The document discusses the filmmaking process for creating an opening sequence. It describes using different technologies like DV and HD cameras, and programs like Final Cut, GarageBand, Photoshop and LiveType for editing footage, creating titles, and making a soundtrack. Challenges included battery life when filming in HD, learning new software, and poor organization that led to wasted time and need for reshoots. Locations and props were used to add realism, and the sequence was published online for feedback.

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

2. Originally we started off filming in DV video but ended up using HD meaning our film has a mixture of both resolutions. While DV was good enough as seen in parts of our opening sequence its clear that HD is better, it allowed us to build enigma codes through well thought out placings of newspapers and magazines foreshadowing danger and trouble from their titles, as on a normal Dv camera you wouldn't be able to clearly show what was written. However a problem with filming in HD was that it drained the cameras battery a lot quicker causing it to die meaning we had to be more precise with our shots so we didn't waste the battery with having to keep re-filming the same shots. HD DV

3. We have used various programs and pieces of equipment to plan out and make our opening sequence. For example we have had to use a number of different cameras and tripods to match throughout filming, while on the editing side a number of vital programs have been used to put it all together such as Final cut for the film footage editing or Garageband for the making of the non-diegetic sound track. While Live type created some of our titles the majority was self incorporated into the film through Files and text messages. We thought this was good use of our props. We used photoshop to create both our production company logo's 'Axe power' and later 'Shattered Productions'. A positive of all these programs are that they are all easy to grasp the basics of meaning we could get on with our work instead of wasting time learning how to use the program.

4. Production side With the soundtrack we had to wait until we had something filmed to get a idea of what sounds go with what scene in the end we created music that kind of juxtaposes with what’s going on but still creates tension at the same time in a bit of a red herring for the audience. We used garage band to create our soundtrack. Since none of us before had ever used this program before. We watched a tutorial on YouTube what I found very useful and gave me the basics skills needed to make a decent track. A positive of GarageBand is that you can listen to the instruments before placing them into your track area and when there you can do all sorts like change the volume and tempo of the instrumental also your able to cut or extend the beat you have selected with a simple click. Another strength of this software was you can mute certain instruments without any hassle of deleting them so you could listen to sections of a track and make improvements. The one downside to this I could say is not enough choice but that can be easily fixed since you can bring in whatever you like to your library

5. Final cut We used Final cut to upload and edit our footage from our filming sessions. Final cut was easy to get to grips with and offers a wide range of options to help edit your film for instance there was a utility tool to the side of the program which offered all the basic tools you needed to edit your footage like cut or crop. Another strength of the program was instead changing the colour filter or other effects over your film directly you could tamper with it beforehand and see the difference with the editing being on a separate box While Final cut has many strengths a downside to the program is you had to keep using the same Mac and were not able to move around the room with your work. A useful part of this program was the fact that Music and Film footage were clearly spilt and didn’t force you to move/change both every time you edited a section.

6. Photoshop LiveType Photoshop was used to create both our company logo's 'Axe power' and 'Shattered Productions'. Anyone could use this program its very user friendly. To create our final company logo 'Shattered productions' I imported the back picture of broken glass then simply wrote Shattered productions. Though basic we thought simplicity was the best look for our logo. We decided to use LiveType to make our titles since it offered a vast bigger majority than imovie or Final cut did since the program specializes in different types of fonts. We visited sites like ‘Art of the title’ and ‘1001freefonts’ to gather ideas of what fonts and styles we could use. After creating our titles we imported them straight into Final cut however later deciding to remove the majority and opt for the titles incorporated into the film. The program was easy to use and offered many functions and fonts as well as allowing you to import your own if you couldn’t find one you liked. The shattered glass background is meant to connote the broken fractions in society and that peoples visions are blurred because of everything else going on symbolized through the cracks.

7. Blogger Youtube I used YouTube to upload my video to the internet, so we could receive more feedback and also to annotate my work. The site is simple to use and uploaded the film very quickly so I could get to work straight away on my annotations. We used blogger to log the work we had done for our opening sequence like the thrillers we had watched or the work we done towards creating our film such as the planning or the practice shots, also our rough edits and peoples views on what we had done.

