2. Editing
Sony Vegas Pro 12 was used as my primary editing program. It has an easy to learn, simplistic and
clean workspace. It has various advanced tools such as colour grading options, custom transitions,
plugin support and audio mixing built in. While using the software I learnt more about colour
grading and how to achieve a natural look, while making it look visually appealing. I learnt about
how achieve this look on YouTube tutorials, teaching me about different methods, and the
importance of maintaining the natural look. Also I was able to improve the audio by adding effects
such as equalization and reverb, this was used to amplify his voice and to remove any background
noise.
I also learnt a lesson during the editing of my opening, as halfway through editing my edit project
file was corrupted by my computer. This meant that I had to restart my whole project on Sony Vegas
including colour correcting and audio mixing. So next time, I will always make serval backup’s of
RAW files, project files and anything else important onto an external Solid-State-Drive (hard drive) to
prevent any loss of files In the event of file corruption.
I found that across the various film production companies many
use Avid and Adobe premiere pro CC to edit their films.
4. File organisation
As soon as I had finished filming, I transferred the RAW video files onto my computer, organized in
folders for ease of use. I immediately created separate folders for different aspects of construction of
the opening. I learnt this was useful because it firstly keeps everything together in one place,
meaning its easier and quicker to access, and makes my editing workflow more efficient. Also if a
single video or audio file was ever corrupted in the project, it would be easy to locate it and put it
back in the project.
5. Other media production programs
To create the logo/title text for my opening (As seen in the bottom right hand corner of the slide) in
Adobe Photoshop CC. As was my thumbnail used on my personal YouTube account. I learnt how to
make text prior to the production of my opening, however making the thumbnail was new to me. It
involved learning the dimensions of my video and also fitting the requirements of the YouTube
uploader (Thumbnails are 1920x1080 pixels, with a 24 bit depth and exported in PNG-24 format for
best internet quality). This procedure was new to me, and therefore I had to use detailed forum’s
online to find out the requirements and how to export it in the best quality possible.
Also I used Adobe After Effects CS6 to create the ‘’Smith Motion’’ writing on screen effect. This was
done through drawing a mask over original text created with the text tool in AE. I learnt this
technique by watching a single YouTube Tutorial from a channel called ‘’Jvadala’’ who’s tutorial was
informative and easy to learn from.
6. Filming technology
Whilst filming my opening I was using a whole array of technological equipment, including a DSLR camera, external
microphone, soft box lighting, and an SD card. To enable me to access the best quality on the camera I had to perform a
‘’recce’’ to play around with the camera and work out different settings. This allowed me to refine my filming technique such as
holding the camera still or creating the handheld look, and also how to preform a pull focus shot. This was one of the more
technical aspects while making the film, as it required me to hold the camera steady, keeping the camera in focus on the actor,
and then pulling the focus onto the picture frame. I found this hard and took multiple shots to get it perfect as I found it was
hard to regain full focus on the picture frame. I also learnt about the camera settings, as in default mode the Canon 600d
records in 1280 x 720 (720p) however I wanted the best quality so I had to adjust it to record 1920 x 1080 (1080p).
During filming, focus was my what I found hardest, often I had to use manual focus in order to get the close up shots to focus,
however having auto focus on the camera definitely assisted me during the shoot. One thing I did notice was that the auto
focus never retained the correct focus, it would always try and focus on something different when the subject moved.
Having a flip out screen in the shoot on the camera helped me see the framing in the awkward positioned shots. If I didn’t have
the flip out screen I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the bathroom scenes as the bathroom was cramped and not wide
enough for me to stand behind the camera. Also it assisted the low angle shots of Carl walking up the stairs as I wouldn’t have
been able to frame and focus the shot precisely without it.
8. Online technology
To upload all of my work so that it could be marked for my exam I used a site called Blogger, which enables me to quickly
upload files to share them to the public. However I found that to upload some files such as word documents, I needed to use a
program called Slideshare. This allowed me to compress the document and produce a HTML code which can then be composed
on my blog as the word document. HTML codes were new to me, however I have found it is the easiest way to upload a
document or video to the blog as it is quick and easy.
To produce my pre production plans I used Microsoft Word which is the best way to share your ideas in an organized way,
quickly. It has brilliant features such as synonym finder and spell checker which has enabled my pre-production work to be of
the highest standard, as nothing is spelt wrong and the synonym finder allowed me to make my initial ideas and character plans
more detailed and easy to understand.
To produce my evaluation questions I have been using Prezi, which I have learnt that it is one of the most exciting ways to share
your ideas. It is much like Microsoft Powerpoint, which I also used, however it makes the evaluation more engaging. Prezi was
also used because my evaluation questions must be produced with varied media programs to show a range of knowledge and
understanding of media.
