EVALUATION QUESTION 4 - Technologies

"How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?"

Throughout this entire year we have used different kinds of software and hardware to work with.

The software are all the programs that we used to create our film and to work together, whereas hardware are the actual computers, cameras and technologies we have used.

Hardware:

Camera - SONY A58

During this year, we have used a SONY A58 camera, together with other tools. 

Before starting the media course this year, I had already had some experience with a Canon EOS Camera. I have always been interested in photography and filming. When I was younger, I used to create some small films, using iMovie, with recordings I had done during a vacation for example. 

Due to this, I already knew how to use the different aspects of this camera. The SONY A58, films in a very good quality and therefore it allowed us to play around with focus, when for example creating a deep focus when filming the matches in the church.

As you can see in this screenshot, it is very focused on the candles and the light. We did these close-ups of candles and matches to denote her religious character. 

SD Card

During this entire year, we used Bronwen's 8GB SD Card.
After some guidance, I became very confident on how to transfer data from this to my MacBook.
The one thing I would change for next year, would be to firstly have an extra SD card with us everytime or an SD card with a much bigger amount of GB. During filming we experienced that there wasn't anymore space on the SD card a lot of times so that we always had to put it on my MacBook or Jon's before being able to continue filming. This really took away a lot of time that we could have spent on filming instead. Furthermore, I would for next year always double save the footage by using a portable hardrive, rather than just saving the footage on the MacBook.

Tripod

The tripod is a very simple but vital piece of equipment when filming. It allows the shots to be steady rather than having shaky footage throughout your film. At the beginning of the year we had an unsteady Cullmann CB6 Tripod, which wasn't very good, because it didn't keep the camera still. Whereas in December, we got new Tripods delivered to our school, called Mantona Scout. These were much better and were therefore the ones that we used for the rest of the year. 

It wasn't difficult to use and therefore I quickly got the understanding of how to use it. There were a few shots, such as the killer observing Bronwen from behind the wall in a final scene, where we filmed hand-held rather than using the tripod. However, this was only done to denote that it was the killer's point of view.

Fujitsu PC

Throughout this year I have taken a multiplatform approach using Windows PC's, Smartphones and my MacBook. At the beginning of the year I used the Fujitsu PC's that we have available in school. I didn't have my laptop yet and so I did my research and editing of preliminary exercises with this computer. We did not have Final Cut Pro X on the Fujitsu computers, so we used Pinnacle to edit our preliminary exercises. 

Smartphone

For this coursework I have used my iPhone 6 and my previous iPhone 5 to film audience feedback in the class and communicate with Bronwen and Jonathan over Facebook and E-Mail. The audience feedback didn't have to be high quality, and therefore a smartphone was enough to record this with. Furthermore, I used my iPhone to record a video with max, who created our soundtrack together with me. He explained, which programs he used, since he has a lot of experience with producing music.

When explaining the software we used further down, I will embed the video I recorded of him. 

MacBook Retina

Throughout this year, I have used my MacBook Retina, to work on in class. At the beginning of the year, I did not have my laptop yet, so I worked on the Fujitsu PC's that we have available in school. By having done a multiplatform approach, I  achieved a portable workflow with the use of my Mac. 

I have used several programs and websites on it, such as Final Cut Pro X, which I will be discussing in the software part. 

Software: 

Soundcloud

I used soundcloud, to create some of my podcasts for my Evaluation Questions and end of year summaries. It was very easy to record and upload a podcast, since souncloud has a function, where you can record on their website. I thought, it wouldn't be a good quality, because of the fact that it needs to record over the built-in microphones. However, I decided to try it out and it ended up recording a good voice quality. Below you can see a quick screen recording of how to upload something to soundcloud. 

Facebook 

We used Facebook, where we had created a group chat "AS Media" at the beginning of the schoolyear. This chat has been very useful to plan and agree on when and where we are meeting, share information, send each other YouTube links and ask any questions that any one was insecure about. 

