Q6 - What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing the product?

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

 

The first technology we were introduced to was Blogger, this was used to post different pieces of work. The work we displayed on this site was to show that we have completed research and planning. It was also used to plan out our film in various methods; Storyboard, Photographic storyboard, camera shots and how the filming schedule will run. We also had a group blog which consisted of me and my other member of my group. We would complete tasks that were set and we would divide them individually so that we both do equal amounts. The use of blogger helped me a lot when I was planning my film opening as it allowed me to keep on top of the work. Also the fact we could look back at previous years blogs helped me a lot as if I was struggling on a piece of work then I would look at other peoples to get an idea of what to do and how to answer the question. This also helped to improve my work as yet again I could compare and see how to get the top marks.

Next we were introduced to the camera, this piece of equipment was very useful when we were shooting our film, and this is because it was in HD quality which meant that each scene was the best quality it good have been. Also we were allowed to use a tripod to place the camera on which allowed us to shoot steady shots which helped to keep the camera still and meant that the film looked more professional. Due to the high quality camera we were able to make use of these settings, for example the use of the zooming in and out allowed us to get professional shots of close ups instead of having to stick the camera in the face of the actor. Moreover, the use of the dolly really helped to improve our film as it allowed me to get tracking shots. However, on the other hand the tripod wasn’t as good as we hoped

As the stands we somewhat rather weak which meant that we had to be careful when extending the legs of the tripod. Also the sometimes when we were shooting some scenes the quality was rather dark which meant that we thought we had to try and make the light brighter but however we found when we imported the clips onto the IMAC they were not dark and in fact it was just the camera therefore due to this fault we wasted some time that could have been spent on perfecting the scenes we thought needed improving.

 

IMovie

The editing software that we decided to use for was IMovie. We decided so use this as we were already familiar with this software as we previously used it for our Drive opening remake and our preliminary task, so we knew the procedure to apply certain features on the program into our clips. Alternatively we were going to use the final cut express program but we very unfamiliar on how to use therefore settled to use IMovie. IMovie was quite easy to use but we had some trouble trying to flip one of our scenes over in the clip so it played backwards in which after some time we found how to solve this problem, by using trial and error on certain options on the software.   The clips we imported were not all consistent on the colour scheme on the background for certain scenes. This meant we had to use the IMovie software to edit the colours of certain scenes to make them match the rest of the clip. This proved to be quite time consuming as it was not entirely straight forward as we had to play around either the lighting or the RGB to make the colour schemes of the scenes match. This suggests that if I had to create with film again I would try and get familiar with other media editing software’s such as final cut express as these may have features that could help me correct any problems faster than IMovie did.

When we were filming I found that we all worked successfully as a group as we both had the same vision which meant it was easier when we were shooting the film as we did not suffer from arguments over how the scene should have been shot, for example there was no misunderstanding and if there was we would just take a scene each and let that person give their insight into how they think it should be shot. The problems we faced were more to do with not putting enough effort into thinking about the shots and how they will be filmed. Also the fact we did not take at least 3 copies of each scene to pick which one was the best meant that we suffered when it came to editing as we had to really think about it more and use different clips to fill different holes. We overcame these problems by simply re-shooting a few of the scenes a day later, this meant that editing had come to a hold up though as we were no longer able to edit as we simply did not have enough clips to do so therefore the re-shooting gave us a second chance in hindsight and allowed us to improve our film. However due to these errors we learnt that when we are filming we must make sure that we take enough shots in order to compare between the two and see which one was better. We also learnt that about the different options the camera provides and that we do not just have to stay on the same setting throughout the whole piece.

 

Next time if we were to do it again, we would change a number of things, firstly we would make sure that before we went to film our piece we would gather enough research into the different locations so that we could choose the best one. Also we would change the way we shot some of the shots, for example due to the fact we were short for time we had to rush some of the shots which meant they were not the quality we thought they were and this effected our film in a bad way as it meant that not all shots were as professional as we first thought.