4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Media technologies with in the construction, research and planning of our film were deadly important. One major source of technology through out of our project was the Internet; the advantage of having the Internet is we would access information from all over the world. We used the Internet mainly for research for example, during the making of our film posters the Internet was useful to search different images which we created in to a scrapbook. We used sites such as Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. One website we used immensely was Dafont, Dafont allowed us to experiment and view different fonts which we could test put in lowercase and uppercase, we were also allowed to download fonts which we could use with in our film, for example a main theme with in our film is writting we were able to download handwritting fonts which we could use in our film poster representing Lilly's handwriting as she writes her story. The fact we had the internet to search for fonts allowed us to develop the look of our poster more and we were not just limited to the basic fonts on the computer in programs like word and paint, so this was an advantage. Other than the Internet we had the help of Photoshop when creating our film reviews and film posters as opposed to other software's such as Paint. Photoshop is more advanced than Paint so we were allowed to overlap and create different layers and images on our poster. In addition Photoshop allows us to chose the size of canvas which we would be working on, this meant we could program the paper size to A4, this meant when printing any documents they would not have to been cropped to the right size. Premier like Photoshop is owned by Abobe this meant that there were similar features to one another making the software's easier to use. It is fair to say that with out Premier we would not have a film as this was our editing software. Premier was a good software as it was more advance to Windows Movie Maker this meant we had more effects with in our film. For example we were able to digitize our rushes on to the computer and watch them on a bigger screen, we could also drag them into the Bin and were able to label them this meant they were easier to find when editing. We could also set up a filing system with in the Premier program which allowed us to place all scene rushes into different files. Another advantage of Premier over Windows Movie Maker was that we had more effects we would use with in our film, for example we had more colour effects, transition effects and audio tweaks we could use to make our film more realistic and smoother. Other advantage of having a Blog rather than paper Logs is that we had easy communication with group members, for example we could post questions on group members blogs and we could leave feedback on other peoples work. Blogs helped majorly when it came to feedback as we were able to put people work up on the interactive boards, unlike regular whiteboards or chalkboards, we were able to work interactively with our blogs and could recieve feedback from our whole class on specific tasks posted on our blogs, we could also compare tasks such as the ancilliarly ones with other people work from other groups and in a way this could guide us. As blogger is an online program we were also near MSN Messenger, this is an online chat system which we were all very much familliar with this came in handy as we already knew how to use the program and rather than arranging meeting or making phone calls could arrange an online talk session on messenger, this meant we were able to keep in contact more regularly. The schools web mail was also useful as we were able to contact cast members and recieve teachers permission for their absences on the days of filming faster and effeciently as all teachers and students are programed into the system.

Other than the internet based programs we had the sound and camera equipment this was important as with out this there would be no film. The still cameras were useful and we were able to access them easily. With these we were able to take our still shots for location reeces and add them to our blogs. This advance in technology helped as we could upload the images rather than having to print the film from the camera and scan them like older cameras, this was just more time effeicent. The filming camera were also a big element of our filming as they allowed the dircetor and camera man to see the image of the film and the shot type on the view finder as it was being recorded from this the director could chose to set up another camera shot or angle making the cinematrography better. The cameras connected to the Windshield System by which we could record quality sound on. We had headphone that connected into the camera bu which we could pick up any unwanted sound saving us from making to record the scene again when editing. The Windshield system was attached to a boom pole by which we would get closer into the shot to pick up sound with out the camera seeing the Windshield system. Also when filming in Maysebrooke Park we were able to use the Hairy Harry in windy weather allowing us not to pick us this sound as much making natural sound and dialogue clearer.