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

Web 2.0 has transformed the way we use the internet. It allows for user-generated content which I have heavily exploiting in the creation of my Blog. YouTube, Blogger, Survey Monkey, Wikipedia and many other websites allow the user to become the creator; the internet is become increasingly interactional with many sites encouraging users to contribute in some way. This has allowed me to present my coursework in a far more engaging manner, the reader can follow links, watch video clips and guide themselves around Flickr. It is crucial to be able to exploit the many opportunities that Web 2.0 offers when creating and advertising any media text. I enjoyed using the Web 2.0 technology of Blogger.com to produce my coursework as it enabled me to use various formats to present my ideas. It also meant that all my work was in one easily accessible location compared to other essay based subjects where notes and ideas are easily lost on paper. However I found that one disadvantage of the Blog was that uploading images was sometimes problematic as it was difficult to position them correctly. I also find that the tactile of an essay can give satisfaction that a Blog cannot. I believe this is one reason as to why Web 2.0 technologies will not completely take over from paper based products such as magazines as they do not have the tactile or collectable qualities of a print product. I also feel ideas can be explored, developed and articulated further in essay format as they allow for more dense text, however an essay may be appropriate for my other subjects such as English Language but for this project a blog was a far more appropriate format. I would use a Blog in the future as it is a free method of publicly sharing your work, this will be of use to me in the future as I hope to continue with media studies at university and hopefully have a career within the industry. I am also interested in journalism and believe a Blog would be an ideal way to document my articles and reviews so that others can view them. A Blog is very useful when trying to self-generate a career as you can publish and market your Blog entirely on your own through the use of other Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and Twitter.



Click on the image to see my Flickr annotations as to how I have used new media technologies in order to create my products and blog.






Final Cut Pro - Production


The main principle and key to understanding and using the software is the time line on which footage can be placed. We uploaded all our captured footage in sections using a fire wire, we then added a red filter to some footage used for quick shots by selecting red on the colour corrector filter.












Once we had applied the appropriate filters and selected effects such as the day/night tool, we placed the footage onto the time line.



 We shot more footage than was needed for our trailer so that we could select the best shots and used Final Cut Pro to put sequences together in order to decide upon what elements of the plot would make for an impactful trailer. One technique we gained as we became more competent with using the software was using cut to black (leaving a gap on the time line) to act as discourse markers (this uses Bordwell and Thompson's ideas of narrative structures in terms of space and time).



To further guide the audience we decided to create inter-titles. We first created the inter-titles on  Boris (a tool on final cut) , however we then decided that we wanted one word of the inter-titles to fade after the others therefore the Text tool, although simpler, was more effective for our desired outcome as it allowed up to place our text precisely. We used Live Type originally to create our font for the film title, however this was critiqued during the audience feedback for not fitting in with the rest of the text, therefore we copied attributes we used for our production value titles to create coherence. The copy attributes button allows you to use any effects used from another shot and apply them to your desired shot, this gives the trailer a professional feel and improves brand identity.



Final Cut Pro allowed us to use multiple layers of images which enabled us to create special effects such as the ghost in the road used in our original cut. We achieved this by layering two images, one of the road without the person and one with.  By only flashing up the image of the person in the road it gave the effect of them disappearing by some supernatural force.

The main struggles I had to overcome when editing our footage was continuity and the sound layers. Creating continuity took a lot of time and effort to cut scenes at precisely the correct point. This was made more difficult when we also had to ensure that the many sound layers we used also had continuity and where in sync with the visuals. We recorded much of the dialogue after the original shoot to improve the sound quality, this created a hurdle in itself as we had to ensure this matched lip movement. Final Cut Pro was very effective in creating a good sound balance once we had learned how to use it efficiently as you can pull the sound levels up or down making the transitions between sounds seamless and the balance between different layers of sounds effective. As two individuals are music technology students they recorded the soundtrack and applied this to the trailer. There were issues with this as some of our sound was moved out of sync in the process, however the "select everything after" tool eliminated most of these problems.