1. How did you use media technologies
in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
By Caitlin Robbins

2. In order to fully research my chosen genre of
film properly it was imperative that I used a
range of different media technologies in order to
fully research both the comedic genre and fully
research the Barbie brand.

3. The internet played a key role in both the
researching and planning of my short film and
this was a fundamental tool in developing my
film. In this day and age the internet plays an
important role in everyday life, it is through the
internet we get most of our information rather
than through books, it is quick and easy to use
this is why many film makers use the internet to
get their visions across to the world.

4. I researched many different film makers before creating my
short all of which have their work on numerous different
websites such as BBC short film website or Virgin shorts. I also
looked at different student short films on YouTube, with their
work so easily accessible through the internet it is readily
available to anyone who wants to watch a short film or
interested in making their own. I also used the internet to
research different genres and researched Barbie dolls in
general, without the research into the background of Barbie I
feel that my feel wouldn’t have come across in the same way.
Upon my research I found out lots of things about the Barbie
brand that I wouldn’t have necessarily known without the use
of the internet.

5. As I needed to research short films in order to gain the best perspective
as to how to present my own I needed to minimise the search radius of
what short films to look at, I did this by watching mockumentaries and
stop motion films. It was not just YouTube where I found these films, I
also watched different shorts on Funny or Die these films are the
epitome of what I wanted to represent in my short film so using this
site to do my research was key.
I also used YouTube in the construction of my short as I used non-
copyrighted music from the site in my piece such as; the club music, the
wedding music and the music for when Ken left Barbie. I did not just
use the internet for research and planning, I also used it to find the text
for my titles, I wanted the classic Barbie writing for both the title of my
film and the titling. I found a website which created a number of
different fonts from the Barbie font generator to creating the classic
AC/DC font.

6. For the construction of my short film I used a SLR camera for all of my filming as the
majority of my short was stop motion, I needed to use this camera as it got the best
picture quality and when I used to tripod in conjunction with the SLR it was to most
convenient tool to use. Furthermore, in the scenes where Real Life Barbie is talking I
again used the SLR camera as even though others would have used a standard video
camera I felt that it would be easier to use the same camera throughout my filming as
later on that day I also took the photos for the ending of my film where Real Life Barbie
hits rock bottom. However, I did not use the SLR camera to record the sound for my
short as on the day of recording my narration the camera would not record sound
properly; I then tried a number of different media technologies to record the narration
– all of which failed me on the day. After the SLR wouldn’t work I then tried using my
laptop to record the sound but somehow it would record my voice perfectly fine but
when it came to record the voice of my narrator it became muffled and you couldn’t
understand a word. As we were running out of options I then tried to use the voice
recorded on my HTC Wildfire S, but that again made the narrators voice muffled. In the
end we used an iPod to record the whole of my narration, this proved the most
effective recording device as you could actually understand what was being said.

7. Also for the construction of my short film I used; Adobe
Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. These
programmes helped me create my film as I used Photoshop to create
both my ancillary tasks and I edited some on the photos used in my
final piece, I already knew some of the basics of using this programme
through workshops in AS but luckily none of my photos needed that
much editing therefore it was simple to use. I also had used both
Premiere Pro and After Effects in my AS coursework so it was simple to
edit my film using these technologies as well. I used Premiere Pro to
edit my whole film and After Effects was used to create the title
sequences, I used the same ident as I had in AS but I used After Effects
for the titling of my film as I wanted to have a the fading effect of text
on a black background throughout the opening narration.

8. For the evaluation of my final piece I used a number of different
technologies again, in order to get audience research, not just from my
class but from a wider audience, I posted my film to a number of
different social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These
sites proved helpful in getting my film to the wider audience and I got a
number of different responses to it. This helped me in the evaluative
stages of my coursework and it also helped me with the construction as
some offered suggestions on how to improve my film also. Also in my
evaluation I used PowerPoint, this programme helped me create a
different way of getting my points across rather than just through a
steady stream of text I was able to use this programme to effectively
break up my responses into different sections along with useful images
to help convey my points.

10. In conclusion I feel my use of digital
technologies throughout my film
making process has helped me
greatly not just through the
researching stages but also
through the creation of my final
film as without these technologies I
would not have been able to create
a stop motion film.