6. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?Abel Clarke

INTRODUCTIONDuring pre-production, production and post production the use of technology was a vital factor. Without it, it would be impossible to develop and complete the task. In this presentation, I will go through what types of technology I used in all three areas of production and mention the positives and negatives of each. As well as this I will state what I have learnt by using this technology.

PRE PRODUCTION

RESEARCH - YOUTUBE Before I could even start thinking about what sort of opening sequence I

wanted to make, I felt that I needed to put some research into it. The best way to do this is through YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website to which anybody can upload videos. This could be from small filmmakers to massive conglomerate companies. I found this website very helpful as I could look at the sort of conventions and techniques used by large companies, which I could then use in my own product. On top of this it gave me the chance to look at independent film makers and get inspiration off them, and if they were not so good, learn from where they went wrong. There were some drawbacks, for example if I wanted to know how the director went about filming a certain shot, there was a very small chance I would actually get a response. Overall, I have learnt from this piece of technology that it is important to use whatever I have available to research and develop upon my product.

SCHEDULING - MICROSOFT EXCEL Once me and my group had decided on what are opening sequence was

going to be about, we had to start thinking about what needs doing and when. This involved sorting out casting, costume, location and so on along with when we were going to sort these things out. We also had to schedule when we what we were going to film and when. The best way of doing this was using Microsoft’s spreadsheet software, Excel. This enabled us to easily display what needed doing and when. The positives of this software is that its very simple to use and is very efficient if you need to quickly refer to it. However, there were a few negatives with the program. It can be hard to understand at times. For example, somebody else in my group produced the scheduling table and to someone who had not seen this before, I was unsure to what it all meant. I have learnt from this that using technology to help with the organisation side of production is vital for your overall production to operate efficiently.

SCRIPTING - MICROSOFT WORD A vital part of pre production is the scripting process as it puts the initial

idea onto paper, making the first step towards the whole development process of the entire product. Scripting involves everything that happens in the film, not just the dialogue. Therefore writing the script by hand would be unwise in case there was a change in ideas and you would have to start again. To write our script, we used Microsoft Word. Word is one of the most well known word processing programs and there are a variety of reasons for this. Some of these would be the ease of access and the simplicity of it all. Although its simple, there is a wide range of things you can do on it. There are little negatives to this program, the only one really being there is no automatic saving set up so you can lose your work easily. For writing a script it proved to be useful as it was easy to set out and write the script and there were no implications throughout. I have learnt from this technology that writing using software is much more efficient than writing by hand as its much easier to alter.

BLOGGING - BLOGGER Throughout all three stages of production I used an online blog to talk

about what I had been doing throughout constructing my product. Blogging was something which needed to be continually updated so that both I and others could easily track the progress I was making. The best blogging program available, and that I used is blogger. Blogger is a blogging website run by Google and is free to use. It is a good blogging website as it lets you write about anything and on top of this insert such things as pictures and videos. However, there was a noticeable problem with this website and this is the ease of use is not the best. When trying to write, it can sometimes be unresponsive and as well as this moving and resizing things you have inserted, like a picture, can be difficult and also unresponsive. Overall though, Blogger is one of the best blogging systems available for free. From this technology I have learnt that it important to keep track of what you are doing so you can stay focused as possible.

PRODUCTION

CAMERA - CANON LEGRIA 306 A camera was one of the most important pieces of hardware that is needed

to construct this product was a video camera. Without a decent camera, there is no way that you can bring your pre production ideas to life, and nothing to edit in post production. The camera is the technology that captures the raw footage of your film and this footage is what will be used to make up the final product. The camera we used was a Canon Legria 306. There were both positives and negatives to this camera. The positives to this product is that it did the job of capturing the footage to a high enough standard. As well as this, due to its size it was easy to transport which was helpful as we had to walk quite far to get to our location. There were some weaknesses though. The main one being the quality of what it filmed was not as high as possible. Due to the camera being quite basic, there picture quality was not fantastic. On top of this, the amount you could do with it was limited due to it being basic. From this technology, I have learnt that the type of camera used when filming will greatly impact your final product.

