Charlie's Media Blog: Evaluation Q4

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

Software

My use of software has expanded greatly since AS, both in terms of the software that I use, and the way I use it. Final Cut Pro and Motion have been consistent, and though I haven't used Motion particularly effectively, the way in which I've utilised the features of Final Cut has changed dramatically. Where initially I was using mainly the Trim tool for editing, and the occasional fade to black, I have utilised at A2 the Blade tool, Crop function, Transform function, Ken Burns, Colour Match, Cross Fade, and various other productivity-enhancing features and shortcuts.

Entirely new to me was Photoshop, though I did have some experience in Illustrator and InDesign, both of which come from the same design package (Adobe) as Photoshop, so I had a rough idea of the layout. The learning curve was very steep due to time constraints and lack of base knowledge, but it was fascinating getting to know the ins and outs of the program, from editing the initial RAW photos to the final touches such as billing blocks and prices.

Hardware

At AS, our use of hardware on set was limited to basic lighting and the use of the Panasonic camera and tripod. This allowed us to employ a range of shots and experiment with lighting, but was ultimately a fairly straightforward way of going about things. We took ourselves further this year, using colour filters on large and small lights and using various methods of sound recording to try and ensure the quality of dialogue and diegetic sound. This required more commitment and organisation on set, but produced stronger raw footage than we had at AS.

Following the work on set, we had to use the microtrack to re-dub some of our dialogue, and this was something we were familiar with from our use in AS of a voice-over, recorded post-filming. We also had to use the SLR camera to take RAW images for the magazine cover – allowing use to fundamentally edit the photos to suit our needs.

Online

In terms of online work, we have used a far wider variety of websites and methods this year. Embedding from YouTube and Soundcloud, using blogs such as Art of the Title and InterTitles, and researching using IMDb, Wikipedia, and YouTube have all become integral parts of our use of the internet.

Blogger has remained central to the project, but has been accentuated by other social media such as Twitter and Facebook. These have allowed us to accumulate feedback on the trailer and ancillary tasks, as well as getting a closer look at our audience, and how we target our work in their direction.

Video analysis