2. What Key Decisions Did You Make About Technology During Pre-
Production/Production/Post-Production?
Pre-Production-Before we began filming our project, we decided that
we would use Google Blogger to post all the research we did in
preparation for the making of the film. This was decided so that all the
members of our group would be able to view each others work in order
to see the stage we were at in the research process. Also, to write the
script for our film, we decided to use Celtx on the IMAC and this was
because it is a professional, screenwriting software that would make
our script look like real movie script.
Also, we decided to use Google questionnaires to create a
questionnaire giving people the summary of our two minute film and
some follow up questions such as “what genre do you think it is”. We
decided to do this in order to create an audience profile for our film. As
well as this, we used social networking sites FaceBook and Twitter to
send the questionnaire out and we did this in order to obtain more
responses, as many people use these sites.
3. Production-During the production of our film, we decided to use the
DV Film Cameras to film the project with and we decided to do so
because they were straightforward to use and were light enough to
transport from location to location. As well as this, if we had filmed
with the larger film cameras, there would have been a greater risk
of them becoming damaged. In other terms of the technology, we
used our phone cameras to film practise shots of some of the
camera shots we believed would be “tricky” to do, film a “behind the
scenes” video and take location photos. This was decided because
using our phones was convenient for us, as we had them with us at
all times during filming and if we filmed a behind the scenes video,
it would provide evidence for the preparation of our filming. Also, we
felt that having the shots saved to our phones would be an easy
way of uploading them to the blogger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhb3wJEeSpo
Link to the Behind the scenes of filming the first shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhyquXzV17g&feature=endscreen&
NR=1
Link to behind the scenes of the last scene
4. Post-Production-After the filming of our project had been completed, we decided to
use Final Cut Express on the IMAC to edit our film on. This was decided because our
media teacher advised us that it was the best piece of software we had access to in
order to edit the film and we had already gained experience in using it through our
preliminary exercise, so we felt it would be simpler to use. During the editing process,
we decided to use a voice recorder because the DV camera had not picked up an
important piece of dialogue during filming, so we used the recorder to record a person
saying the line and then editing it into the scene. Using Final Cut Express allowed us
to place effects over this line and effects such as double exposure onto shots. After
editing the film, we exported it and uploaded it to YouTube, where it is easy for anyone
to view. Also, we have used Google questionnaires once again in order to create an
audience feedback questionnaire to send out. This was because we needed to gain
feedback on the quality of our film and we once again used FaceBook and Twitter to
send the questionnaire out in order to obtain as many responses as possible. We
have summarised the results into Excel graphs, as we wanted a way to see the
differences in the results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFgU7LB0Ewc
Link to our exported film
5. Successful and Unsuccessful
Successful
Using Google Blogger, as it was easy to use and a useful way of
sharing our work so all the members of our group and the teacher could
see it.
Google questionnaires-easy to use.
Excel graphs-easy to use.
DV cameras- Worked for us whilst filming and saved all our shots.
Unsuccessful
Social networking- not many people responded to the questionnaire
and a lot of people just ignored the link when we posted it.
Phone cameras-this was unsuccessful for me personally, as my phone
cable would not upload any practise shots so I had to upload them as
photos.
Final Cut Express- although we managed to edit our film and export it
in time, we had many problems with this software as there were times
when it crashed, did not save our work and we found it hard to use at
times.
6. What have we learnt?
Overall, I think that we have all learnt many different things in the
process of making our film, as for example, before the project
started, none of us had used Google Blogger before, so we now
how to use this and also how to embed work onto it. We have also
learnt how to create a Google questionnaire, how to write a script
and how to use the DV cameras properly. Although there were
some occasional problems with it, we now know how to edit a film
on this software.