TRIPOD - CANON TRIPOD When filming, there are certain shots that need to be smooth and not have

any shaky movement to them. The best way to do this is with the use of a tripod. Tripods are designed to have a camera attached to them and make the moving shots smoother and the still shots, still. The tripod I used was the basic Canon tripod. Although it was basic, it came with everything you would except from a tripod, such as a crank to raise and lower the camera, extending legs, a smooth panning axis and so on. Therefore it performed brilliantly throughout the production stage. There were a few problems, such as the size, but that was not so bad as it needed to be quite large. The only real problem that I found was the panning axis could be tightened and loosened and it was hard to get it right. This can be seen in one of our shots, about halfway through the final piece as it jolts at times. I have learnt from this that the extra things that are used on set are greatly beneficial for improving the overall final piece.

MICROPHONE - HTDZ SHOTGUN CONDENSER MICROPHONE There were times throughout our product where it would be easier for the

sound to be recorded externally from the footage ,this is where the microphone came in. Microphones are used in every professional film as the sound quality tends to be crisper and would sound a lot better in the final piece. When we were out shooting, we bring the microphone out with us once so we could record all the sounds that we needed. The mic we used was the HTDZ Shotgun Condenser Microphone. Overall this microphone was good but I may have been wrong. The quality of sound the microphone was excellent but because I was carrying the microphone with the wires hanging down, the microphone also picked the sound of them moving so the sounds were unusable. It was also quite hard to assemble and took a while meaning it wasnt the most efficent microphone to use quickly. From this, I have learnt that it is important to know how to use each piece of technology well before diving straight into it.

POST PRODUCTION

MAIN EDITING - SERIF MOVIEPLUS X5 The editing processing is the main part of constructing a media product, pre

production and production is essentially assembling and creating the building blocks. The editing process involved cutting the footage down to what we needed, putting them in order, adding music and sound, applying transitions, adding titles as much more. The main editing software that I used was Serif MoviePlus X5. Serif provides lots of designing software, such as picture and video editing. MoviePlus X5 is a brilliant editing software and is friendly towards people who are new to editing. The timeline is simple and easy to understand and the raw footage is shown to one side making it easy to see what you have and haven’t used. There are a few problems such as the rendering on the software is pretty bad making editing hard as it isn’t smooth. It also differs from other generic editing software's so for someone who has used others, such as the one on the next slide, it can be difficult to adapt. Overall I have learnt from this software that familiarising yourself with the editing software is important as it is a vital part of constructing a digital media product.

EXTRA EDITING - ADOBE PREMIERE PRO CS5 Following on from the last slide, I had to do some editing at home, and due

to Serif costing money, it was unavailable to me. However there are other software products available to me. One of these being Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. Although this also costs money the offer a free month trial which I used. I find that this software is overall better than Serif. It is not as user friendly as Serif if you are new to the editing environment but as I had used it before so I was comfortable with what I was doing. There is a lot more you can do with this software and everything is much more efficient on it. There are a few problems such as when there is a lot going on, it can find it hard to cope and in turn be slow. However, from this I learnt that choosing a product that suits your specific needs is better as you can work more efficiently with it.

CAMERA TRACKING - ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS CS5 One thing that I did to enhance the titles aspect of our product was using camera

tracking. Camera tracking involves fixing a certain object, such as text, to a fixed point in a moving shot. I felt that this was something I wanted to include ever since pre production. After some research, I found that the best program to do this with was Adobe After Effects. This program is designed for applying video effects to your product. One of the many effects available was camera tracking. Overall, After Effects is an amazing video effects program and the camera tracking aspect works really well. The problem I found was not with the program itself but instead my lack of knowledge about the program. It took me several hours to just understand what I had to do let alone actually undergo the task, which took me another few hours as it kept going wrong. Once I had finally got my head round it, it worked really well. If I felt comfortable using After Effects, I’m sure that I could have done a lot better job as the program is amazing. I have learnt from this program that it is important to practice and then feel comfortable with the programs you use before you actually go ahead and use it.