The document discusses the process of creating a thriller opening sequence for a class project. It describes using various equipment like cameras, tripods, and programs like GarageBand, LiveType, and Photoshop. GarageBand was used to compose a soundtrack from limited samples, while LiveType was easiest to use for titles. Photoshop was challenging to learn but allowed creating backgrounds. Effects like speeding up shots and adding reverb to match were applied. The process involved planning concepts, storyboarding, filming, editing, and publishing the final product on YouTube and Facebook to gather feedback.

1. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?

2. Working with the camera Throughout our project, we used a Sony DV camera to film our shots and the quality of the camera was fairly decent to work with. However, the camera battery run out of power quickly so we had to carry a spare charged battery around. We were able to create various shots with the camera and it was easy to work with. The camera adapted with the natural and artificial lighting and showed a reasonable amount of detail. It has been easy experimenting with shots on the DV camera as it is small, portable and easy to move around. However, using the DV camera did have its down falls. The quality wasn’t as good as HD cameras and we did expect the quality to be better. We also had to keep turning off the camera to preserve battery power when the camera wasn’t in use.

3. What have you learnt about recording and editing sound, images and video? In the process of making our project, we have used various equipment like tripods, dollies, firewires, etc and programmes ranging from LiveType to GarageBand. The recording was a simple process. However, editing the video and creating the music was tricky but we managed to successfully overcome the problems and learn from it. All of our titles were created on LiveType which was easy to use. Our soundtrack however consisted of little samples which we had to put together to sound like a thriller which was kind of hard but achievable. We used photoshop to create our company logo ‘Tell’em Productions’ background and then imported the background onto LiveType to create an animated logo. The soundtrack playing with the company logo was composed by a producer that we know from out of school who kindly helped us. Overall, using the programmes were difficult at first but as we proceeded through the year, it gradually became easier to work with the different programmes.

4. What equipment and progams have you used (photoshop, garageBand, final cut express)?

5. GarageBand GarageBand is the program which we used to create our soundtrack. One limitation was that it was very difficult to compose our soundtrack as we only had limited samples to choose from. However, the strength was that most of the samples we had sounded thriller like. We dragged the samples onto the main part to put together a crime scene/psychological thriller type sound. As we proceeded through the project, the program did eventually become easier to work with and we did end up making a successful soundtrack which built suspense and tension.

6. LiveType Out of all the programs, I feel as if LiveType was the easiest software to use. I adapted to the program very well. One strength of using LiveType is that the titles were simple to trim and make them long enough for viewers to read. It was also easy to use the transitions and different fonts and we chose to use slow moving transitions and a crime scene font to give away the genre of our opening sequence. The only limitation was that there wasn’t enough transitions to experiment with.

7. Photoshop Because our group were not used to using Photoshop, we had no idea how to use this at the beginning. A friend in our class showed us the basics and we then managed to create a background for our production logo. One limitation is that we couldn’t create an animated production logo which is what we wanted. We wanted the production logo to be animated, so we created the grey background with texture on Photoshop which was easy, turned it into a JPEG file and imported the background into LiveType and finished the logo from there. A strength of Photoshop is that there are many colours to choose from to make your background. However, we wanted dull colours to show that our production company makes thrillers.

8. Have you used any digital effects on your sounds and images? We took still images on a digital camera of the evidence markers to show exactly what the forensic member was taking photos of. These were then edited and put into grey scale to show that the forensic member is taking a still photo of something so instead of the audience being restricted, they feel more involved as they can see what the forensic member is taking photos of. In this scene to the right, we sped up the shot. In the process of speeding up the shot, we also edited the sound and used reverb to make it sound sped up, matching his actions.

9. What is the process you went through to create your product? First of all, our group had to think of a concept for our opening sequence which we planned out rather quickly. We jotted small ideas down and they gradually built up and we added the small concepts together to create our final idea. We then had to create a group thriller blog and log our different ideas e.g. if I liked a soundtrack used in a film, I would have to log it and explain why and maybe creating a soundtrack similar. We had to log our draft work e.g. our rough edit, titles, etc.

10. Before filming our final opening sequence, we also had to do our draw out our story board so we know exactly how the final opening sequence is going to look like. It is also needed so it makes it easier for the audience and examiner to understand how our final project is going to turn out. Once we drew out our shots, we had to capture still images on a digital camera and import them onto Final Cut Express which we then edited and put back onto our blog.

11. How have you published your work on the internet? We uploaded our final thriller opening sequence onto YouTube to get feedback from friends and other people who view the project. Overall, the feedback has been very positive. We also needed to put it on YouTube so we can annotate it to justify why we done what we done. From YouTube, we then uploaded our final thriller opening sequence onto Face book which was very beneficial for us as we gained a lot of positive feedback.