, we would not have been
  able to create our short film as many softwares
  etc allow us actually film it and edit it down so
  that its suitable to publish. Prior to the
  production of our film, I was unaware of how to
  use certain digital technology due to no prior
  experience, so they often tested my skills and we
  had to experiment a lot. Digital technology
  contributed largely to the overall result,
  allowing me to take advantage of them.
• The technologies that I used were
• Blogger
• Photoshop CS6
• InDesign CS6
• Google/The internet
• Youtube
• Final Cut Pro 7
• Garageband
• Microsoft word/printer
• Panasonic camera
• SoundCloud

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GarageBand
Without the availability of GarageBand our film
would seriously be lacking, as the programme had
almost any sound fit for any situation, which
once again allowed us to generate a certain
atmosphere when an audience view our film. It is
helpful because you are ensured that you are not
breaking copyright laws as everything you create
is your own and individual. Certain scenes that
we had filmed were poor in terms of sound, so we
were able to completely cover this up by creating
sounds and effects on the software. For example,
in the film where one of our friends gets killed,
she hits her head off a bathroom sink and we
created a realistic thud sound, which I believe
works incredibly well. I am
thankful for the chance to use it. We have
created not only sound effects and music but also
radio trailers entirely, audience feedback and so
on. The software was completely new to us, but
extremely easy to navigate and make ourselves
feel comfortable with, so we werent afraid to
experiment when it came down to it.
To the left hand side is a screenshot of the
production of our soundtrack to one of the
scenes. The many different tools such as the one
that enabled us to edit the sound levels was
effective because we were able to fade sounds in
and out when necessary, emphasising certain clips
of the film. I really could not fault GarageBand
in regards to my film because I think it was one
of the most beneficial software's that was
available to us due to its pure diversity and
range of sounds you had to work with. In
particular, we liked the Drones Machine 02
track as it created a very eerie atmosphere and
built up tension which was the desired effect for
us. Scenes appeared very boring until we added
sound effects and tracks, so
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Photoshop CS6
Photoshop was especially useful in the creation
of the ancillary tasks and other blog tasks, but
not so much for the film. I was able to create
and edit photographs we had taken to make them
look as professional as possible. The wide range
of tools enabled me to completely transform
pretty poorly taken photographs and make them to
how I wanted them to be. In my instance, I edited
a photograph of the mask that was frequently
featured in the film and contrasted the colours
in order for the majority of the poster to be
completely black, apart from the mask which
created an eerie feeling, just as we created in
the film itself. On the next
slide are some useful tools from Photoshop that
helped me create my film and ancillary tasks.
Here is a screenshot from the very early stages
of the process of me editing my images for
ancillary tasks. However, I decided to go against
actually using it because I believed it was very
poor and not professional looking.
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The mouse tool allowed me to click on different
parts of the file I was working on and also move
parts too. When you clicked on it, it took you
off the current tool you were using, so you could
prevent messing things up and using the wrong
tools
The selection tool allowed me to select certain
parts to crop or edit them. This was useful as it
was very neat and easy to use. I did this when
cropping certain images, such as my double page
spread image.
The magnetic lasso tool allowed me to effectively
crop images and remove backgrounds. This was less
time consuming that erasing and also less messy
than the magic background eraser. All you had to
do was click on the part you wanted to remove the
background from. Later on, you could edit the
image by refining the edges etc and make it
enhance the image afterwards.
This tool allows you to copy a colour of part of
an image or a creation youre working on. This
helped me a lot when I was creating the house
style of posters and double page spread.
The brush tool allowed me to edit my pictures
effectively. You can select a colour you want and
it will appear on your document when you click.
You can also change the size of the brush and the
transparency. This was helpful to me when
creating my ancillaries as when I was editing my
images it allowed me to fill in facial features
such as spots and blemishes etc, making my poster
have a more professional approach.
The eraser tool has various aspects (3) to it,
which allows you to do different things. For
example, the standard eraser allowed me to erase
small and minor details of images such as colour
etc, but I wouldnt recommend it. Moreover, there
was the magic eraser tool. This deleted the
background of a similar colour with one click,
however it can be a bit messy. Lastly, there is
also the choice of the background eraser tool
which meant that you can erase part of the
background with clicking, but it doesnt do it
all at once. These were useful with my images,
but I didnt use them as theyre very time
consuming.
This is the text tool which allows you to insert
text wherever you want and also gives you the
option to edit the size and colour. This was
useful to me when I was creating my masthead of
my magazine as it had various options allowing me
to experiment and find the right text that would
suit my magazine and its image. You can also
insert the text on different layers of the file
youre working on meaning it can stand out or
either be embedded.
This was the current colour swatch I was using.
It showed you what colours you could use, which
was easy as it only required one click to use it.
Moreover, it was useful when I was using text and
adding backgrounds onto different sections of
graphics I was putting onto my magazine as I used
it as a guide. It prevented mistakes from
happening which would have wasted a lot of time.
Not only this, but you can change the colour
youre using and this informs you when the colour
changes.
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Final Cut Pro 7
Final Cut Pro 7 is the software used to edit the
entirety of our short film. At times it was
extremely complex but we had some previous
practice with it prior to our actual short film
production. We were able to test out a few of the
tools and make ourselves comfortable with what it
does and how to utilise it as best as possible.
It is an extremely complex software to use as it
has so many different options for you to take. We
were able to place countless video clips from our
film and edit them by specifically using the
popular cutting tool, which allowed us to remove
any unnecessary and poor filming. It was really
useful to see everything put together because it
made our film production become much more
realistic instantly. This screen shot reflects
the opening scene of our film and the various
different clips we combined together to create
the full thing.
The programme also enabled us to finish the film
off nicely by adding ending and opening credits
and special effects such as cross dissolve for
both audio and visual. This gave the finishing
touch to the production and also made it look
much more free flowing and professional because
things didnt just jump from scene to scene.
Overall, I believe that it made me and my group
be more influenced and brought a lot of new ideas
to our heads with the use of so many tools
available, so we could really manipulate the
footage that we had filmed. Some of the lighting
in our film often appeared distorted or too dark,
reducing the quality of a whole scene, with the
use of effects and colour balance, we were able
to make a realistic looking light while creating
the proper setting we wanted without it looking
too edited. Our film has hugely benefitted from
having this software at hand.
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Google/The internet
The internet has been extremely useful to me as
it is generally the direct gateway for me to list
all my work and research during the planning
process of my film. We used Google excessively in
order to view other short films for inspiration,
learn the certain conventions which were needed
in order to make our film effective and appealing
to the target audience. We generated audience
feedback by publishing online questionnaires,
which proved to be a huge help in parts we were
slacking in. It worked as an external source in
order to link me to other websites and material
which I could use for my own work too. When we
struggled with various tools on Final Cut Pro,
the internet was always the first place we would
go to in order to find the answer because it was
trustworthy and offered various options.

