Evaluation: Question Six:

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot during the process of constructing the end product of the thriller opening. I feel that I have gained many skills and techniques when filming, the editing, distribution of films and the process of working with a group to come up with ideas.

Filming / camera skills:

 Filming was a difficult part of the thriller opening for us as we filmed a lot more than we had planned as when we got back to school to start editing the shots on several occasions weren't as good as what we wanted and also the lighting was poor in a few shots also. We each filmed our fair share of clips we tried to make it so that people who weren't acting in that certain scene did the filming. I filmed most of the conversation between the mum and dad, the mum walking into the living room, the kitchen and stairs shots. I have no experience prior to this using a camera professionally so at times I found it hard keeping the camera still to make sure that it didn't move but I got the hang of this relatively quickly. I was able to build my skills and knowledge on what the right way to hold a camera was and changing angles to be able to adapt the acting as some parts were different to what we had planned originally in our storyboard. I had to make sure that the camera was focused so that the shot was in good quality and that the different angles that I used flowed from shot to shot making sure the camera was in landscape each time I filmed.  In the first couple of scenes and in the ending barn scene we used Alicia's camera as t was high quality and looked very good when used outside. However, in the inside scenes we used the school camera which was a cannon professional digital camera to enable that we got the best picture that we could. I do feel that the quality of Alicia camera is slightly better than the school but the difference wasn't to much to worry about. We also used the flash on the camera in several shots as they were particularly dark than the other shots that we had so that we didn't need to edit the lighting which can look fake and not real light. Overall, I have learnt a lot about filming and what it takes to make sure the shots are continual and the focus makes it look as high definition as possible.

Editing: 

Editing for us was quite a difficult and time consuming part of the process of making the thriller opening as most of us in the group hadn't before used the programme iMovie on the Imacs. Meaning it took us each quite a lot of time to come to grips with everything that iMovie had to offer and how to use it. When we got to grips with how to import footage from the camera to iMovie we started to look at all the features that it had to offer and we started to see what they had to offer. We liked the different effects, transitions and fonts that it had so we were able to edit our shots to make them flow and make the titles our own to make them fit what we wanted.  As well as iMovie we used a free legal downloading  site to download songs from YouTube onto iMovie which was an easy way to get the music that we wanted.



Alicia who has previous used iMovie showed us how to stabilize videos which we found very useful as a few of our scene were very shaky so this enabled it to look a lot more professional. Each of us took time to edit different sections of the opening, although Demi and I did the importing of the clips, sound, placement of the titles and the transitions. Alicia and Amy did many of the amendments and edited a fair amount of scenes. I learned a lot of skills to do with editing over time including adding slow motion to clips, making clips lighter and darker to make the shots more continual if the filming wasn't all the same, adding titles, sound effects and other parts of iMovie that I hadn't previously used before. We each had a part of the opening that we took charge of but we did get help and guidance from the other members of the group at every stage. I was in charge of the soundtrack throughout the opening sequence making sure that the music suited the shots that we had which enabled us to get across the right amount of suspense that we wanted. Also, it was important that the volume of the music wasn't too loud throughout because you needed to be able to hear the dialogue of the characters speaking so I took a long time figuring this out making sure the music was just right. I feel that I have overall, learnt a lot of skills from using iMovie on the iMacs and I feel that the choices we made as a group were right to enable the opening to all flow and fit together. Editing was a very important part of the opening to bring together all of the filming that we had to make it even more suspenseful with the use of sound effects and background sound.

 

 

Using blogger was a very important program that we used throughout the whole of the film making process. I used blogger to put all of our planning and research to enable us to see clearly what we needed to include and to also see the progress over time. I found Blogger easy to use due to its simple layout and icon tools and I was able to experiment with different backgrounds, fonts and image effects so that I could present my blog in a way that was individual to me but still showed all the necessary work my group and I had completed.

 

Analysing other types of media:

When I researched and analysed different thriller films it was ritual for me that I knew what to look for including the different shots, music and other key terminology to enable me to understand it to be able to use it in our own thriller opening. Also, while researching other thriller films I made sure to look into depth why the director chose different shots and what the effect was on the audience. I took a lot of time during the blogs thinking of other forms of media that I could use to make my blogs more interesting. I used Prezi a lot as I felt that it enabled me to write a lot of information with pictures to help explain it and it was an easy way to present to expand on creativity skills and analytic skills. I used pictures as evidence of filming throughout to back up what we did and explain why we chose to do certain things.

Overall, I have learnt a lot about ways to be able to construct our end product and have understood the steps that it takes to do this. I have learnt a lot of useful skills to do with editing, filming and using different types of media that I haven't before used.