(6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Before I started this media course, I had never used anymore form of video editing software and or experienced ameteur filming, so the whole production process was new to me.
The inital hurdle was getting use to different cameras and knowing what techniques would make the shots look best. We used the school cameras for our preliminary exercise, but the quality of the picture was not as good as Shaun's camera so we decided to use his, alongside the fact that we could then use it whenever we needed to and not have to 'book' the cameras. Also, I learnt how the positioning of the camera can create a different type of impact or have a subconcious implication for the audience making viewing more of an enjoyable experience. When filming the outdoor scenes, we took shots following footsteps. Due to the technological restrictions, we had to tape the camera to George's skateboard alongside the footsteps which made the shots shaky and the camera would often come loose. I have learnt that money helps means more expensive technology can be bought making the overall production look more professional.
When coming to edit the footage, I initally found it very tricky using Adobe Premier Pro. It was crucial to cut the shots at specific times to flow onto the next shot and enhance the continuity of the film. However, we decided to use Shaun's own programme on his computer, Nero. I eventually got use to this and was able to help to Shaun (who edited most of the footage) and help indicate where to cut certain shots. A positive thing that I have learnt from modern editing software is that it is less time consuming than what they used to do in the past (physically cutting film footage) however I learnt that it does still take time and patience and buffering the footage can take a long time and the software can be tempermental as it often crashed. Also, Adobe After Effects allowed us to edit the image and extract partiular colour (e.g. the red of the shoes) and this was a new skill to me although I had done picture editing before.
I also learnt how technology can improve the image of the film. I wanted to make our opening with a film-noir feel as it looks more artistic and creative on screen, so was very active in the lighting of our production. We used different lamps and different techniques like putting a filter over the light to create different atmospheres in the interior shots. However, when looking through the camera's perspective, the lighting would often look different so we would have someone looking at the camera whilst someone rearranged the lighting to create the desired atmosphere. Adobe After Effects allowed us to play with the lighting further by adjusting the contrast and highlighting certain aspects of the footage to deepen the film-noir feel to the film.
The sound was an aspect of the use of technology that became increasingly frustrating. Using the school camera, sound was not picked up using the microphone and the internal microphone on the camera was poor quality and made the voices slightly muffled and picked up background noise. However, this w also the case with Shaun's camera so we recorded most of the dialogue separately and enhanced the voices on the Audacity programme to make them sound more sinister. Layering sound onto our footage was also tricky as the voices did not always fit the lip movement so we had to learn to rearrange what we had and cut some parts of the sound and film to make sure they fitted together. This also applied to the two different types of background music we used as we used different pieces of music before and after the gun shot to create a different atmosphere. However, because of the sound effect of the gun shot, the sound had poor continuity and was broken in parts.
I have also learnt about the impact internet has on distributing a film. Social networking allows viral advertising and gave us a way of communicating to our audience to recieve feedback. Before creating this product, I hadn't uploaded films onto YouTube before either and was surprised at how long it took for video to upload.
The inital hurdle was getting use to different cameras and knowing what techniques would make the shots look best. We used the school cameras for our preliminary exercise, but the quality of the picture was not as good as Shaun's camera so we decided to use his, alongside the fact that we could then use it whenever we needed to and not have to 'book' the cameras. Also, I learnt how the positioning of the camera can create a different type of impact or have a subconcious implication for the audience making viewing more of an enjoyable experience. When filming the outdoor scenes, we took shots following footsteps. Due to the technological restrictions, we had to tape the camera to George's skateboard alongside the footsteps which made the shots shaky and the camera would often come loose. I have learnt that money helps means more expensive technology can be bought making the overall production look more professional.
I also learnt how technology can improve the image of the film. I wanted to make our opening with a film-noir feel as it looks more artistic and creative on screen, so was very active in the lighting of our production. We used different lamps and different techniques like putting a filter over the light to create different atmospheres in the interior shots. However, when looking through the camera's perspective, the lighting would often look different so we would have someone looking at the camera whilst someone rearranged the lighting to create the desired atmosphere. Adobe After Effects allowed us to play with the lighting further by adjusting the contrast and highlighting certain aspects of the footage to deepen the film-noir feel to the film.
I have also learnt about the impact internet has on distributing a film. Social networking allows viral advertising and gave us a way of communicating to our audience to recieve feedback. Before creating this product, I hadn't uploaded films onto YouTube before either and was surprised at how long it took for video to upload.
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