The document discusses various technologies the student learned while constructing a media production project. They learned how to use editing software like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to edit video and create soundtracks. They used Blogger to plan and share their work. Motion was used to create titles by exploring different fonts and behaviors. Filming was done using DSLR cameras with techniques like varying shot types and camera angles. Overall the student feels they gained skills in key software and production areas but would benefit from more experience and equipment for future projects.

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

2. Final Cut Pro
• Throughout my whole project I have learnt how to use the software Final Cut Pro. In
Final Cut Pro there were two windows on the left window we could view the scene that
we only clicked on and on the right window we could see our footage that was on our
timeline. This helped us see whether we had any errors that we had to fix up. One of the
common mistakes we made was always leaving tiny gaps, we knew how to get rid of
those problems as we used to zoom into our timeline spotting the gaps.
• Another way we got rid of this problem was a blade tool which allowed us to get rid of
certain bits of the scene which were not needed for our film. I found this tool extremely
useful to use.
• Moreover, we learnt how to create jump cuts, as we cut one part of the scene and added
another part to speed the process. A complex parallel edit was quite challenging to do as
we were unsure of what order we wanted our narrative to be, we found it difficult to
make the actions of the boys and girls similar to show contrast. We had to constantly cut
different scenes and use more than one timeline to. It took us a while to order our clips as
we filmed many scenes and had go through all of them seeing which one is the best to
use.
• Whilst editing our movie we were still learning how to use Final Cut, we had many
difficulties with this software, and it made the process of editing much more longer and
harder. We as media students do not have all the skills and knowledge of Final Cut Pro
and are not exerts in this field.
• Overall, using Final Cut Pro has definitely improved my editing skills, I am now a
confident editor and am ready to go into A2 and edit a whole music video.

3. Editing on Final Cut Pro

4. Logic Pro
We had a teacher
come in to teach us
bout Logic pro. This
software is used to
create music and we
used this to create
our soundtrack.
In Logic pro we learnt that in order to make a piece of
soundtrack we had to use 5-6 instruments. Therefore, we
needed a variety of music and loops such as stings, bass, drum
and flute. This was rather difficult to do as Logic Pro was very
complex to use due to the fact that there were many sub
categories of different instruments.
Before starting our music we
had a guide song. This was
Radioactive by Imagine
Dragons. We chose this song
because we thought that in the
very beginning of the song
where there are strings, in the
music; it would be suitable for
the girl. When the beat drops
in the song, we thought that it
would be good to use for the
boy. However, as we were
doing parallel edit we needed
a piece of music that was
neutral. This music should be
of a high pitch for the girl
representing her innocence
and low pitch for the boy
representing his aggressive
character. This piece of music
was extremely difficult to
make as we constantly had to
fade in and out for the
different characters.
Furthermore, another thing we learned was that we cannot play the
same instrument twice as it makes it boring for the audience. If we
were using the same instrument, we had to add or take away another
instrument. This was rather challenging as we had to go through
more sounds and had to constantly change the pitch of the music. We
found the sound editing to be more complex than the initial editing.
But I feel that we successfully acquired a very high level of skill in the
software. If I had more I would have like to have doesn’t more time
on titles and effects. I feel this was our weakest area.

5. Creating my soundtrack on Logic Pro

6. Blogger
• Blogger is a social network site where we had to put all our work in, our
research and planning. I found blogger very complicating to use in the
beginning as everything like a list, making it difficult to access certain
pages.
• Organising the research was not hard to do as during this time we didn’t
have to worry about our coursework in terms of filming. However, once we
had to started planning our documents and had to keep on track with our
production, this was difficult to do as we were really stressed out about
filming during this stage. Also, for our planning we had to always provide
evidence, for example, we had to always put our work to and explain what
we were doing. We had to insert many videos such as our Preliminary Task,
by uploading it on YouTube then on Blogger.
• When we researched existing media films we made had to look into our
genre and analyse movie openings in terms of camera work, editing, sound
and mis en scene, providing clear and detailed research. I found this useful
as it inspired me to add a few things in my film opening.
• I believe that I was successful at using blogger as I was easily able to upload
pictures and videos, show detailed research and planning.

7. Blogger

8. Motion
We used the software Motion 4
to create our titles. Motion had a
lot of different fonts for us to
choose from and lots of
behaviours. We chose the ones
that were most relevant to our
film opening/genre.
When researching titles from
romantic movies we found that
most of them were written in a
‘swirly’ font. We were inspired by
this and used the font Apple
Chancery to create our title.
We also looked at behaviours and wanted to do a
fade in and out of the title, in a slow pace fitting in
with our genre as it looks elegant. We used the
behaviour scale in and out to do this.
The colour of our
font was white, we
thought this would
be the best as it was
the most neutral
colour. Our
narrative has a
‘gangster’ element
and is rather girly.
Therefore, we
thought it should be
as neutral as
possible.
Overall, I think our
film titles could have
been better, even
though it is simple I
felt that it was lacking
in dynamism. Also, we
did not have much
time to do our titles, if
i had more time i
would have perfected
it as much as possible

9. Motion

10. Filming
We used DLSR Cameras
to film our openings. For
our filming we were
given a camera and a
tripod.
We were aware that we
had to use a variety of
camera shots, such a
high/low angle shots
and long/close up shot.
We used high
angle shots for the
girl as this made
her seem more
feminine,
portraying her as
innocent and
vulnerable . And
for the boy we
used low angle
shots to portray
him as dominant.
We had a tripod to film most of our scenes.
We were able to pan up and down also pan
left and right. The tripod also changed in
length and this made it really useful for us to
get steady shots. However, we found it very
difficult to film certain scenes such as the
establishing shots of the flowers and the dirty
grass. We wanted those shots to be really low
therefore, we had had to record those shots
with a steady hand. It took us a very long time
to record these shots.
If we were given a budget we would have
invested in more equipment such as a tripod
which goes very high and low. We would
purchase a proffessional camera for the
quality to look better.
Overall, in terms of filming I think
we were pretty successful as we
used a variety of shots. In future if
I film again, I would use more
equipment, such as the tripod
dolly. This will help us familiarise
other media equipment and had a
variety of different shots.