Jordan learned many new skills in filming, editing, and producing a media project. Through filming their thriller opening multiple times, they gained experience with a digital video camera, including how to properly mount it, zoom, pan, and consider shot composition. Editing in Pinnacle software taught Jordan how to use transitions, add sound effects, and titles to craft an engaging narrative. They found certain transitions like flicker effects built tension well. Overall, the process improved Jordan's technical skills in camerawork, editing, and producing a cohesive media product.

1. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
Q6 – What have you learnedabout technologies fromthe process of
constructing this product?
Before we started to make our product, I did not know how to edit a piece of
film using technologies as I hadn’t had any experience with any editing
softwarebefore. However, over the process of filming editing and finalising
our product I can now edit a piece of film confidently. As well as this, I had
never used a digital video camera beforewe shot our thriller opening.
The creation of the preliminary task gave me a chance to learn some of the
basic skills for filming and editing footage. I learned the basic skills of filming
and how to handle the camera whilstshooting. Itgave me good confidence
going into the production of the final media product.
As we filmed each shotthree times this gave us all a chance to practice and
help with a little bit of filming. When I was notneeded in the shot, I had a go at
filming to get familiar with how to useall of the different elements to the
digital video camera. This helped me develop my recording skills.
Firstof all, I had to learn the basics. These included learning how to mount the
camera on the tripod properly, how to zoomwith the camera and how to pan
the camera whilst recording. Another thing that I learned about was the
camera’s movement and we had to think about the composition of each shot
before we shotit. After I had practiced this, we were able to startrecording.
For the majority of the shots used in our opening, close-ups were used. For this
the camera has to either be zoomed in or very close to the actor. To get a
professionalshot, wehad to make surethat the camera was focussed onto the
character’s facemaking surethat it was not blurry of fuzzy.
However, there was a downsideto filming close-ups. To get a professional
close-up shot wecould not usethe tripod whilst filming these close-ups. This is
because it wasn’tletting us get the rightangle and distanceto the face of the
victim as we wanted. To combat this, we had to manually film someof the
shots with hand. This meant that the steadiness of the camera was a little
shaky. Consequently, this meant that wehad to film the close-up shots a
number of times more than other shots because wewanted to make surethat
the quality and steadiness of the camera was the best and most professionalit
could be.

2. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
In the whole of our filming, we only used one tracking shot. This was tricky to
do as we were trying to track the actor’s feet whilsthe is walking. As the tripod
obviously doesn’tsit on the floor we had to manually track the shotwith hand.
As well as this, we had no track to run the camera alone. This made it more
challenging to get the camera still as the cameraman had to walk alongside the
victim as he walked.
Another factor that made it difficult to keep the camera straight was that the
road was very narrow and the cameraman had to walk on the back where the
ground was uneven. Fromthis I learned that if you are going to do a tracking
shotand have no track to run the camera alone, the cameraman should check
the ground that they have to walk along and plan where they will step to make
surethat they do not jolt the camera when walking. Another thing that I
learned was that if the camera is jolty and not steady then the quality and flow
of the footage is lost and it looks very amateurish highlighting the importance
of getting the tracking steady.
Near to the end of our filming, the camera was low on chargeso we had to
chargeit whilst recording. This meant that we couldn’t usethe tripod and the
filming had to be done fromhand to capture the close and extreme close-ups.
Consequently, we had to shoota few shots again to make surethat the
camerawork was steady. This used up a bit moretime but it allowed us to have
the bestrecording that we could. Also, it gave us good experience with the
camera and wecould practice focusing and getting good close-up shots. Italso
taught us that you have to be extremely prepared when it comes to shooting
footage and you have to make surethat you are awareof the camera at all
times.
Lighting was important when thinking about the
positioning of the camera. We wanted the room
to be dark enough that we could create a good
senseof mystery and suspense. However, if the
roomis too dark then patches and spots of light
will appear on the screen. This is very
unprofessionaland looks very amateurish. We
had to make surethat the light was bright
enough so that the film would look professional
and still create tension for the audience. We had to avoid creating camera
exposure.

3. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
Because we werefilming a few shots outside, we
had to be aware of the weather was doing.
Fortunately, we werelucky and the weather was
good for filming. One of the positives of the weather
being sunny was that we did not get any rain drops
on the camera whilst filming. This would havebeen
very tricky to film if it was raining as the camera
would have gotten wet becausethe water droplets
would get onto the lens and ruin the shot.
Another upsideto the weather being nice was that it gave the audience a
senseof normality and peace. This is a big contrastwhen the opening unfolds
and this is effective for the audience. Adding to this, another factor that can
effect the quality of the recording is the wind. If it is too windy then the sound
may justbe muffled wind. Consequently, this would mean that you might not
get someof the diegetic sounds such as a footprint or the crinkling of the
paper sign meaning that you would eliminate the sense of realism, making a
wild track.
Whilst filming our opening, we tried to stick to the rule of
thirds. The rule of thirds is when the screen is divided up
into nine equal sections. The idea of the rule of thirds is
that the main focal point of the shotis always in the centre
of the screen. On the right is a good example of the rule of
thirds. This rule is made so that an audience member is
fully engaged with the film as they are drawn to the middle of the screen and
are not distracted by less importantthings nearer to the side of the screen or
above or above.
To edit our thriller, instead of using iMovie we used Pinnacle. This is a
professionalpiece of editing softwarethatour group was able to usethrough
one of the members in the group. Beforewe started to edit the footage, I had
had absolutely no experience with not just pinnacle but any type of editing
software. Through the process of constructing our final media product, I have
learned how to usePinnacle well and know many of the elements to it. Some
of the skill that we focussed on include transitions and effects, adding and
editing sound (diegetic and non-diegetic) and adding and editing titles.

4. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
Transitions and effects
This is a screenshotof the transitions menu. Transitions are the bits in
between shots for example, fades, blackouts, zooms and whitewashes. They
are used in editing to add to the effect of the film. If there were not any
transitions between shots, then there would be no smoothness to the scene. It
would be extremely jumpy as shots would go straight fromone shot to the
next if transitions are not used throughoutthe opening (This is called a straight
cut).
To bring up the transitions menu, weclicked on the ‘T’ abovethe footage bar
at the bottom. Fromthere we could decide which transitions we wanted and
which ones would be appropriateat the right time in the thriller. There were a
very large range of transitions that wereavailable on Pinnacle and it took some
time to get the right transitions for the filming. Once wehad found the right
transitions for the right shotit made a huge different. Itlooked a lot more
visually effective and allowed audience members to engage with the film
more.
To test this, we added a lot of different transitions in the same place in the
footage and tested the ones we thought were mosteffective. Fromthere we
could choosethe one that we wanted to insert into a certain shot. Two of the
transitions that I personally think were mosteffective for the thriller opening

5. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
were the flicker and flashback effect. Another effect that I thoughtwe used
well was the zoomeffect. We used this as the victim walked over the no
trespassing sign to let the audience see whatthe sign said.
One of the transitions that we used in our thriller opening that I feel has
massively benefitted our thriller was the useof the flashback transition.
Instead of using the traditional whitewash flashback weused a flicker. This was
because wethought that using a whitewash would be too cliché for our
thriller.
As well as this, using the flicker effect helped to create a lot moreof a build up
of tension in the scene. This is becausea whitewash is very slow and calm. We
wanted to have a succession of rapid shots to create a more suspensemood
for the audience. Using the flicker was a way in which we could maintain the
pace of the montage of shots.
Soundtrack
Before we could startmoving all the different shots around on the editing bar,
we had to add the non-diegetic soundtrack. When wehad decided on which
soundtrack thatthe whole group liked we imported it to an mp3 file. After this
we imported the track it onto Logic Pro X. This is a piece of music softwarethat
is used to create and edit music and sounds.

6. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
The track that we choseis called ‘Day of Chaos’ by Kevin MacLeod. Itis a
royalty free track so we werefine to useit. Now that we had got the
soundtrack, welistened to it as a group. We noticed that there were a few
really high pitched spike notes throughoutthe piece that we didn’t want as
they did not sound effective for the sub-genreof our opening. There were also
some other pitched sounds that wedid not
want as we thought they wereineffective.
To help resolvethis, we used ‘EQ’ on the track
to take out the notes that we didn’t want. ‘EQ’
is the effect of targeting a frequency region or a
specific frequency and either boosting or
reducing its gain. This took out all of the high
pitch twinkles fromthe soundtrack. As well as
using ‘EQ’ on the track, we also bended the
pitch of the track using pitch bend.
We used pitch bend becausewe didn’t think that the normal track sounded
like it suited the genre. We bent the pitch so that there was a sortof distortion
and a creepy sense to the sound. This was really effective and it made the track
sound a lot creepier adding to the effect of the suspenseatmosphere. The
picture on the rightis of the Audio Track Editor that we used to pitch bend the
track. Each individual note in the Audio Track Editor contains ‘hotspots’ which
can be used to edit the pitch.
After we had finished editing the soundtrack on Logic, it was then imported
onto Pinnacle as an audio file. We could then start re-arranging the shots to fit
in with the music. A good example of this is wherethe torturer pulls the
chains. When this happens there is a sharp noisein the soundtrack that is
really effective with the visualon screen. The two images below show this.
Fitting the shots in with the music and putting specific shots of action in with
the crescendos of the soundtrack worked really well and this was very effective
and engaging.

7. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
The two yellow bars are the sound bars on Pinnacle. Itis wherethe soundtrack
has been imported to for editing alongside the footage which is justabove it.
The yellow bar on the top is the edited soundtrack whilstthe bar on the
bottom is a detached audio clip. This is a diegetic sound and is the sound of the
knife being sharpened. To make surewe could hear
the soundtrack as clear as possible, wemuted the
footage audio so that justthe soundtrack was playing
and we could pick out key points we wanted to edit or
change. As well as this, we detached an audio clip (bottom yellow bar) so that
we could hear the diegetic sound separately and then with the other
recordings. This is so that we can see if they fit in at any specific point of the
soundtrack and the footage.

8. Jordan Crookell Media Evaluation
This screenshotshows Pinnacle’s main face. This is wherewe edited all of the
transitions and sound for the thriller. On the left hand side of the screen at the
top we can see whereal of our shots go. Before this, there is a shot screen
with all of the shots we took, fromthere wecan delete the ones we don’twant
and select the shots that we want. Then they come to this screen where you
can click/drag a shot onto a line. This acts as the shotlibrary in a way.
We used the gentle fade in effect for the very startof the opening when the
production company is being shown. This is becauseit is a nice gentle way of
starting the opening which then contrasts with the harshness of the scene
when we first see the victim.