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

Technology is evolving at such an incredible rate, each day it seems a newer and fresher program or piece of hardware is created making our lives slightly easier. Even still, the technology we this year has changed rapidly from the technology we used last year for editing, and as of such we were able to use newer hardware too.

Last year we used a simple camcorder with tape and a tripod to film our horror movies, and then edited them together on Adobe Premier. The software was easy enough to use once I came to terms with the tools and how to utilise them properly, but our editing options were still limited to cuts, some fading effects and anything else that we could do manually, thus resulting in an incredibly lengthy editing process in which I'd need to spend up to an hour simply moving a text.

This year, however, we were editing using Apple iMacs, on the program Final Cut Pro X. The tools and process remained the same, but the program allowed us to add so many effects and clips that we were a bit overwhelmed at first. Although trailers usually don't have many effects I felt like there were a few effects I could add, one of which being the earthquake effects, which was used during the the scenes when there was a clash between characters, or if there was something significant happening. A few examples of this effect was during the scene where the father bumps into the homosexual couple, or again when the hooded character bumps into the businessman sending his jacket flying. I tried to make the effect subtle so it only just shook the screen, thus emphasizing significant events in the trailers.

Another significant improvement from last year to the new systems is the use of title effects. Last year, I was dreading having to animate the BBC logo at the end of my Soap trailer on Adobe Premier, as it would require either importing the actual clip from the internet which might pose some ethical issues, or I would have had to have used a simple screengrab, which would look unprofessional and would have ruined the overall effect of the trailer. However there is an entire section of Final Cut Pro X which is dedicated to animated title effects and other similar effects to add to the film. One of which was a red circling effect which looked similar to BBC one's famous rotating circle which appears after trailers and before shows. This also allowed me to avoid ethical issues with the editing as the title effect was an original Mac animation.

Another huge advantage that we had while constructing and editing our film was the ease of access that Final Cut Pro X allowed us, as instead of having to wade through multiple folders and drafts to simply locate the correct film like we did on the PCs, the Macs allowed us to simply open the program, and we'd be able to simply work from there. In addition to this, the Macs also have a tab in the bottom right corner as seen in the screenshot above, which provided fast access to other films we have made, such as multiple drafts, thus saving time getting ready to edit, and it also showed the locations and timings of every clip, sound effect and effect which meant if something was off, we could either use it to correct the timings, or locate and remove that item, again saving us a huge amount of time, whereas Adobe Premier required us to manually scan through the timeline to find the one effect, which with all of the effects we used, would take a long time.

Another useful feature in Final Cut Pro is the timeline and the clip area to the left of the screen. This is another huge advantage over Adobe Premier as all of the effects, pictures, clips and sound effects that I have used making the video is listed there, which means if I accidentally remove anything from the timeline I can quickly locate it once more on the screen and replace it, whereas Premier would require me to locate it again from the files and export it again. This along with most other improvements, made no significant impact on the editing process, except last year when I edited it took a few weeks, whereas this year the editing only took half a week, which I believe had to do with the incredibly time efficient use of effects and the layout on this program as opposed to Premier which took much longer to work with.

Another huge step up the Mac holds over last year's PCs was that the Mac allowed us to process high definition footage from an SD card, whereas the PCs could only handle tapes which left a grainy quality after editing. This in turn meant that we were able to capture all of the important details, such as David holding a photo of the baby, and therefore we were able to tell a more fluent story simply through the visuals as would be possible through the PCs. In addition to this, the HD footage looks much more professional as well having been filmed with digital equipment and also edited on state of the art software, which is what would probably have been used in professional studios such as BBC.
In addition to the availability of Macs for editing, we were able to also use new camera technology, as the Macs were now compatible. As mentioned, these cameras filmed in HD with SD cards to capture more footage:

This camera uses an SD card to capture footage which enables larger save files than last year's tape files. As of such we are able to film in high definition also. However the largest advantage this camera has over last year's cameras is that due to the SD card, we did not have to worry about filming over footage of ruining any files, and that allowed us to just pick up the camera after every scene and film another without having to fast forward the tape. This also means that the transfer between film and the computers was much faster, as it was a simple case of transferring the files between systems, whereas last year required us to transfer tape into the system which took much longer. In addition to this, sometimes I'd find that the tape didn't record properly or the footage was a bit damaged, and would require re-filming. This was not an issue using SD cards as the footage was instantly viewable after without having to rewind or fast forward any tapes, thus saving time.

Another advantage over last year was the use of youtube to upload videos using Web 2.0. Last year I uploaded some videos to youtube, such as the final draft of the horror movie to use for the annotations, but the rest of the videos were uploaded straight to blogger after transferring the file type via Windows Movie Maker. This year however, I uploaded the videos staright to my youtube accounts which not only saved time, but it also allowed us to upload the videos in 1080p - the highest definition, whereas transferring it on windows movie maker would reduce the quality substantially.
In addition to this, uploading the videos to youtube allowed people to make comments  which allowed the possibility for feedback from multiple audiences on whatever may be changed.

Returning from last year is the use of Photoshop. Since starting the course in the Summer of 2010, I have improved substantially on Photoshop. This is also useful as this course requires me to use Photoshop more proficiently than last year. This is due to my only use of Photoshop last year was creating a specific font style for use on the horror movie, and wasn't compulsory.

However, this year we were required to use the technology to create our ancillary texts, and so having improved since last year was incredibly beneficial, as the picture above shows an entirely original piece on created on Photoshop.

Finally, we also used cameras once more for the location shooting. The camera we used to document the filming and do location settings is called a Fujifilm Finepix S5800 Digital Camera with 8.0 megapixels and 10x optical zoom - the camera we used last year also.

These cameras were used primarily to shoot the location photos, however they were also used to document the filming process. The use of digital technology and SD storage, just like the camera, allowed us to quickly store information and upload it on the internet. This is beneficial primarily to the blog as it allows me to quickly and efficiently document important photos of the filming process, which helps highlight the steps taken to create our media product which is one of the main purposes of this blogger account - another use of new technology.