EQUIPMENT, PROGRAMS AND TECHNOLOGY

Digital Camera

The most vital piece of equipment we used was a professional digital camera. It had much better quality than the flip camera.In order to keep the shots steady as well as do some panning/tracking shots, we used a tripod. It also enabled us to shoot from various angles as well as create movement.

Lighting

We used two different kinds of lighting for filming, both battery powered. During filming, we made sure to stick to the standard 3-point lighting technique, this involves a key light, fill light and back light. The LED light panel (left picture), was used for either the key or fill light. Alternatively, when we needed dimmer lighting, we would use the smaller light (right picture) as our fill light being less strong than the LED light panel.

Apple Computers and scanner

In order to blog all of our posts, as well as edit our thriller opening, we used the apple computers that were available to us in our media room and the media office.As we were not used to using the apple computers, it took a while for us to get used to it. We familiarised ourselves with the applications we needed to use in order to complete our thriller opening.

Some of the research for the upcoming of our thriller opening was done on paper. In order to show this evidence on our blogs, we used the scanner.

Main editingThe main editing software we used was iMovie. We found that through frequent use of this program, we became familiar with it which made it easier for us to use.

This program featured sound effects and transitions which we were able to include in our opening.

We have encountered a few technological issues concerning the loss of edited materials such as sound.

Using this program has allowed us to experiment with various fonts which could be included in our final cut.

Photo editing‘Grab’- To capture the screen shot of films we analysed, such as, Flightplan

‘Paint’- To scan our research and planning to transfer onto our blog

‘Fireworks’- To create our moodboard to use as inspiration for our thriller

‘Photoshop’- To make our production logo

‘Picnik’- To edit our title to make it animated

‘Photo Booth’- To video and capture images to feature on our blog. This was useful to film our audience feedback

Sound editing‘GarageBand’This is a software that we used to compose our musical score which is featured throughout our thriller.As we did not have the convenience of a keyboard, we had to use the computerised version which caused some confusion.

‘iTunes’To synchronise our finished composition as a mp3 file which we could then transport into our thriller as incidental music.

Microsoft

‘Word’Our group has made use of this program a lot to draft posts for our blog which were then uploaded onto ‘Blogger’.

‘Excel’This software enabled us to digitally produce visual diagrams in order to display our results from our questionnaire, which we distributed to members of our potential audience. Presenting data like this in a graph form makes it less difficult to interpret and to compare to other data.

‘PowerPoint’Many of our posts on our blog have been created as a slide show through this program. It is one that we like because of its many features. We find using it is easy as we were already familiar with it.

Websites‘Google’This search engine which enabled us to:- Create an account

through which we activated our blog

- Find images to use in our moodboard

- To research other thrillers in the planning stage

- Google maps – to find a suitable location

‘Slideshare’A website which allowed us to transport our powerpoints onto our blog

‘Youtube’We used this website to upload our videos and transfer them onto our blog.

‘Blogger’Through this website we were able to record the planning, producing and editing stages of our media product in a digital format. This also was useful as it allowed us to draw inspiration from previous blogs.

DVD‘DVD Player’Used for the purpose of watching thriller films during our planning stage and also when evaluating our final product to compare it to cinematic releases.

‘VLC’Combined with the grabbing tool (see ‘Photo editing’ slide), this allowed us to capture screen shots of thrillers played through the DVD to include in our research.