WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM

THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

INTRODUCTION Throughout the process of creating out film opening, we have use a variety of different software, programmes and equipment to help us. Using them has enabled us to make the best quality film possible, and we have had to learn how to use them along the way.

BLOGGER In order to store and publish all of our course work in order and present the planning, initial planning and post production work that we had carried out, we used a website called Blogger. Having never used a blog site before, it took me a while to get used to how it worked, and I picked this up within the first few blog posts that I created. Writing the blog was quite time consuming as they had to be planned out before they were written.

However there was an element of the blog that I found difficult; this was embedding a slideshare into a blog. It was hard to work out that the blog had to be on the HTML setting when inserting a link for the website, and although this took some time to work out, I found the answer in the end.

Blogger allowed us to publish our independent work so that the other member of my group was able to see it so we could correlate out answers and work.

FACEBOOK We used the social media site Facebook to communicate between myself and Megan, as well as to communicate information to our actors Lauren, Miah and Luke.

We felt that this was the best way as it was efficient and it ensured that everybody received the same information and knew what they had to do or bring. Equally we all have access to the internet so we could converse back and forth quickly in case any thing changed. Everybody in the group was familiar with Facebook messenger and use it on a regular basis, so there were no issues regarding use of the website/app or missing any messages sent.

We did have to use Facebook as an emergency when the time of filming changed due to the weather and how quickly it got dark, and everyone received the message swiftly and replied, so the problem was solved.

If I was in this situation again, I would use Facebook as a method of communication as it worked for what we needed and delivered messages quickly.

CAMERA The camera that we used was the Panasonic HDC - SD700 and it was a camera that I had only used once before, when filming our preliminary material for the draft film.

We had to be shown how to use the camera before we started filming as we didn’t want to be left to work it out on our own as we may not have been able to do it. Once we knew the basics, we found it easy to use as we kept the settings the same to keep continuity throughout our shots.

The compactness of the camera allowed us to film a variety of shots with ease as it was so easy to manoeuvre. The only issue that we had with the camera was that the sound quality wasn’t very good so we were unable to use most of the clips with saund and we had to remove it from the footage.

TRIPOD We used the Velbon CX 888 tripod in our filming to ensure that the shots were stable and of a good quality.

None of us had ever used anything like this so we had to be shown how to set it up, change the height and angle, as well as how to take it down again and store it correctly. Once we knew how to use it, it was easy to create shots that were steady and even.

By having the tripod we could shoot a variety of angles with ease due to the diversity of the tripod, and it has benefited our film from this.

I would use this piece equipment again as it helped us to create shots that were professional looking.

LIVETYPE LiveType is a software that we used to create our credits and title for our film ‘The Hunted’.

Neither of us had ever heard of the programme before, and wasn’t sure on what it was, so we had to research it before we used it. The layout of the programme was very professional and looked as though it would create high quality credits, however we found it really difficult to use and took us a long time to learn how to use it. We had to search for tutorials on YouTube in order to help us as we couldn’t understand the written instructions. Having learned however, we picked it quite quickly and were able to create the title and credits to how we wanted them, by downloading specific fonts and inserting them into the programme.

They had a big variety of transitions and animations for when the credits entered/exited the screen, so we could choose the most appropriate for our film.

Despite originally finding it hard to use, we were able to make expert titles and credits to make the film look professional, and if I were to have another project like this, I would use LiveType again as it was quick once we understood it and gave us a quality finish.

IMOVIE iMovie is an editing software that we used to edit our film, and it was pre installed on to the computers that we used. Neither of us had used this software before the preliminary task so had no experience with how to properly use it.

The programme was very clearly laid out so we had no difficulties locating specific elements of iMovie, however we didn’t know what we had to do in order to put the clips together and actually create our film in a professional way. We worked it out on our own and eventually found it extremely easy to use.

Given that the sound quality was so bad on most of the clips that we had, we needed to remove them from the footage, and we were able to do this as iMovie allowed us to detach the audio completely.

I would definatley use this software again as it was easily accessible and simple to use.

APPLE MACS We used the 21.5 inch Apple iMacs that were located in the room that we were working in, and they are the single desktop computers that had all of the software that we needed to make our film already downloaded.

Having used these computers before, we were able to efficiently use the Macs and locate where all the programmes were that we needed.

We used the Macs because they had specific elements that the non Apple computers didn’t have, so it helped us to make our film to look professional.

There were a few issues however, for example the Film was only able to be saved to one computer and couldn’t be accessed on any of the other Macs, but we ensured that we worked at the same PC each time we edited the film so that this problem could be avoided.

I would use these computers again because they were easy to use and had all the appropriate software that we needed.

YOUTUBE To publish our film we used a website called YouTube, which is a site that allows you to post videos where other people can view, like and comment on them.

YouTube is globally known website, and both Megan and I had past experience with watching and uploading videos onto the site through our own profiles, so we found it easy to use and navigate. In the uploading process, we were able to give our film an official title that it would be searched by as well as a description of our video; there was also an option to keep our video private, but doing this would have made it impossible for the video to be linked to our blog so we kept the video public for others to see.

We found the website extremely easy to use and we would use it again in another project due to the amount of people that it can reach.