The document discusses various pieces of equipment used to create a short film opening for a media project. It describes how a video camera was used to capture footage and different techniques learned like panning and the 180 degree rule. A tripod provided steady shots and allowed for panning and zooming. Lighting was influential in setting atmosphere, and gels were used to change light colors. iMovie software allowed editing and adding effects like music and sound effects. YouTube was used to upload and share the project online. Technical issues with uploading from school computers had to be addressed.

1. The Camera
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This was the most vital part of our media “tool
kit” and was responsible for capturing of our
final video. We mainly used this on the final
project of the thriller opening and learnt its
capabilities through a preliminary introduction
task which is also loated on our blog. Through
creating this product we have become able to
use the video camera in several different ways
to how we would have firstly anticipated. We
advanced various camera techniques
throughout the final project that we had not
used as well in our preliminary task. For
example the addition of things such as
pannning in and out, the 180 degree rule or
match on action. Simple things that made a big
difference in the quality of our final piece. During
the preliminary task we learnt the basic formula
for the 180 degree rule which we used very
basicaly. We were then able to fully extend this
in our final task and use it to full effect. This was
much the same with panning, we did not use
this feature in our preliminary however with the
final task we had advanced our knowlegde and
were able to do this. One disadvantage of the
camera is it needed sufficient charge to perform
its full capabilities and needed to be charged at
various points in the filming process to keep the
battery alive. However we were able to
overcome this by making sure we had two fully
charged batteries and simply swaping them
over and charging the other when one died.

2. The Tripod
The very a very useful piece of
equipment for us to have to our access.
It provided a steady professional shot on
every take it was used, and allowed the
capability to successfully pan or zoom
without the shaking or wobbling of the
camera shot. It was also very useful in
more simple terms allowing us a
significant change in the height we were
able to get for a shot, enabling us to get
the high angled shots precision perfect.
Lastly the tripod was effective as it
enabled us to place the camera at a
suitable height for all of our shots
providing a focused and steady frame
for every shot used. We initially had a
broken tripod that was prone to shaking
and moving the camera so it was a
definite problem for our filming process.
We were able to overcome this by
replacing the tripod with a sufficient
substitute tripod from our schools
resources. One weakness of the tripod
however would be that you are restricted
to that one spot where the tripod is, you
would be unable to follow the action or
character if a tripod was used.

3. The Lighting
The lighting was incredibly influential in
the making of our short film opening as it
helped the scenes grasp tension and
atmosphere increasing the viewing
experience. We were able to use the
lights provided effectively with gels to
change colours (red for tense, anxious
situations etc) this was very useful for
our shrine in which we used a red gel
over the light to create an eerie tense
atmosphere that grasped the viewers.
We also used the natural light that filled
the room efficiently making our
characters easily recognisable and
defining their features/expressions
effectively. We initially had no lighting as
there were insufficient supplies at our
school so we had to improvise initially.
We used an ordinary desk lamp and
placed a gel filter over this, however this
was a disadvantage as we had to keep
turning the light of for periods of time
allowing it to cool down, preventing any
further problems. Lighting was a very
effective tool for creating our mise en
scene as it successfully lit our shrine
and gave it that eerie, spooky

4. Flip Camera
The flip camera although not used in our
final piece was an insubstantially
important tool for our
development/research stages and
helped us to gain lots of audience
feedback etc. We used this camera for
the interviewing of all our audiences and
reactions etc. This was primarily as its
ease of access allowing us to plug it
straight into a computer and put the files
into our folders easily. Not only this but it
was also very easy to use and did not
require much technological idea to work,
ideal for us starting off at the begging of
our media projects. One weakness of
the flip camera however is its limited
range in both sound and picture, it is
ideal up close as it picks up sound and
images efficiently. However when used
over a long range it can become blurry
and the sound become unrecognisable,
therefore to overcome this problem we
only used the Flip Camera for short
ranged shots and used the ordinary
cameras for any shots needed to be
done over a long length.

5. iMovie
This was again one of the most vital parts of our media
equipment. This was the software we used to actually
create our short film opening and was our only source of
editing software. We were able to develop our piece
emphatically through the use of this software as it gave us
the ability to use all types of cuts and also gave us the
addition of things such as text or the addition of music
over our piece. Developing what we had done in our
preliminary task we were able to uncover various other
types of effects on this software to further enhance our
final piece. In particular was the addition of sound effects
that we could include in our piece to strengthen its impact
on the audience. For instance when the doorbell rings and
the girl is on the bed, a sound effect could have been
added here to intensify the noise. This software did have a
few technical problems however that disabled us from
being able upload to our blogs for some time. As the
majority of iMac work was done from school this is where
we would have to upload to Youtube to enable the work to
be featured on our blogs, but there was a technical glitch
on school macs that did not allow us to do this. Therefor
we had to work with the schools computer technician to
enable us to access this feature and in the end we were
sucessful and able to load our work to youtube, and then
onto our blogs.

6. Youtube
This was a very helpful tool in the creation and
overall production of our final piece. It was the
software that allowed our video to be uploaded
onto the internet. Youtube was also extremely
helpful as it allowed all our other smaller tasks
for instance our feedback to be uploaded onto
the internet and thus onto our blogs. This kept
all our work from being word or powerrpoint
documents, keeping our work interesting and
creative. This was essential throughout both
our preliminary and final tasks as it was the
software that our work was showcased on. We
had to advance our knowledge of this software
in able to be able to upload our final tasks as
we had some technicial problems that kept us
from doing so. As the computers do not allow
us to upload to youtube from school we had to
work with the computer technician to unblock
the site and enable us to upload, so we were
able to showcase our work. This helped us to
learn more about the software and thankfully
was a problem that we were able to
successfully address and overcome.