1. What have I learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?

2. For this task, I have used my own Canon EOS 1100D and this was the
first time that I have used my camera for filming. This is because for
my preliminary task, my group used colleges Nikon cameras that are
provided by the media department. I have learnt how to film on a
Canon camera and realised through trial and error that when the
camera is on manual focus that you have to rotate the lens to focus
the subject and therefore I learnt where the switch was to change
the camera onto auto focus. This is so that when I was zooming out
on the protagonist’s face, the shot was in focus the whole time.
I also learnt to use a tripod which I had struggled with on my
preliminary task because for this sequence, I found that they were
quite stable when placed in high places and for the starter task I was
worried about the tripod breaking or falling over from the weight of
the camera.
Filming With a New Camera

3. I have used a green screen in my opening sequence to show a
convention of musical where the protagonist imagines herself on a
stage in front of a big crowd. This was new to me as I have never
used a green screen before, but luckily my college could provide me
with one that many people before me have used for the A2 task of
producing a music video, this meant I had students that had done
this before for advice.
I found the filming against the green screen rather simple; I just had
to ensure that the colour of green was equal behind my performer.
The task that I struggled with the most was trying to download a
video of a stage for the background of the performance because I
had never downloaded a file in an mp4 format. I found it useful to
watch YouTube tutorials on how to place the green screen over the
video for the background to be shown, I learnt that the computer
replaces the green colour and also that the screen doesn’t have to be
just green, some companies use blue screens.
Filming In front of a Green Screen

4. I have learnt about Photoshop whilst producing my opening sequence
because I used this programme to create my ident for the start of my
film.
I took an image of music notes off Google and then placed it into
Photoshop. I then clicked the text button and drew a box over the top
of the notes and wrote in the words ‘Spring Musical Productions’. I
then messed around with the fonts and colours of the writing and
chose to use red for the colour because it stood out against the black
notes.
Luckily I have taken photography as an A level so I had some idea on
how to use Photoshop but I have never used writing on any of my
pictures before. I plan on incorporating words into my photography
work now that I have learnt how to use it.
Photoshop For The Ident

5. I had to use a tutorial on YouTube in order to know what to do I was
putting a video behind green screen footage. In future, I will know how
to manipulate the background video for the green screen because I
found that it wouldn’t let me put my 32 second footage over the 15
second background video. I had to cut the footage to fit over the top
of the video and then add in two more duplicates of the video and
then use the clip trimmer to edit the footage back to 32 seconds.
Whilst editing my film together, I found that you could change the
effect behind the writing on the titles. Therefore, for the title at the
end of the equilibrium, I put the name of the film ‘The Finding of
Orrienne’ on a sea background. This is called intertextuality as I have
made reference to another popular film with the same target audience
as my film “Finding Nemo”
Using iMovie

6. Whilst I was researching and planning, I used sites such as
www.prezi.com to create presentations on such things as a character
profile for my protagonist. I also used slide share in order to put one of
my evaluation questions on to the internet to be able to get it onto my
blog.
For my research, I mainly used Google for things as audience research
to be able to get a good idea as to who I will be aiming my film at and
who is interested in my genre of film in terms of male/female.
While I was planning my opening sequence, I took cast shots of my
main characters, eg the protagonist and the backing dancers for the
performance sequence. For these images I used college’s Olympus
cameras as they are little and compact, this enable me to carry them
around college in order to take the photos of my cast. Therefore, for
this task I have used three different types of cameras and this has
widened my knowledge on different types of cameras and how they
work. This will give me an advantage for any A2 task.
Research and Planning