2. The Internet
The internet was the main technological
platform that I used throughout the making of
our short film.
It was essential when researching short films,
film postcards, film websites, film festivals and
many other sites including the FDA, BBFC,
MediaEdu, FutureLearn and a host of theorists.
Websites like Short of the Week and the BFI
website were very helpful when doing research
into genre codes and conventions of short
films.
3. The Internet
I also used the internet to
research how to write a
treatment. From this
research, I came across
Frank Ash, whose video
was very helpful. It helped
me learn how to a write a
treatment, big question
and top line.
4. Blogger
Blogger was one of the most essential platforms that I used in the
process of making all the aspects of our short film, from research
to planning to construction. It was where I posted all of my ideas,
progress and outcomes. It is an interactive website which meant I
could interact with my teacher and respond to feedback.
Blogger allowed me to develop my skills in using a very wide range
of technologies as I explored new ways of presenting research and
planning, using audio and video, collages and collation tools, gifs
and photographs edited in Photoshop, questionnaires, and a huge
array of new presentation platforms such as SlideShare, Emaze,
Prezi and others.
5. Scoop.It And Pinterest
I used Scoop.It which is a collation tool when doing
research into relevant issues that inspired the plot of
my short film. Scoop.It is an interactive website
which suggests articles based of previous searches
and viewings.
Pinterest is another curation tool that I used when
doing research into film websites. As an interactive
website, similarly to Scoop.It, Pinterest also suggests
posts based on previous searches and allowed me to
collate all saved posts into a Pinterest board.
I liked both as they offered highly visual platforms.
6. Netflix
In the early stages of the research process, we used Netflix a
lot for inspiration and ideas. We had an initial idea of wanting
to create a short film where the take down of criminals was a
main aspect.
Because of this, we looked extensively at the Crime and the
Action categories on the Netflix website.
7. Google Forms
We all created audience questionnaires on Google forms to
get a better understanding of our audience and their ages,
interests and preferences.
Google Forms offered me the data in both pie chart and bar
chart format which makes easily understandable
interpretation of results.
Apart from quantitative data, Google Forms can also display
qualitative data, which was important to me in
understanding my target audience.
8. Google Maps And
Microsoft Word
We used Google Maps and Microsoft
Word when creating the call sheets for the
scenes we planned on filming.
We created four different call sheets with
help from both of these types of software.
Google maps was useful as it gave us a
satellite view of the location where we
would be filming.
9. YouTube
We used YouTube a lot throughout the making of our short
film.
We initially used it when researching film making & editing
videos such as Every Frame A Painting and Creative Editing
Techniques, but we also used it for tutorials of ideas that we
wanted to include in our short film such as the explosion.
10. Canon Cameras
We used a Canon 650D to film all of the scenes in our
short film. The quality was perfect and although
sophisticated, they are easy to use and easy to fix
onto a tripod making them perfect for our groups
piece. We also used the same camera to take a series
of still images for our website, postcards and for my
blog work.
11. iPhone
We all used our iPhones to get a clearer voice recording when
filming the scenes.
We all used the pre-built in Apple app Voice Memos we put our
iPhones in the nearest pocket to our mouth and then synched the
voice recording to the scene in Final Cut Pro.
Without the iPhone Voice Memo, the audio would have suffered
from background noise from wind and cars.
12. The Editing Software
Used In Our Short Film
Our group contributed to the editing in our short film
(Luca being the main editor).
The software that we used included iMovie, Final Cut
Pro (FCP) and Sony Vegas.
Out of the three, the one we used most was FCP; this
was purely because it had the best range of editing
tools. We used iMovie the least as the editing tools
were rather basic.
13. SoundCloud
SoundCloud gives everyone the ability to upload
audio recordings.
It is usually used by artists to post music but it was
very useful when making our hot seat interview and
also for the explanation of how we made our fake
explosions.
14. Photoshop
Photoshop was the perfect software to use when
creating the front and backside of my film postcards.
The vast range of different tools you can use to edit
photos meant I could make my postcards look as
professional as possible.
I used the black and white tool to give both postcards
the greyscale effect, I used the magic selection tool to
crop out the backdrops of the individual character
photos and I used the layering tool to place all of the
different aspects of each postcard in the right place.
15. WiX
WIX offered a sophisticated
but accessible web-creation
platform on which I could
market my short film using a
wide selection of essential
elements that a film website
should offer its audiences to
attract and address them,
such as a gallery of
photographs, trailer hosting,
interactive buttons linked to
social media, visual and text
information, and a striking
background.
16. Presentational
Platforms
During the research process I
used the presentational
platform SlideShare, I had
previous experience with this
website and came across
people using it a lot when
doing research into film
postcards and audiences. I
used SlideShare to present a
post on the casting in our
short film but also to show my
research into film postcards.
