Question 6

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

Throughout the production of our opening sequence I have learnt a lot about the technologies required constructing an effective opening, these include: how to edit using professional software, how to shoot effectively with a digital camera, how to use other technologies such as prezi, etc. I used iMovie to edit my production; this enabled me to effectively use transitions – which we used throughout our production to create an eerie effect, we also regularly used slow motion shots to slow the pace down; we used this at the end when we revisited the first scene; this adds to the recurring theme of flashbacks which we followed profusely. We also kept cutting to shots of oncoming trains, this adds to the tension and make the audience feel uncomfortable as they know danger is inevitable; we included this to create this feeling which would add to the overall effectiveness of our production.

Extreme long shot;

 

This shot, pretty simply shows the scene, the surrounding environment and a small figure of the main character within the shot. Also known as ELS
Long shot;
This shot shows a whole characters body but closer to the camera than the extreme long shot. Still shows them in terms of their surroundings, this shot may also be known as the establishing shot. Also known as LS
Medium shot;
This shot mainly is between the boundaries of knee/waist to just above the head. It may also be known as 'mid-shot' or 'three-quarter shot'. Also known as MS

Close up;
Boundaries showing only shoulders to head. A lot of facial detail and is used to show emotion and feelings. It is the second shot which can be used in shot reverse shot. Also known as CU

Extreme close up;
This shot focuses on specific portions of a characters face or object used in a scene; can show extreme fear or emotion perceived by the eyes. Also known as ECU

They are all the different shot types I learnt about and I effectively used all of these in my production to give the audience a sense of variety in the film. I also learnt how to frame effectively whilst filming and how to apply this to my editing techniques, the techniques I learnt are: the rule of thirds, the golden mean, 180 degree rule, and match on action.

Whilst I was filming I learnt numerous things about how to film effectively using a digital camera; I learnt how to manipulate the effects on it to maximise the effectiveness of the picture by changing the light and adding effects. I also learnt how to use the tripod which was essential in stabilising the picture of our film; I did this by using the leveller on the tripod to determine whether it was level. I also used the camera to focus on objects to improve the depth of field, although the camera has an automatic focuser I still had to adjust it occasionally to get the best picture.

One of the most effective ways we edited was with our titles as we had to superimpose the titles onto various props that we selected; this meant that we had to use our best editing skills to ensure that they looked effective and didn’t look out of place.

Here are some other applications we used to help make our production:

· Blogger – we used blogger to upload all of our work onto which enabled us to share our work with each other, blogger also allowed us to show our work in other formats, such as: prezi, wordle, etc.

· YouTube – we used YouTube to upload our final production onto the internet, this allows others to watch it and give us feedback which is essential for evaluation

· ITunes – we used iTunes to import our sound into our film, we could only use iTunes as it is the only software compatible with iMovie

· Prezi – we used prezi as an alternative way of presenting our ideas, it enables us to produce them in a powerpoint format with a twist, and it also allows others to view them easily online

· Worldle – similar to prezi, wordle is just another technique we used to put our ideas across with worldle allowing us to present a bunch of related words in an attractive format.

· Windows media player – this allowed us to create our production ident, we used windows media player as it is easy and free to use and it’s also simple to extrapolate the footage and apply it onto our production

I have previously mentioned iMovie with which all of our editing has taken place in, it also allowed us to create a disk menu; the disk menu is the first thing the consumer will see after they put the dvd in so it’s essential we used iMovie to create an eye-catching disk menu which will encourage them to carry on watching.

Throughout the editing process we have gone from importing raw footage that we took using the skills we have acquired in effectively working digital cameras to ending up with our final thriller production. I believe that our production is extremely effective in conveying the message we want to get across as applied all the camera and editing skills we learnt efficiently as well as using other applications to improve the overall liking of our final product.