• Blogger has played a huge part in the process of
  creating and planning our film as it is where
  generally all my work has been displayed and it
  has allowed me to organise it correctly. This is
  hugely beneficial as all work is online, meaning
  that it is easily accessible for me and all you
  need is internet access. Therefore, it doesnt
  mean I need to distribute my work from one

place to another, as I can access this on a
variety of devices. This supports David
Gauntletts theory that making is connecting,
allowing me to be more creative and share my work
with others. Not only this, but Blogger worked as
a useful guideline, as I was able to monitor the
progress from planning to finalisation and if I
had completed things by a certain time.
Furthermore, it was easily identifiable if I was
missing vital parts of work. It was also
beneficial due to the fact that you could still
edit posts after they have been published,
meaning that any mistakes and posts can be
altered whenever and wherever, properly
integrating web 2.0 and 3.0. I have used Blogger
to display different planning posts, theories and
specifically drafts of the film and ancillary
task productions. Another reason to why Blogger
was such a useful resource to me was due to the
fact that it is so compatible with almost any
other website and format. Using the embedding
tool, I added Youtube videos and pieces of work
from Prezi and Slideshare to fully express my
thoughts and the planning that I was going
through and integrate as much multimedia as
possible to my work. Without the use of blogger,
I believe that my work wouldnt have came out as
well as it did due to the fact that I wouldnt be
constantly updating and showing what I have
achieved from week to week. Youtube also was
extremely vital for my Advanced A2 Portfolio.
YouTube enabled us to upload various
audience feedback responses and general
progression of the finalisation of the film over
the time we were creating it. By uploading our
videos to Youtube, it meant that they were
compatible with most websites and easily
accessible once again, also supporting David
Gauntletts theory. This was also extremely
advantageous in the process of planning due to
the fact that we could view other peoples past
short films and get inspiration from genres which
resembled ours. It was by far one of the most
effective and efficient platforms that was used
throughout the process as it is an extremely easy
site to use and does exactly what we needed to
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in order to portray progress etc. It allows
people to be creative and share what they have
produced, utilising the internet in the best way
possible. This is where our final film has
actually been uploaded, so it is the ultimate
component.
SoundCloud was a useful device too, due to the
fact it was a free song hosting website where we
could upload material which we had made. For
example, we uploaded our ancillary radio trailer
clip onto there, where we could easily add it to
our blog by embedding it. You can make tracks
private if you wish too, so you dont have to
share it with the rest of the world if you dont
want to. This can prevent people taking it and
using it as their
own piece of work. I think this is a really great
website when storing and sharing sound files,
especially due to the fact that it is free. It
highly encourages prosumerism and creativity. The
fact that it uploads in high quality was useful
to us as we didnt lose any of the authentic
atmosphere we aimed to create from our radio
trailer.
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Hardware
To actually record and take stills of the film
production, we used a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200
camera which was incredibly high quality. There
was a range of tools such as zoom and different
settings depending on the scene we were filming
or capturing. We often used the portrait option
when taking pictures of characters and stills
because it focused on the most important part of
the persons face.
We were easily able to remove the SD card from
the camera and transfer footage and images as we
had completed them onto the Mac computers, so
everything was very transferrable and accessible
at all times. We often copied items over twice to
prevent them from deleting or us losing them and
completely having to redo them due to
technological glitches. We also used a Mac for
100 of the editing of the film. Final Cut Pro
was only accessible on certain Macs so we were
limited in that respect, but we were comfortable
with Macs and they are very reliable systems,
with the correct software that was needed to
create our film.