Question 6

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

As our media product is based on a production requiring a 2 minute opening sequence of a 90 minute film. We had to come in contact with various filming materials to make sure our production was quality. We used a wide range of different technical motives and technologies in order to create a graphical piece of work. Before we allocated different filming roles e.g. the role of a Director, we had to familarise ourselves with the filming equipments so that we could all assist each other on set if needed. The camera we used to film our sequence is called the VX2000E camera which gratified our piece as it gave it a high quality look, the XLR to 3.5 mini jack is likewise normally connected to the DT100 Head phones via the camera in order to monitor the sounds, this helped us detect the unnecessary ambient sounds we picked up from filming.

The software made accessible for us to use for editing is final cut pro, this software is used to edit moving images; this was used to edit scenes from our films, and put sequences together. As we filmed the park scenes first in our sequence before we filmed the bridge scene, we had to put the bridge scene first so it links well with the beginning location which was the subway. Through final cut pro editing suite we put the juxtaposition of shots of the scenes together, we made good use of transitions to avoid a break in continuity. I myself as the director and the camera person worked together with the editor , so that we could all decide what shots were good and worked well for our film opening.

Final cut pro was easy to use, simplistic and yet very effective, once played around with and the main aspects are grasped, it greatly helped us with editing our footage. Foremost we had to insert our recording tape in a deck, which uploads onto final cut pro automatically, then we log and capture. The timeline and cutting tools were very useful, as well as aspects like the trash feature and the trim feature, and these things helped when it came to refining each part it great detail so we could get it exactly how we wanted and needed it.

Another software I used frequently was Adobe Photoshop CS5 to make the company’s logo, "Rebecca title sequence" and several images on this evaluation. When making the logo I used the different fonts for individual letter from our first names in a Text, each letter was listed as a layer, on the right hand side of the Photoshop screen, its a box that has the list of every layer in a design, then you right click on the layer you have selected by click blending options this then gives a wide range of  designs you could use as a over lay over the simple coloured texts, you could put a shadow on each text to give it a graphical context, which was used for the logo I created. I had few difficulties in trying to find the right colour and graphics to use for the logo as we wanted it to look like a real professional standard company logo and also to fit well with our film genre.

All the programs we used were remarkably easy to use, and we got acquainted quickly with all the tools and got started working with them straight away, and we were very surprised with what we could do once we knew how to use them. Technology helped us get our vision onto the screen in a number of ways. Primarily, without the use of all the aforementioned programs and tools, we wouldn't have been able to edit or record our footage, making our production obviously impossible. Also as we took inspiration from films such as SAW (2004 James Wan), Halloween (1978 John Carpenter), and Se7en (1995 David Fincher) all thriller genres. We watched clips of these on YouTube and meticulously analyzed and broke it down the scenes into a simplistic degree, whilst working out how to replicate certain editing techniques used in our own production; we used a high quality camera and final cut pro for this, and without this technology, we wouldn't have been able to get our vision up for others to see. The idea of current technology, gives a vibrancy to the production piece purely as we was advantaged to have high tech tools where we wouldn't have been able to do without these sufficient tools and devices in order to make our production have high quality.

  

The only limitations we encountered when using the filming tools, was the early days our filming where we had problems trying to make the camera secure on the tripod, as it would fall forward, luckily enough it did not fall of the tripod, but later on we sought help on how to secure the camera on the tripod properly. When also trying to log and capture, the clips was capturing every 6 seconds, however we found that the setting on Final cut pro was wrong hence we corrected this area.  We also had difficulties in finding the right sounds, as its an independent film , we had problems in choosing the right sounds for our opening, the college had a collection of music album storage we could use, however we still wasn’t satisfied wit the sounds as it did not match with the protagonists running also there are legal factors in inputting copy right protected music on our film , hence we had to use either our individual sounds or a copyright free source music from INCOMPETECH where we ended getting our sounds from.

If this production was based on a high budget film, we would preferably use an HD camera, rather than using the VX2000E. This would obviously bring out the quality of our film more, where the viewers would be able to hear the ambient sounds in the background that didn't come out so well with the camera we used, and the sound of the main character breathes from running so it could add to the tense.We would also have liked to have used fruity loops in order to create a score soundtrack as well, as this would be specific to every intense moment of the scenes, also it could simultaneously fit in well with the jump cuts and other editing techniques we used, rather than having to go for an already made sounds, not disputing the fact that our current sound worked like a genius with some of our main scenes when the music gets louder as the protagonists meets the antagonists. Using these possible options, we could had made it more intrinsic for the viewers.