Google Drive

Next to Facebook, we also used Google Drive quite a lot, where we created a shared drive, in which we uploaded our pitches and some of the footage that we needed to share. This was very useful for us, since sometime someone within our group  was sick and had all the footage or videos that the other ones were then not able to use. Therefore we decided at some point to create this drive so that we would all have the same footage and not get any difficulties if someone was sick. 

YouTube 

At the beginning of the year, we all created our individual YouTube Channel. I named mine Sophie's Channel, where I have uploaded all of my work such as Rough Cuts, Screen Recordings, Audience  Feedback etc. Creating a YouTube channel, allowed us to quickly embed videos onto our blogs, rather than uploading a video by using blogger's "insert a video" button. 

Final Cut Pro X

This software is what we have used to edit our entire coursework. As mentioned before, I had worked a bit with iMovie before so I knew a bit about editing already. However, I had never used Final Cut Pro X yet, so it took me a bit to figure out the many different tools of this software programme.

Ofcourse I had to start somewhere and therefore I started with the basic tools, such as the blade, range selection, zoom and other select tools.
To make it quicker to use the tools rather than the mouse, I learned to use the keys, such as for example "B", which moved you to the blade tool.

After having mastered the basic tools such as the ones you can see in the picture on the left I moves on to more complex tools so that I could  do a lot more when editing. I learned about working with special effects, sound effects and adding titles.

In our movie we have for example worked with special effects such as the one called "Bad TV", which we used in the beginning of the basement scene so that it would look more creepy. The Bad TV effect was actually inspired from movies such as "Poltergeist" and "Saw". Especially in our rough cut scene in the basement, where we had used a red lighting this effect looked good and made the scene appear more ominous.


We also used another effect such as the "Blue Tint" for the final scene, which I edited. We had a few shots where there had been a natural blue lighting because of the street lights in the area we were filming in. I decided to use the blue tint, so that it would be around the same lighting in every shot and that the tension would be kept throughout.


I decided to create a screen recording of how to use the basic tools on final cut, which you can see here below:

Blogger

This was the first time any of us had blogged before so it was all very new to us. However, blogger is very easy and simple to use, so I very quickly got the understanding of it and helped Bronwen and Jon with their blogs for example to create link lists, creating cross-colums etc. 

The blog archive allowed us to keep an ongoing record of our process throughout the entire year. Also, I thought that the link lists, such as pre-production, prost production etc. allowed me to have a great overview of what I had done already and what was still to be done. 

Furthermore, I added a "Search this blog" link list so that I was able to easily find any material or post again. The cross-colums on my blog of "My YouTube Channel", "Bronwen's Blog" and "Jonathan's Blog", gave me the opportunity to quickly access needed data from the other's blogs. We also shared a lot of our posts so that we could each see what the other ones had done and that everyone had the same posts and all the information. 

Since we worked in a group of 3 we needed an efficient and quick way to share our blog posts. All we needed to do everytime we wanted to share a post was copy and paste the work onto a new post and then add the initials of the person who had created them. For Jonathan it was JP, for Bronwen it was BV and for me it was SR. 

Below you will be able to see a screen recording that I did on the basic technologies for the layout for blogger:

Dafont.com

To create our titles, we went to a website called dafont.com, where we looked at different kinds of fonts. Below you can see a screen recording I did of how exactly dafont.com works and which titles I chose to go for. 

FreeSFX

For our rough cut, I was the one who worked on the music soundtrack together with a friend of mine called Max Genson, who has been producing music for some years. The main soundtrack was created together with him. However, the small sound effects such as the door closing, the church bells etc. were some that I added. I found them on a website called: http://www.freesfx.co.uk , where I signed up as a member so that I was able to download as many sound effects as I wanted too. 

Non-Diegetic Music:

As I mentioned above, the soundtrack for our film opening was created by a friend of mine called Max Genson, who has produced music for some time. As he has used a lot of different software programmes for this, I decided to record a video of him with my iPhone, where he explains what we did and which programmes that were used.