The student used a Panasonic digital camcorder and Velbon tripod to record footage for their film sequence. While the camcorder worked well and captured high-quality 1080p footage, its battery life was short. The tripod proved invaluable for stabilizing shots, especially on uneven ground. Apple iMac computers and editing software like Final Cut Express HD and Sony Vegas helped with editing the produced media.
1. What have you learnt
about technologies
from the process of
constructing the
product?
2. The equipment we use to create our film
sequence was a Panasonic digital hand held
camcorder and a standard Velbon tripod. This
equipment proved very useful and worked very
well and efficiently. The only problems we
encountered with the equipment were the battery
life they had. This was a problem due to the fact
that we where out recording different scenes for
several hours at a time. The camera never failed
us and was a very effective piece of equipment,
except from the battery life of our specific camera
being a bit short, the settings and usages of the
camera helped us dearly in the making and
recording of our media video. The camera had a
very effective zoom mechanism and was very
specific with the distance of the zoom, The
camera helped us shoot with the best possible
quality as it is 1080p (high-definition). The
camera also has a framing setting which gives us
a grid on the screen of the camera, this gave us
the ability to see the distances and proper
positions of actors and props on the screen at the
time. The camera gave us the ability to achieve
high angle shots and other complicated shots
such as, good quality close ups, establishing
shots and tracking shots, due to the camera
being light it was easy to move into the high
position and this made the high angle shots.
3. The Velbon tripod we had was by far the most
valued piece of equipment we had, due to the
rugged, muddy and uneven grassland. The
Tripods legs allowed it to be set at different
heights on each leg, which lead to the ability to
always have our cameras set to be straight and
stable at all times. Over all the equipment we
where given was very useful and played a
major part in the creation of our media
production. The Camera had a small spirit level
just under the camera attachment. This was
very helpful so we could be 100% sure that the
camera was straight and correctly set. In our
scene at the tunnel the ground was highly
uneven and very rugged ground so we took a
plank of wood and placed it under two of the
tripods legs, This made our shot almost perfect
as the horizontal line was very specific as we
needed to edit two of the same shot together
which had been shot at different time. Overall
the Tripod was a very valuable piece of
equipment and made our production look much
4. Apple iMac.
The computers we used where Apple
iMac’s they are good machines and
are able to effectively use the
software and programmer's we
needed to use to successfully use to
create our opening sequence. The
iMac’s are able to cater for the editing
needs of our production trough the
good use of the program's such as
‘Final Cut Express HD’ and Apple’s
‘GarageBand’.
Editing software.
The editing software we used was Final
Cut Express HD and Sony Vegas, we
found these programs very helpful and
easy to use. The Program we used
when editing our video at college was
Final Cut Express HD as it was the best
editing software that was available to
us. When at home we used Sony Vegas
which we fount personally easier to use
than the other available editing
software.