CCR - question 4
How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
I used a lot of different ideas, trying to be creative with the technologies I had. In the production and post production of “Iridescent” I used a DSLR camera, lights, a strobe, a tripod, a laptop, and various software programs. Each of these helped in adding an extra, highly important, element in my project. I would have liked to have more hardware technologies to enhance my efficiency and make the final product look more professional. For example, a steadicam or a microphone.
Even so, I used my resources to the maximum. I used a DSLR Cannon 700D to film all shots, I had used the camera before so I was familiar with the settings and I could work easily with it. I used a tripod only for some shots, most of them were hand held. The tripod was crucial for the lock down scene in the living room. For the other shots a more smooth movement was better so I used the warp stabiliser in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. As I had no professional microphone, I used an iPhone 6 to record Nora and Aletta’s voices to put over the images. I then edited this sound as well to make it as clear as possible.
I edited the entire film in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, I learned a lot of new effects and I got more and more used to working with it during the post production of “Iridescent”, but I had learned the basic things when working on my preliminary tasks. The Asus X550V laptop that I used worked really well and rendered my project quickly. I had no technical problems and I never lost any of my work. I acquired a lot of new skills in color correction and sound editing as I went along with the project, I used Youtube tutorials when I wanted to find out about a specific effect that I had in mind, such as the track matte key for the title.
For the festival postcard, I used Adobe Photoshop CS6 to blend the background with Aletta’s face and ad the text over. I found it more difficult to use this program than Premiere, with which I was more accustomed. However, I did have some experience from the preliminary task I did at the beginning of the year, the poster for “Demure”. I knew how to remove the background from the festival laurels that I got online, and I knew how to work with different layers.
Some of the props I used were also important technologies in some sense. The aspect of the film would be completely different, and the impact weaker if I hadn’t udes all the lights that I did. The colorful lights in the living room brought the aesthetic, warm look, the strobe light was perfect for the party. I used a blue lamp on Aletta’s face for the overlays. Even the lamp in the bedroom was an important part of the atmosphere.
When it comes to online software, I used a long list of sites to help me create and distribute my work. I used sites such as filmsshort.com to research real media texts, the examples of short films I found on Youtube helped me understand conventions and gather ideas. I wrote down and uploaded all the information that I found on my blog at wix.com and used the links from Youtube to exemplify my work. I also used piktochart.com to create the mood board that was highly relevant in the formation of my ideas and style. Furthermore, I used Youtube to find the music that I wanted to integrate in the film, I looked through several songs that I liked and chose the three that I used. The colorful mandala video that I used for the title and the website was also something I found after a lot of research online. I used the wix website editor to create the website for “Iridescent” and Google to find examples of other film websites.
To conclude, I combined and integrated all the resources that I had access to, in order to create the best possible outcome. I made up for any lack in hardware technologies by editing in software programs. I tried to be creative in the production process in order to construct the best location and images.
