Evaluation Question 4)

Notes on the question before we present them.

How have you used new media technologies?
- Camera (HD)
- Prezi (Research)
- Garageband
- Final Cut Pro
- Photoshop (Digipak/Mag ad)
- Photoplus x3 (Animatic)
- Movieplus x3 (Animatic)
- iPad

The HD Camera allowed focus pull effect which we wanted to use. Strong depth of field was also created using the camera. We could also change the ISO number therefore brightening/darkening the footage.

We had an idea to use the Sandi Thom music video effect, Slow motion but in sync. Final Cut Pro allowed us to create this effect however, we decided not to use this effect for our final cut as the audience suggested it was too much like a 'filler'. We used Garageband to help with this as we had to film Mike singing and playing at double speed. We cut part of the song that we wanted to edit and then sped it up, we then exported this to Mike's iPad so he could mime to it when in location.

The flashback effects we found on Final Cut Pro we decided not to use these however as we felt they were too, 'studenty' and 'gimmicky'. We used the fading technique to show the flashback merge with reality like a memory drifting through our minds. The fading was a simple effect that was able in Final Cut.

Unfortuantely, we didn't have a dolly and so tracking shots would be 'shakey'. We decided to use the zoom on the HD camera but slowly. This would give the effect of tracking back which is what we wanted to achieve.

We used Final Cut Pro for the editing of the video but encountered some technical problems while in post-production. The redering of the footage became a nuisance as it took time to render. The playback wasn't great either as the files were big and therefore when we tried to edit the footage would sometimes 'jump'. The only other issue was the exporting time, as the files were HD and large it took a long time to save them as Quicktime files.

For the Digipak and the Magazine advert we used Photoshop to edit the images. We edited the shadows/highlights and the brightness/contrast. This helped make the image appear more cinematic to its previous asthetics. We also downloaded fonts that were used in both ancillary tasks and kept the colour scheme throughout.

During our research we found new ways of presenting our findings. Using Prezi and Wordle we could show our technical skills in IT and it makes the Blog more visual. We used social networking sites such as: Myspace, facebook and twitter to gather some information on audience and other things.

The animatic was done using Photoplus x3 and Movieplus x3. Using a grafics tablet we edited the storyboard hand drawn. We did this by colouring in the images. After edited we piece it all together using the movie software and created the animatic.