The student learned about various technologies through constructing their project including: - Using an iMac for editing video in Final Cut Express and creating titles in LiveType. - Recording footage for the project using a Flip HD camera but it had limited battery life and zoom capabilities. - A tripod was used to keep shots steady but it was bulky to transport between locations. - An iPad 2 and GarageBand app were used to create the music but transferring the song to the computer took a long time.

1. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
By Jamie Smith

2. iMac
To produce our main task we used a
similar iMac as seen in the picture to
the left. On this we edited on Final
cut, added blog posts on mahara
and found the font for our titles on
dafont.com. When it came to the
editing software there was two
things we used the iMac for. The
first was Final Cut Express HD
which all of the project was placed
on and we were able to use the
cutting in and out of the videos at
different times on. The second was a
software called LiveType which was
used to create the titles for our main
task and the production/film
companies.

3. Flip HD
The Flip HD camera was used to record
our main task. The main advantage of
this was how easy it was to you as it
was just simply point and shoot, and it
was also very small and light so we
could easily put it in our pockets while
we were moving to and from a location.
Some disadvantages though were the
small battery life as it had around two
hours of it, the same as the amount of
footage it would take, so to use the
battery to its full potential you would
have to be recording for two hours
straight. Also the zoom feature was
rather useless as it wasn’t very smooth
and made the image appear very
grainy.

4. Tripod
This Tripod (Velbon CX 640 to be
specific) is the tripod that we
used to get most of our shots. The
advantage of using a tripod was
that we could keep our shots nice
and steady and stop them from
jumping around. The
disadvantage was that this was
the biggest thing we had to carry
from shot to shot. This really
made us thin how difficult it
would be to carry between
sets/shots for people shooting big
time movies.

5. iPad 2
The iPad 2 was used to create the
music for our main task as I had
GarageBand installed on my own
iPad. The reason we decided to use an
iPad instead of the mac was that I
could use it to play instruments
instead of using loops, this included
the Cello, Basses and Viola . Another
strength of using the iPad was that I
could easily carry it around with me
in my bag and could work on the
backing track anywhere I wanted. The
disadvantage was transferring the
song from the iPad to the Mac took a
lot longer than what I thought it
would and I had to email it instead of
a normal transfer.

6. Final Cut Express
Final Cut Express was used to create the main task
from scratch, we put all of our shots recorded
using the Flip HD cameras onto this software and
put them onto the timeline to create the project.
We also imported the backing track made in
GarageBand onto it, Lastly we also imported the
title we made using LiveType onto Final Cut
Express. The main advantage of using Final Cut
Express would easily be the editing software
installed onto it because, as can tell, our finished
project relies heavily on editing due to all of the
cuts from shot to shot in the black background.
The editing also helped us fade the titles in and
out as on LiveType we didn’t use any fancy effects
as we felt it would ruin the overall effect on the
project. One disadvantage was how complicated
the software was to use, but that’s mainly due to
me not picking up on it quick enough during the
prelim task as I only grasped the basic concepts.

7. GarageBand
As the music was my main focus I decided
to use GarageBand on my iPad as I knew it
was a great way to create music having
already done so before. Also for the backing
track to fit the opening sequence we were
trying to make the loops on the mac simply
didn’t give me enough freedom to create
what I was hoping. Using GarageBand on
the iPad I was able to adjust how loud the
orchestra was and all I had to do was touch
the screen which made things a lot easier to
use. Although one of the disadvantages was
exporting it onto the mac as this took a lot
longer than I was expecting it to and I also
had to email it instead of using just a normal
transfer.

8. LiveType
We used LiveType to create the titles for the
main task as it came with many different
effects/fonts and was simple to export to
Final Cut. Admittedly we didn’t really need
to use LiveType for our titles as we found
the font on another website (DaFont.com)
and used the effects in Final Cut. But we did
use it for creating our production (Dicax
Productions) and film (Police Line Films)
idents. I edited some pictures from the
internet and found the fonts and effects on
LiveType. One advantage of using LiveType
was how simple it was to use and only got
more complicated if you needed to do more
complicated things. One disadvantage I felt
was that it was very fiddly to use when it
came to exporting pictures from the internet.

9. Mahara
Mahara was one of the websites that we
used to create our main task. Using this
website we were able to save simple blog
posts and these said about what needs to
change in the main task, gave a chance to get
feedback and was our primary place to store
research we had gathered about the genre,
films etc. I ended up using mahara a lot as I
put a lot of research into finding the right
things for the main task. The main
advantage of using Mahara was that it was
the simplest website to use. One
disadvantage was that sometimes certain
things wouldn’t show like prezi and other
things took a very long time to load up.

10. YouTube
To conduct our research one of the
websites we used was YouTube. This was
done by looking at other opening
sequences in the thriller genre. This gave
us an idea of what to use for a costume,
the location of filming and how we can
make our main task look unique. We also
looked at different types of backing tracks
from well known films like inception and
the dark knight rises as we wanted
something dark and mysterious similar to
that used in these films. The obvious
advantage of using youtube was that we
could find any music or video with ease.
There wasn’t really much of a
disadvantage either!

11. Prezi
I personally found that using an online
cloud based software like Prezi was a
brilliant way of showing research and
other findings as it keeps people watching
interested in what's happening. Prezi was
also a new software for me to use so I
ended up showing a lot of my findings on
there. The main advantage of using Prezi
was that it was very eye catching and a
fun way of presenting results. The
disadvantage was that when I wanted to
edit this on my iPad I needed to pay extra
money and that I simply couldn’t afford.