1. Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
During construction of the product the technologies I have learnt are;
• Adobe Photoshop
• Serif movie plus
• Camera
• Internet and websites (Weebly and Slide share)
• Youtube
Photoshop:
I used Photoshop for a variety of reasons when creating my opening sequence. The main use
for Photoshop was creating my production company logos, titles and main titles. I used
Photoshop as when using this product the outcome looks more professional compared to
other programs. In Photoshop I was able to use tools that gave me more freedom in creating
my products I was able to create lots of titles all with different fonts while resizing them and
moving them around to any position I wanted. Being able to use tools like this as well as
more complex photo editing ones like curves allowed me to create a more professional
looking logo and production company logo. Photoshop allowed me to use tools such as Text
which allowed me to add text to an image and customise it with fonts ,colours and many
other texture options that give the text a more sharp and professional look. I could also add
other things such as background drop which adds shade behind the text. As well as glow
which adds a colour around the text to make it appear like it is glowing. All these tools
allowed me to create a very good looking logo due to the wide amount of options this
software provides.
2. Serif Movie Plus:
Serif Movie Plus was the most important part when creating my opening sequence as this is
how the editing was done for my product. Serif Movie Plus is a simple video editing software
which allows for simple yet professional video editing. Using this software compared to
another program such as windows movie maker allowed me to create a more professional
looking product with much sharper editing. Using tools in serif plus such as fade and cut
allowed my video to look more professional as it also allowed me to remove unwanted
things such as sounds and crop out things I did not want in the shot. These tools all helped
me to create a better and more professional looking video. Serif Movie Plus also allowed me
to add images and text to the work so I was able to edit various things into my work that I
was not able to do in filming. Text was very helpful as I was able to add titles in the corners
of my work as well as resizing them and changing the font and colour. I used other tools such
as pan and zoom which allowed me to pan and zoom on certain scenes to add effect. This
made my film look much more professional in certain scenes mainly when an actor was
walking. I was also able to add effects to the videos such as blur, black and white and
brightness. All of these were used to make my videos more like an action film. Although they
are subtle they look very good on my video. The blur tool allowed me to slightly blur one
important scene of a bag being opening. The shot was a close up and using this creating a
sense of depth of field for the viewers.
3. Camera:
The camera was also another essential part of creating the product as without it there would
be no product. I learned new skills whilst using the cameras as well as how to use camera
angles better when filming more important scenes. These camera angle included close up,
mid shot, establishing shot and wide shot. These camera angles are all very important for my
genre as the use of close ups allowed me to show scenes in detail and show the emotions on
the person face in greater detail. Mid shots allowed me to show the background while also
showing most of a character in detail. The establishing shot allowed me to show the area in
detail and was very important in showing the people where the opening sequence is set. I
also used close ups a lot to show a character in more detail I mainly used this camera angle
when scenes got tense or to show something of importance such as the students bag. I was
also able to learn new techniques such as how to use the camera and how to make sure the
audio was caught. As well as where and when to film the scenes for example I made sure to
film when nobody was around to make the opening sequence seem more real. More
examples of these include Point of view which I used to show certain scenes from a
characters point of view this also gave the opening sequence a more personal feel. I also used
establishing shots in order to film the beginning of the opening sequence. While filming
though I had many problems such as sound from nearby cars and so on. As well as the
camera being too shaky and looking too unprofessional. All of these camera skills allowed me
to create a good looking product in terms of camera angles
4. The use of new websites on the internet has also allowed me to learn new skills such as Weebly, which
allowed me to publish my own website using different tools. I was given a lot of tools including text which
allowed me to add text to the website in a variety of fonts and colours. Embedding of websites and linking
to other websites allowed me to link my work from other sites such as YouTube. I was able to upload
content to YouTube then embed the video so it could be watched on my webpage. I could also add images
and word documents to the page which allowed me to add custom images and show my work on the
webpage. As well as linking word documents I had produced to the website so that people could read
them. Another website also includes slide share which allowed me to publish my work and embed it onto
Weebly. I used slide share as it allowed me to upload my power points onto the websites which also
allowed for embedding onto Weebly this was simpler than adding images to Weebly and it also makes my
website more interactive. This is also a new skill I have learned. When creating and placing documents and
videos on Weebly I found out how to use embed codes which allow work to be placed from one website
to another with a simple code. All of these tools allowed my work to be published in a much more simple
way however it is much more professional looking than using a simple word document.
I also used YouTube to upload my videos to the internet. YouTube then allowed me to have an embed code
for the video which would allow me to place the video on other sites such as Weebly. YouTube allowed me
to publish my video for free so that I could then place it on Weebly. When using YouTube I could edit how
the video was seen from everyone to nobody this allowed me to fully control who sees the video. When
the video had been uploaded I could then use the embed code to place my video on Weebly so it could be
seen by the people who visit the website.
5. I created my actual opening sequence in Serif Movie Plus. This allowed me to carefully cut
and edit audio to a very detailed level. This program also allowed the use of other new
tools such as transitions and controlling the audio levels for some clips. This was very
helpful as it allowed to remove unwanted sound from my. I created my titles in in two
different programs originally I used Photoshop to create custom titles but due to problems I
used Serif Movie Plus which also allowed me to create simple yet very good looking titles.
Using Serif Movie Plus also allowed me to add fade and other effects to the tiles I placed in
my opening sequence. For both of my production logo and my film logo I used Photoshop
as this allowed me to create very professional looking logos that look very similar to real
ones. The program allowed me to use very precise tools which allowed me to basically
create anything that I wanted. Both production company logos that I made looked very
professional. I also used Photoshop to create my original title for my film just like my
production company logo this looked very good and overall looked like a real title which is
why I think that Photoshop was the best program to use when creating my tiles and
production company logo.
