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

product?

Since starting my media I have learnt many different skills and techniques that have enabled me to produce not only an effective film opening, but also a music video and a magazine. The techniques and skills I learnt at GSCE level ,have giving me an advantage at A level, as even though I wasn’t that experienced with using either the editing machine tripod or camera, I still had a little background knowledge that some students didn't have. Therefore this worked to my advantage. Before our actual film opening production our group practised different techniques and skills in a preliminary task, where we demonstrated the 180 degree rule and continuity. This effectively helps us as a group to remember this rule and enabled us to avoid breaking it, when we finally filmed our opening.

To film our preliminary task we used the Panasonic camera and a tripod. This is how we decided on our camera choice when we started our actual filming. We decided to again use the Panasonic camera as all of our group have had experience using it in the past. This gave us an advantage as we all knew how to use and control the camera, which effectively made filming faster. Also if one of us was ill then we’d still be able to film as we all knew the basic techniques to effectively film.

When we began our filming like I previously said before we used the Panasonic camcorder. I found it simple to use as my mum owns one that I use frequently. Its controls were simple to use therefore it was easy for us to watch back our footage and to see what we needed to improve and why we needed to improve It. This effectively saved filming time. The most common problem that we faced was that the camera didn’t adjust to the change of lighting very well, and since low level lighting is a common convention in a psychological thriller, we had a problem. To resolve this problem we had to find some kind of lighting source that focused on our character so we could see her but didn’t make it too light to take away the mysterious effect that we needed. From this we found out how effective lighting actually is in a film and how hard it is to achieve. This was the most vital technique/skill we learnt when filming, and although it was hard to master, we got there in the end. These techniques will also help us in future filming and hopefully help us achieve a good grade.

The tripod played a key part in our filming and luckily everyone in our group had had some sort of experience of using it in the past, either through GCSE media or photography. This played to our advantage as it enabled us to go straight out and film instead of familiarising ourselves. However, it had been over a year since any of us had used it, and to start off with we had to do some practice shots to insure that we got the most effective shot we could. The tripod allowed us to film steady and accurate shots. It also allowed us to experiment with angles. This played an important part in our film as it made our character seem vulnerable which is what we wanted to achieve.

I have also gained a lot of new knowledge and skills that I hadn't known before , from the whole editing process. I thought from GCSE that I knew a fair bit, but it turned out I didn't as there was more effects and techniques that I hadn't known existed. For example I didn't know you could make your own titles and shots. I have learnt how to change the lighting and contrast, to achieve a more effective scene. For example we changed the brightness and contrast levels on our first scene to create a more eerie and tense atmosphere to make our audience more anxious. We had to share an editing machine between three groups, therefore we had to figure out a rota, on who'd be editing and who'd be filming. Between our group and the other group in our class, we didn't communicate as effectively as we should have, therefore it created problems. Our time management skills weren't as effective as they should have been .Therefore it again created problems.

Overall I have gained a lot of new knowledge and skills throughout the filming and editing stages and it has made me feel more confident with editing and using a camera and tripod. This knowledge will hopefully help me in future projects as I will already have the skills and knowledge. This would mean that future projects will be produced a lot quicker. As a group we've had some major problems with team work and time management skills but we were able to overcome this and were able to create a film opening that was to the at best of our ability.