Pre-production
Pre-production was the process that used technologies that had a lot of cross over for example I used many apps/websites that would both be classed as online and software and from a technical point of view is probably the phase that most integrated all three technologies but they are all at a relatively basic level using things I have already had plenty of experience using e.g. my laptop and pinterest.
For this stage in the project the main focus was on research, establishing the storyline and refining the details to be ready for the production phase. I researched things such as similar films, making a mood board, creating our story board, location research, conventions of a romantic drama and ensuring our group all stayed in touch and communicated often so that we were all clear on our ideas and plan.
Our teacher asked us to record all our progress in blogger and therefore combines all three technologies with my laptop being the hardware and blogger being an online software. This is where I displayed all of my research, planning and workshops that prepared me for putting our title sequence together.
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Media Foundation Blog - Caitlin (hurtwoodmedia21caitlinshapcotta1.blogspot.com)
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For the majority of my research I used google to gather information about similar products, conventions, interviews of people who have had the same experience etc. I did this research on my phone and my laptop, integrating hardware and online technology together to create in depth quality research. I used websites such as BBC news to come up with ideas in the first place and I would see what was in the headlines each day in hope of sparking an idea. I then remembered a tiktok I saw a while back of this girl telling her experience of growing up gay in an extremely religious family and how she went through an exorcism. This then led me to searching for articles of women who have had similar experiences. This was the starting point for the idea of our group.
Procreate was the software used to create our final storyboard. Although Otto is the one that drew the storyboard we were able to see how he used the app. He used the hardware of his touchscreen with the interactive pen to draw on the app. The hardware of the touch pen has to be integrated in the use of the app becasue otherwise the lines of the drawing would not be accurate and it would make things very difficult. For each different part of the story board he used a separate page on the app and used the pen setting on the brush choice which creates a clear clean line.
In order for all of us to stay in touch not just in this phase but throughout the project we used the software snapchat on our phones to send each other pictures of the work we had done, any ideas we had, to sort out logistics etc. All of us use snapchat everyday so it was the easiest platform to use. We often snapped quick pictures of our work or any evidence we may need for our blogs and sent them. Plus because the chat doesn't save texts or snaps unless you save them it meant that the chat wasn't overloaded with old information and only the important aspects were saved.
I used the website art of the title to get ideas of what makes a good title sequence. I used all the features of the website and looked at a wide range of title sequences in the 'view all' tab and equally looked at the feature ones. I read a few of the articles just out of interest and by the end of my research I had gathered that every sequence was vastly different with different techniques and atmospheres to them but I was able to gather an idea of what a simple sequence could look like for a realistic sequence that would be possible and practical to film with the budget and rescources we had. The title sequence for 'feels good man' has the same layout we used with cutaway shots to two different locations and moments in time. This gave me the idea because it meant the audience would be exposed to shots that make them curious as to what will happen next.
I used the online software pinterest to make a moodboard for our title sequence which really helped us begin to pricture what we wanted the atmosphere of each shot to look like, as well as what we wanted the set to look like. Having a touchscreen laptop was very helpful when interacting with pintrest because it made it easier to scroll to various images and zoom in to inspect them. It made it especially easy to move the images around, when in the 'organise' setting, to the places I wanted because I was able to just drag but also because it was on my laptop screen as opposed to my phone I had a far wider layout which meant I could see all the images I was working with.
For our title sequence we had an idea of what we wanted our backing track to be and my discovery of this crossed over hardware such as my Samsung TV, iPhone and then my laptop and used the software of spotify and the online technology of YouTube. All of these were needed in the tracking of the song 'under the milky way' by the church. I first heard the song in the film 'the dry' so I used my phone to look it up and discovered the original version by the church but after a further look I found the version of the song I heard on the film and once our group got together I showed them the song on youtube which meant they all had accessibility to it if any of them didn't have spotify.
