Un-used Footage

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

Construction We incorporated various technologies such as SLR cameras, Mac computers and other software to help us create our teaser trailer, Poster and Website.  The image to the left is the 5D Canon camera we used it to take pictures and a 500D to film (right) our teaser trailer.  This ensured high quality viewing for our audience and captured the detail of the writing on the wall.  It was easy to connect the cameras to the Mac and transfer the images to edit with ‘lightroom’ adjusting the contrast for all the pictures.   To create the time lapse we used a device which took pictures every 2 seconds.  We also looked at YouTube clips in how time lapse's work and what they are.   

 

Wix was very easy to use to make our Cause Unknown website.  Click here to see more on how we constructed the website with different features.

To gain audience feedback  we used YouTube, Facebook (using our own profiles and making a 'like' page) and SurveyMonkey this helped us on our research in improving our teaser trailer.  We also created a Twitter account due to the ever growing popularity of the social networking site.  People are able to see what we are doing with our film and can interact with us on a more personal level.  Audience feedback is most effective online because of how easy it is for people to access the internet through smart phones, Ipads and computers where ever you are.  Nearly all technology has the internet so it is quick to respond to surveys and watch videos.     

A YouTube converter allowed us get non- diagetic sounds but make it sound diagetic.  This was particularly used on our website with the sound of a girl whispering.

Garageband on the Mac computers was useful as it has been in our AS level work last year.  We can layer different sounds to make it more realistic within our teaser.

To create the typography on the website and blog we searched on the internet for 'handwriting' fonts to get the child like writing we were looking for.  Urbanfonts has thousands to choose from making our font look unique.  

For our teaser trailer we used iMovie '11 this uses up to date features and we are able to set the frame per second (fps) to our accordance which was 2fps.  We trimmed clips to bring focus on the wall and the writing itself.  

  

Diary - Initial Time Lapse

Following soundbites taken from filming our Initial time lapse:


Aims:
Test and film the time lapse plus any additional shots
Test camera's, location and and actress


- Arrived, looked at possible walls to use, front room wall agreed as best location, we kept the camera in the same position in the full 0.56 seconds of the teaser 
- Practising our time lapse whilst putting up the wall, camera adjusted to eliminate sockets and the bookcase from the shot
- Hannah (actress) is briefed, has a baggy white t-shirt for the time lapse
- Extra light is added, the wall should be clearer
- Time lapse started
- As well as the time lapse we've taken a few videos
- Time lapse finished, taken a few close ups
- Taken the wall down, reviewing time lapse
- Couple of shadows appear during the time lapse, suggested we can edit alternate shots in
- Job well done, will be uploaded soon


Improvements for future filming:
Mise En Scene not right, should be more dirty, grimy
Actress should wear grey or darker colours then white- because white is symbolising death 
Make sure no shadows get into the frame during the time lapse

Initial Time Lapse.

Here is our initial time lapse, again we will shoot with a Canon 5D. However, we will not be using this in our trailer because we feel that there are a lot of changes that need to be made. For example, costuming - after watching this time lapse we don't feel that the right image is being bought across from the plain white t-shirt. We originally decided on this because it gives portrays the idea that this young girl is lacking in identity, however we now feel that a colour such as grey would be more fitting or if she was in a hospital gown. Not only this we feel as though the wall is too clean, that it should have more character - maybe tiling or very dirty, well used white wall, creating more of an atmosphere. As well as this, when watching the images back we became aware that there is unfortunately movement of shadows across some of the images from movement behind the camera. Nevertheless, this time lapse is a very good idea of what the girl (Eva) would be writing on the wall and the concept that we are going for.

Setting up Time Lapse

Here is a time lapse of us preparing for shooting the initial time lapse for the trailer. We are putting up the white wallpaper on the wall, this was also to check that the time lapse worked and the camera was set to shoot at the correct intervals. The photos are taken with a Canon 5D.