Evaluation - Question 6 - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

     

During the production of our media film opening I have learned a lot of new skills and techniques related to filming and editing a production using the technologies we have used in our group. I have also learned a lot of things and useful tips about these different technologies that I have used.

One of the technologies that I have used and have learned about during the creation of our production is digital recording cameras. The camera we used was a Sony video camera. This camera is quite new and so offered a lot of features such as automatic still shot taking and light exposure settings however a lot of these we didn’t use as we put in these effects on the editing software on the Mac. One of the only features that we did use on this camera was the zoom functionality, especially on the gun shot where we zoomed the camera in quite far. This was used because it allows for close up detail of the gun and focused in on the importance of the object. This effect showed the audience that the gun was probably going to be involved in the film sometime soon.

From using the digital camera I have learned a lot about different shot types available and some of the different affects that they will have on the overall film. Some of the different shot types that we could get from using the digital camera were long shots, medium shots, close ups, extreme close ups, panning shots and establishing shots. To shoot these different shots effectively we needed to use something to stabilise the shots. To do this we needed to keep the camera as still as possible, to do this we used a tripod. The tripod was very useful but needed setting up differently for every shot with different height settings, levels and other positions. There were some shots where we didn’t use the tripod such as the shot that zooms in to the rope and glass on the floor. This is because I needed more free and fluid movement to get the shot right. It was hard to keep these shots steady and I didn’t really succeed however I stabilised the shots on iMovie during the editing stage to give the effect that they were steady shots.  Another factor that effected the shots was the amount of exposure to light on each shot. The camera had an auto focus feature that helped to counter this as it allowed us to focus on specific objects at once therefore being able to break that slight light barrier.

We only had one day to film our so when shooting our media footage we didn’t have much of an opportunity to consider the different weather types although if we were filming over a longer period of time we would have had to due to continuality. For example if we filmed one shot on a Monday and it was sunny, we then couldn’t film another shot on Tuesday that was going to go directly after that shot and it be raining as the continuality wouldn’t be right. Each of these different conditions would provide different types and levels of natural light. As we relied so heavily on natural light for our filming this could have been an issue as we may not have got suitable light levels for our day of filming. On the day that we filmed the light was just right however we still changed some brightness and exposure settings on iMovie during editing to give enhanced effects.

The composition and the framing of the shots that we did was also a very important factor. We didn’t want so much of the surroundings of the location of filming to be seen as this looked very peaceful and natural which wouldn’t be right for the genre of film we were creating. Instead of this we wanted just the bridge to be seen with all the graffiti. This meant getting the right composition (objects and people in the shot) and the right framing so that the things we wanted to be in the shot were the only things and there wasn’t any excess. The screenshot below shows this.

I have learned a lot about the different shots that I could take with the camera and what effects they had on the film overall.

When we had finished filmed we needed to edit our media film opening. This involved putting all the shots together into order and then adding effects to help improve the shots and to make them more effective.

The first thing that we had to do was to import all the footage onto the software that we were using. This software was iMovie on the Macs. I learned how to import all the footage as one however we also filmed the titles on a separate occasion so I also learned how to import individual bits of film which I didn’t have the knowledge to do prior to this assignment.

This screenshot shows the iMovie interface and shows our footage in the software, I learned that dragging the footage from the bottom (which was the footage from the camera) to the top created the movie. Then we could edit the footage in the top box by adding effects, sounds and transitions. The bar between the top box of footage and the bottom box of footage hosts a number of tools that we used including the crop tool, add music tool and the titles tool.

Another of the first things we did was arrange the order of shots to make them make sense and to match the plans. As we had to adapt our idea due to our original idea not being possible on the day we could afford to mix up the shots a little more and therefore had a bit more freedom when it came to this editing stage. I learned about the selection of shots, what effects they may have and how they are important parts of production work. Examples of what we were looking for was still shots, shots will no continuity errors, shots that closely follow the shot-list and shots that work well together and provide good effects when put in the correct order.  I learned a lot about the order of shots and how they can create different effects such as flashbacks and flash-forwards and how they can help to create a sense of mystery and add to tension.

Another thing I learned to do was to add effects such as the dream effect around the shots and speed adjustments such as speeding the shots up in the climax of the opening to create more tension. This also involved inserting sounds and transitions and editing them. I learned how to insert these, position them and how to add sound adjustments and cut them to match the video during my time working on this project. Here are some screenshots of the tools and techniques that I used to do this.

Here I dragged the sound and music files from the bottom right box and positioned them underneath the film snippets at the top. I learned that by dragging the sound files I could position them differently and move them around.

Here I have opened the audio adjustments tab. I changed the volume of the video and sound tracks through this as well as altering fade settings to make the sounds fade out and in in a more subtle way.
 

Here I had opened the clip adjustments tab. I could change the duration of the clip here as well as stabilise the shot to make it appear steadier.

Here I had opened the effect tab within the clip adjustment menu. We added the dream effect to a lot of our shots which helped to improve the lighting and the look of the shots.

After completing all this editing to our production it was time to export the movie and burn it to DVD and upload it to YouTube in order to put on our blogs. Before we did this we added some non-diegetic sound which helped to build tension. I learned that subtle sounds worked best as they helped to build tension subconsciously rather than the audience having to pay too much attention to them. High pitched sounds also helped to build the tension the greatest. After adding this we exported the movie through iMovie then imported it into iDVD to make the project and create the DVD. Then we burned the DVD complete with titles and credits. This was something new as I had never burned a DVD on a Mac before so I learned something new.

I also learned how to upload videos to YouTube and create and post to an effective blog during this project as this was the required place to put all the evidence of our research and planning as well as our preliminary task. The blog was important as it gave me somewhere to keep all my research and planning together as well as a quick and easy way to find my work. The advantage of Blogger is that there are a variety of multimedia products that can be uploaded such as videos, sound files and images. I learned how to upload these things and by doing this ensured that my project looked good as well as ensuring that all the important information was present.