Research
One of the most important aspects in the creation of any type of film is to have varied and thorough research to aid and give insight into how we should create our film but also what genre and narrative we want to base it upon. We mainly used the internet to conduct this research and without it would not of been able to find out key aspects about what we wanted our film to be. The websites we used in our research stage was as following:
Blogger:
Blogger was one of the most vital tools that we utilised not only in our research stage but many of the others as well. Blogger is a website that allows its users to create blogs which then allows for the creation of posts which can have a range of information on them. It also lets users customise and edit the blog to there liking using an array of backgrounds, colours and fonts. We used as this main hub that we placed our research on. It also allows you to embed videos and links which we did after the completion of our preliminary exercise as it went alongside our research on the blog so can be seen as a whole rather than individual pieces of work on separate platforms. However one negative of blogger is that sometimes videos and pictures can alter the borders and spacing of the layout meaning you have to change it around in the formatting tools as if not they occupy too much space on the blog and look out of place.
SurveyMonkey:
Another website, in which we used to conduct our research was SurveryMonkey. Its a free online survey generator that provides the creation of free surveys to your customisation and other programs that require payment however we only used the free survey creation of the website as it was all we required. We used SurveyMonkey among colleagues and asked them to fill the surveys in for us. The positive of this website is that it is completely online so does not require you to print out any sheets which can waste time and lets you answer the survey straight from the internet giving quick and easy access. The only downside to this website is that there are not advertising options so means you have to find people yourself to answer these surveys or put them on another website or program that allows you to do so.
IMDB:
BBFC:
Lastly, the BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) was another website i used to conduct my research which has detailed information on how films were rated and why they deserved that age rating. It allowed me to research into why certain films got the age rating they got so helped to give me a clear understanding into what our films would be rated and insight into what our target audience for our film would be. However i found the layout of the website as a whole quite confusing to use as there is a mass of history being held by the BBFC so can take time to find the film you are looking for but also to remember the information as well.
Youtube:
Youtube is one of the biggest video-sharing platforms in the world and is great to use for research for any type of topic which in my case was film. This website helped us to research as we could look up certain film scenes to see what shots, mise en scene, sound and editing was used to help give insight into what we need to use in our film to convey the correct meaning that was intended. we also used it to upload our preliminary exercises, and also our finished 5 minute film which then allowed us to copy the embed link into blogger, so we can view the video from our blog page instead of having to go to Youtube directly. Youtube is very simple and easy to use as it has fast navigation and a simple layout with it also being easy to upload your own videos. The only downside of this website that i found was that sometimes when searching for a video it may not show up straight away if you don't get the name of the video correct.Planning
Planning was another stage that came after research that was the stage in which we began to plan out our films ideas and begin to write and create the shots and other key elements for what we would need to make it. We used many different technologies in this stage to aid us in our effort and they were as followed:
Celtx:
Celtx was the first program that we used in our planning process. It is a media pre-production software, designed for creating and organising media projects like screenplays, films, videos, stageplays, audio plays, documentaries, machinima, comics, games and podcasts. Cetlx is a great program to write a script, as it has many tools that you can use to your disposal including formatting presets from a drop down menu which means you do not have to do them yourself. However one negative of Celtx is that at first it can be quite difficult to use especially if you have no experience in writing scripts but once you get the hang of it, it is a great program to use for screenplay writing.
Phone:
We used our phones to take location photos before we began filming as it allowed us to organise when and where we were going to film and also to extend upon our ideas for the film, which meant that we could visualise our characters and props in these locations before we even started filming but also made it easier when drawing the storyboard as we had the locations already in photo. However the downside to using our phones to take these photos is that they can not be the best of quality and do not allow you to change settings or the lighting or exposure of the photo so we may of been better using a DSLR camera instead as they are marginally better in terms of quality but are harder to use.
Production
The production stage of our film is when we begin to create the film itself and when we compile both the research and planning we have done beforehand to aid in the creation. This was probably the hardest stage out of the four as it required us to use many different types of technology and was when we had to begin filming each scene for our film which meant we had to remember a lot of information and take into consideration of each when filming. The technologies we used were as followed:
Premiere Pro:
This program was possibly the most vital in the whole creation of our film as it was the program that allowed us to edit each shot of our film together. Premier Pro is a professional editing software from Adobe with its primary feature being the ability to manipulate footage and moving images to the users own desire. This program has a large array of different effects you can use to manipulate your footage, including blurs, dissolves and many others. However the problem with this software is that is is very difficult to use even for some of the more experienced people and to add some effects that you wish you will be required to use adobes other program after effects which is an even harder piece of software to use however we did not use after effects as we did not require its utilities. All in all the this is a great software to use when editing and allows for great quality to a professional standard if used correctly.
Photoshop:
Photoshop is a photo-editing software but can also be used as an illustration software. It allows you to compile and edit images by changing colour, contrast, sharpness and adding many other effects such as a large array of filters which can manipulate the image, this is a great feature to the software as it means you have many options to change the image into a way that you want it to. We used Photoshop mainly in the creation of our film poster as it allowed us to manipulate and create a professional look to go alongside our film. The only downside of this piece of software is that similar to Premiere Pro can be hard to learn how to use at first but luckily i had a lot of experience beforehand with Photoshop so i found it easy to use but for most newcomers can be tricky to get to grips with it.
Camera:
The camera we used to shoot the footage for our film was the Canon Legria FGT25. It allowed us to record footage at 1080p at 25fps and the camera has the usual basic functions that most video cameras do such as a focus assist which helped with long periods of recording but the camera also allowed you to change to manual focus if you wanted to get a certain depth of field for a shot. In the end we did not end up using many of the features of the camera that i would of liked to use, due to a narrow timescale that we had to film. One downside of this camera is that it can blur very easily if you move too quickly when holding it and also can be hard to use if you wish to use some of the more advanced features that the camera has.
Zoom recorder:
A zoom recorder is an audio recorder that allows you to record sound for either just sound based files or to go alongside video. We used the recorder to record our voices in the radio trailer but also for the monologue at the start of the film where our main protagonist speaks. It is quick and efficient to use with it also being extremely easy to record with. The negatives of this recorder was that it came with an micro SD card, which makes it not compatible with some computers without the use of a USB cable. Another negative was that we had nothing to attach the recorder to so meant that one person had to hold it while the other spoke.Evaluation
The evaluation stage was the final stage in the creation of our film and was where we went over all the other stages and evaluated what we did and the negatives and positives of what we did. The technologies we used when evaluating where as followed:
Microsoft PowerPoint:
Microsoft power point is a presentation program that allows you to create and edit a presentation toyour choosing with many different layouts and fonts to choose from which meant that i could create a good looking presentation for my evaluations. It is simple and easy to use and i could not find any downsides about the program for the reason that i used it for.
Microsoft Word:
Microsoft Word is a word processor that allows you to write in an essay like format but can also be used for book writing. The program is simple and easy to use similar to Microsoft Powerpoint and has the same layout and formatting types meaning that it doesn't really have any negatives other than that the layout of the pages can look quite boring due to it only being a word processing program.
Prezi:
Prezi is a free presentation software that allows the user to create a presentation for the topic of their choosing. It allows the user to zoom in and out and the around the presentation which gives the presentation a more interactive feel. It is fairly simple to use and has a quite a good amount of layouts and font types however there are some aspects to the program that are not as clear as some of the others especially if you choose to not use one of the pre made templates and start from fresh. Overall, the program allows a good choice of formats and allows you to create an interactive and entertaining PowerPoint for the topic of your choosing.
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