By Aminatta Sylva 12H

*As part of our research and planning and the construction of our media product we have used various types of technologies such as;

*The Blog

*Final Cut Pro 7 & X

*Garage band

*Motion

*Livetype

*Prezi & Slideshare

*Mobile phone

*HD Camera

* During the research and planning stage of our media product, my group and I used a blog (haverstockmedia), in order to be able to upload our coursework on to. I found this blog very useful because I could look at other people’s blog to see if I need to do more research or not, this was also a useful way to share work with my group. For example, If I had typed up the script that we did together in lesson, I could then post the entry onto my partners’ blogs. The blog also allows us to embed videos into a blogs such as YouTube videos, Slideshares and prezis. We could also upload pictures onto our blog. However the disadvantage of the blog, was that you couldn’t see all of the content at school due to slow internet connection. Therefore, I could only upload work from home. An advantage of the blog being private was that people that did not have an account could not see your content. The blog also allowed us to create tags and categories, which made our blog look organized and made work easy to find. The blog also worked as a place to put down reminders of work to be done, for example I could save drafts of work partially completed or task to be undertaken for homework etc.

*We used this editing software to edit our final media product. As a group we kind of struggled at first when it came to finding out what tools and effects we could add to our footage to make it look professional. But as went by we became more confident with using this editing software.

This is the tool box section on the final cut pro 7 software, which allows us to do effects to our footage. For example the pen-tool was used to create fade ins and outs for our footage and audio. The blade tool was used to cut our footage into smaller chunks, taking out the unnecessary parts. The volume tool right beside it helped me maintain the volume, by limiting how loud it could be, this stopped the volume from being too loud, as we film near a busy road.

The viewer allowed us to create subclibs from footage taken. Then we could organize our footage by creating bins to put them in. We also used the viewer to change the colour of the footage, create matt colour blocks so that we don’t have a black screen.We created sequences in order to be able to use the timeline and save it properly. The timeline was where everything was put together, including the titles, music, sound effects and footage in the form of subclips (so that the original clip has not been permanently modified)

On the timeline this is our sequence, and as you can see there are many little clips everywhere and audio files as well. I also found out that I could have up to about ten audio layers, during the construction of my media product.

During the lonely night in section of our film, I made the eating scene a lot faster than it originally was, I changed the speed from 100 to about 200. I also used a cutting trick in which the objects decrease over time by the use of cuts.

We were able to change the brightness/darkness of our footage by the use of the effect Colour-corrector. I ensured that most of the footage was of the same brightness.

These tools above allowed us to increase the size of the clips onto the sequence, to use the pen-tool, mute an audio track.

I only used this editing software to do work at home, for example my evaluation videos. I find this software a lot easier to use than FCP7, mainly because you don’t need additional software in order to be able to do effects and transitions. It took me about 3 hours to completely get used to.

Viewer and canvas

Project manager

Timeline

Effects

Video editor

FCPX allowed to add effects and titles to my evaluation videos without having to use another software. It also made my evaluation videos look very professional. I think I might find this software easy to use, due to the fact that I don’t have to use other software and have import things to and from other others. Finally, there are a lot of YouTube tutorials on how to use FCPX which helped me learn how to use the software properly.

Creating titles on FCPXI had to click on the ‘T’ button which lead to different types of titles that I could include in my video. After I had selected the type of title I want, I was then able to move the title around the screen via the canvas/viewer.When I double clicked on the title, I was able to change the font, size and colour. I was not able to do this on FCP7, I believe that if I had used this software to create my final media product then we would’ve had more time to do other things.

The tools and effects box allowed me to add colour motion to my evaluation video, I just had to drag it over the video and decrease the opacity of the video that is speaking. This made my video look professional and for the generators and titles to be visible.

These tools were used to create my sequence on my timeline, for example I used the position tool to drag clips and audio files anywhere on the timeline. The blade was used to cut the clip into parts. The zoom was used so that I could cut out what I need to cut out, for example on an audio clip and you want to cut out a tiny bit that has no sound. The hand tool was used to drag the projects down onto the timeline.

The themes made my video look in sequence, for example if I started to talk about something new, then I would cut the clip and add a video transition so that the viewer knows that I’m talking about something new. They also made my video look very professional and easy to understand.

We were able to create music and sound effects on this software. We found it easy to use because it required less skill than other types of software. This software had various types of loops available to drag onto a timeline, which allowed you increase/decrease the volume of the loop, place it where ever you want to on the timeline. It was also easy to select the loop you wanted, because it was organized in instruments/genres, so if you wanted to make something acoustic then you use all of the loops available in the acoustic folder. We used this software to create the sounds for our media product.

This is where you drag your loop onto, and you can arrange the order in which they appear.The menu allows you to compose music in various ways.You could also type your own music, and record as you are playing it.

My group and I used this software to create our titles and our production logos. We found it a bit difficult because there’s a lot of things to chose, but we didn’t really know how to put it together. As time went by we became a lot more comfortable with using it. The thing that I like about this software is that you can create and draw your own shapes which can then animate, and it has a lot of already created animations that looked very professional. We chose to use the particle emitters than draw our own because they looked more professional than a mouse drawn version.

Canvaslibrary

timeline

project

The library gave us many options of what we could chose from- fonts, animations, camera movements and many more. The timeline was where we would create the animations by dragging the layer back to a time for example 2 seconds and after 2 seconds another layer will be shown.

These tools allowed us to be able to drag, select and zoom into what we are creating. For example I’d click on the ‘T’ tool to edit my text, because using the cursor tool would not work.

The tools above allowed us add behaviours to our animation such as fade in and out, make the screen bigger or not, open up the timeline, project or library.

We used this software to create our titles for our media product. We used it because it was very easy to use and contained many fonts and effects to add onto our titles, it was also very easy to put it together.

This is where we would select the effects, size, font and attributes to our titles. We would write what we want to appear on the box on the left, the box on the right shows where the title has been placed on the screen.

*This is the timeline that we would add the selected effects to. On the timeline we could the timing of the effect and how long we want the title to last for, and how quick for the effect to appear.

*I used this during the research and planning stage of our production to create a production logo picture. On this software I know how to crop by using the lasso tools, change font and create layers. However, it did not help me construct my media product.

* I used my phone to ring up actors to ask them if they could film and where we should meet up. I also used my phone to communicate with my group members, for example if I had a new idea then I would send a text to my group members letting them know. Another example would be what equipment we should bring along when filming, for example if Ciaren had the tripod at his house then I would text him to bring it. I used my phone to email organizations, to ask them what day would be possible to film in their building. This was a good way of communicating because it would directly come up phone.

* I used this online presentation to present my work on my research and planning and evaluation. At first it was difficult to use, but then I got used to using it, now I find it easy to use. I like to use this software because it makes my presentations look more appealing to the viewer as I can add music and videos to it.

* I used slideshare to show my work for my research and planning and evaluation.

*Without the HD cameras our footage would not look high definition, therefore it is likely to have problems not only with the display but also with the sound. If we did not have a HD camera then our footage would not look professional. We did not have to manually set up the focus, because the camera was auto focus but you could change it if you wanted to. The HD camera did run out of battery quickly which was a disadvantage for when we filmed outside. The camera had to be put onto a tripod, in order to be able to shoot a steady shot.