1. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
Question 6
2. There are 3 main stages to go through when constructing a media product:
o Planning and Research
o Construction
o Evaluation
This presentation will address the technology we used to do these things;
o Prezi
o Blogger
o Movie Studio Platinum
o YouTube
o Photoshop
Stages of Production
3. For our planning and research, we used a number of different websites. The main
website we used was YouTube. We also used IMDb and BBFC to find out about
existing films and their classifications and how to classify our film. These websites
were easy to use as they were self-explanatory and didn’t require much time to
use. Whilst using these websites it was easy to find the information we needed to
back up our work, IMDb allowed us to find information about films from our genre
that had already been released so we could see how successful they had been.
Planning and Research
4. For the construction process we had to learn how to use the camera, lighting and
mic. We also had to learn how to use movie studio platinum.
Construction Elements -
5. Camera
Throughout this process I have learnt about how to frame
and balance the camera so that the shots do not include
disruptive props which could potentially spoil the frame.
Balancing the camera makes the shot more stable. I have
also learnt that it doesn’t look as professional to zoom in
whilst recording as the zoom is sometimes not even and
can ruin a shot. I have also learnt how to manually focus a
camera, however in when filming our final piece we used
auto focus. I also learnt that when filming hand held shots
not to make the camera shake on purpose as it moves
when you move, making it more realistic.
When producing our film opening I also
learnt how to export the rushes from the SD
card and save them in a specific folder. I
knew roughly how to do this before but now
I could do it without hesitations.
Linking in with the use of the camera I learnt that the tripod has to be on
stable ground in order for the shot to be framed and balanced well. The
tripod has different heights it can be set at, and when filming our final
product we kept it on the highest possible setting.
6. Microphone
When filming our final piece we decided to just use the microphone on the camera to pick up the
sounds as there was no talking in our film. We recorded Foley sounds and some screaming to
add into our piece. Even though we decided not to use external microphone I have learnt how to
use both the boom mic attached to a camera and a handheld recording mic used separately to
recording.
7. Lighting
All in all the lighting was fairly easy to use as it only has a
simple on and off switch. With the camera mounted light it had
different filters to play with. We decided to use the orange
filter as it gave a more natural backlight to the piece rather
than a bright artificial one.
Additionally in this process I have learnt to compliment the
scenes I am filming with the appropriate lighting. However I
needed to ensure that the lighting was natural to the setting I
was filming the shot I as it is important when using artificial
lighting for it to not make the scene look unnatural.
8. Editing Software
Movie Studio Platinum –We used movie studio platinum to
edit together the footage we filmed on set. We learnt the
basics of how to use this software when editing our preliminary
tasks at the start of the course. For me it is fairly easy to use as
it is fairly simplified. When editing the footage we found that
some of it was fairly dark so we had to use filters to make the
screen lighter. The titles for our film were created on
Photoshop and then later added into our editing. The sound
we added in was either Foley sounds or downloaded sounds
from the internet.
Photoshop – We used Photoshop to create the titles of our
film. I didn’t find this difficult as I had previously used this
software in GCSE ICT. Our titles for our film are fairly basic
anyway so didn’t require much skill. We used a basic font,
found in Photoshop and removed the background so that
the titles could go over our footage.
9. o In conclusion in this process I have learnt how to use filming and editing
equipment properly. Before starting this task I had not edited any footage or
filmed any using a proper camera, I had only previously used my phone which is
simple to use. This task has furthered my capabilities of using the equipment
properly, meaning that next year I will know what I am doing, meaning that I can
work more efficiently.
Conclusion
