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

Here are some of the physical and digital equipment we used in the production of our short film. This includes a professional filming camera, a digital camera, mobile phones, a scanner, a computer with programmes such as Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop and internet sites such as Blogger, Facebook and YouTube. All of this hardware and software heavily impacted on the final production of both the main film and the ancillary tasks. These new technologies helped us in the following ways:

Research and planning:

· Mobile phone/Facebook: social networking sites such as Facebook and the use of mobile phones was an easy way in which we could contact each other. This allowed us to arrange time to meet and film, organise our actors and to share the work we had produced afterwards; for example, the questionnaire results and the ancillary task research.

· A scanner/computer: these helped greatly throughout with such things as the ancilary task review as they needed to be scanned into the computer to be able to display our blogs. This was also yet another way in which we could diplay our work.

Construction:

· Professional camera: we used one of the professional cameras as we needed to be able to pull focus, do white balance and narrow depth of field to enhance each shot. As I had used a professional camera last year for the filming of the two minute opening sequence, I knew how to work it and this posed no problems and allowed everything to run smoothly.

· Digital camera: we used a digital camera in order to be able to capture behind the scenes shots as well as pictures for both the ancillary tasks. This was helpful, because without this etchnology, we would not have been able to edit and manipulate the photos to how we wanted them to look, for example for use in the poster and the review.

· Adobe Premier Pro: this editing software allowed us to edit paying more attention to detail, for example, on the titles and credits, sound and use of transitions on the montage shots. As there was more choice, we were able to be more creative and experiment with different effects.

· Photoshop: we made use of this software on both of the ancillary tasks. It was helpful as it allowed us to be creative and manipulate the photos to how we wanted them to look. We were able to make small, yet effective changes to the photos, for example, making the whites of the eyes whiter, making them stand out more.

Evaluation:

· Blogger: using a blog this year instead of a folder was greatly beneficial for many reasons: it was more efficient, it was cheaper to use, it was easier to share work, it allowed us to be more creative in the presentation of our work, for example, uploasing Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and podcasts.

· YouTube: by posting our video on YouTube, this enabled us to reach a much wider audience. This also not only helped us to reach our target audience of teenage girls, but also helped us to stop the audience being niche as it many different people use YouTube.

· Mobile phone/Facebook: these both helped when we needed to contact each other and in the evaluation stages of our work as well as this allowed us to share our ideas.