8. We went through many processors to produce this piece of work from creating a storyline and storyboarding it out to actually filming our earlier ideas and editing it. Of course there was many more then I just mentioned, like the creation of our production company which was changed at the last moment to 'Shattered Productions' from 'Axe power' as we felt it was better suited to the style of our film not to mention the making of our opening sequence's soundtrack but also smaller things like updating our blog or checking locations were available to film in and at what times. So filming could go as smooth as possible. On the pre-production side of things we had to think of a idea and develop that more while also creating a film name and production company name to go with it. The way we acquired the name 'Collusion' for our film was by writing our story then looking up our theme of the film in a thesaurus to find a suitable word. A positive of this is not many people know the meaning of the word collusion so it helps to build enigma and mystery from the moment they hear the title. We also had to write a treatment for a whole film though we would only be filming the opening sequence of around 2minutes and write out all of the shots we wanted to use for our sequence then story board it with a rough idea on time for each shot and what transition if any we would use.

9. Another part of the pre-production side was all the wrecking we done to check out locations and see if they fitted our idea of how the film should look. On top of this we tried a couple of practice shoots in some key locations before time became an increasingly more important factor forcing us to just shoot the footage and see how it looked after uploading it and just having to wing it with what we had. Since we was attempting to create a thriller we was watched a few thriller opening sequences to get an idea of what was conventionally in them like the tilting and music. You can see some of the opening sequences we watched on our individual and group blogs. From watching these sequence we noticed that the best titles were incorporated into the film itself which made us decide to attempt the same idea as them, personally I feel that idea worked out okay and added another dimension to our opening sequence since no one else in the other groups did it making ours stand out more and be more unique. Not only did we watch some opening sequence we attempted to copy one for ourself for practice we chose Vertigo, I feel through making a copy of that will gained valuable experience which added to what we had after making an preliminary task. We also went out and filmed people giving us their ideas on what they typically expect in a thriller which you will also found on my blog. Our version of vertigo Vertigo Preliminary Practice shot

10. While on the actual production side of our sequence we had to film, edit and create a piece of music for the soundtrack. We only managed to finish our last bit of filming a day before deadline due to the changing of the film and re-shoots to get the best possible shot also we had a problem with one of the HD cameras after filming with it and everything going fine we didn't have the software on our Mac to upload it which held us up for about a day and had to give it to a technician unfortunately when we got it back we was missing shots and told they was not on the camera this happened twice in total meaning the wasting of more time since we had to go back to that location and film the same shot multiple times. An improvement for our group if we were to do this again would be to sort out our organisation since we wasted a lot of time with not being equipped or even showing up on time also it was hardly ever all 3 of us together at the same time. I think our poor organisation skills is proven through the film since I believe we could of done a lot better provided we utilized our time unfortunately we didn't and therefore get left disappointed at the end. We have published our work on the internet through blogger and also YouTube where anyone can view it and give us their positives and negatives.

11. I think our mise en scene is one of our films strongest points since throughout the film we have used numerous locations and props which I think denotes realism for the film. With the different locations it really shows he has travelled like a normal person instead of a simple cut from his home to the office their was more travelling we would of liked to show but had to remember the time cap on our sequence Also our titles were mostly brought in through our props, to make the 'directed by' title pop up on the apple mac I had to first make a file on the Mac with that content inside then move across on to my USB for opening. What I like most about this is not only do we incorporate our titles but it also continues our story at the same time and builds enigma with the file name 'Project Collusion' referring back to the title name. I would call this a main action code in the opening sequence. Even though we had all used a camera before and knew how it work it the filming took up the most of our time through a poor organisation and re-filming. We actually filmed the office scene fully in two different locations with different actors which took up a lot of the time. On the actually technical side of using the cameras ourself's their was no problems until we attempted to upload just to find we didn't have the software for one of the HD cameras which meant getting a technician to help get them off the device and then having to convert them into the right sort of file slightly costing us video clarity in the process.

12. For editing we was continuously chopping and changing parts of the film while other parts were still to be filmed so we had an idea of what it was looking like and what we think we needed to be added also since we was always updating our editing it meant once we had finished filming we only had to edit the last scenes instead of having loads to cram in at the expense of quality. Their was a few hitches during editing with the program acting up not allowing us to add transitions etc. but all was over come with out too much disruption to our editing.