Evaluation- Question 6- Imogen Evans

Question 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


I have learnt a lot about the technologies from the process of constructing this project. From knowing nothing about how to use a digital camera to record, how to fix a tripod up, how to edit on Final Cut Pro or use Garage Band I feel like I have come quite far from knowing nothing about it all. I now feel quite confident using Garage Band which I have come furthest in, especially in our Sound Project, click here to watch it.

          What have you learnt- cameras?

• I have learnt how to use a digital camera and learnt from mistakes which we faced in our Prelim where we did not set the white balance so we had to face the consequences of it being grainy and looking unprofessional. We fixed this when we filmed our final piece by checking if the white balance was set every new shot, this impacted our film positively as it all looked clear. Here is an example of the photo difference between the Prelim and the Final.

           FIRST- Prelim    SECOND- Final

• I have also learnt how to use framing well so that the actor fits into the shot without various aspects getting into the shot. An example of framing work we had to change is when we had to film Tom running out of the shot but with lighting covering him. In the camera footage you could clearly see the lighting which we couldn't get in our film so we had to edit out the lighting tool by cropping it out. This took time and patience but the end product looked good.

• I have also learnt how to zoom in with the digital camera, this has was hard at first because when we zoomed in it made the end product unfocused and blurry which was our main idea for the scene where Tom runs into the darkness but it did not work out so we just chose to run alongside him.

Tom running into the darkness

• I have also learned to light a scene correctly. In our prelim our lighting was shaky so our scene looked unprofessional and didn't look right because we did not use a tripod to light it which we improved on in our prelim where we used a tripod.

Due to not having a lighting tripod the lighting is dodgy and the camera shakes due to the tripod, this is an example of bad lighting and bad use of tripod.

Here is an example of good lighting

      What have you learnt about image editing?

• I have learnt a lot about image editing especially about the duration of shots. In our final piece we had to work out the best screen time for our titling, we chose to go for 3 seconds as it advertised the film title well and worked with the fading in and out sequences.

  

  
  

We planned our duration of shots for this.

• I have learnt how to vary the pace of shots due to the intensity and if the scene is tense. In one scene he is running towards the grave, by using fast paced shots this made the scene more intense and using continuity editing it kept up to the pace of the scene.

Here is fast paced shots

• I have learnt how to portray an illusion in image editing. In our film we had to edit the antagonist out of the scene as the protagonist turned around so it would look like he had never been there. This took a lot of time and proved difficult  because we had to set the white balance on the MAC and get the colouring the same, we had filmed it at different positions so it was hard to make it look smooth but it worked well.



This is the illusion

• I have learnt about different transitions when editing our film, we mainly used fades because it made our film more creepy and gave tension and taking inspiration from other thriller openings they used them such as 'The Lovely Bones' which we mainly took inspiration from. 

         Click here to see the lovely bones opening.

What have you learnt about sound editing?

• I have learnt how to use Garage Band quite well because by doing the Sound Project it helped me learn how to use the tools and sound effects on it. From not knowing how to use a Mac I feel like my knowledge on Garage Band has expanded. Click here to watch the Sound Project.

• I have also learnt how to record a dialogue separately and the advantages of using a voice over. We had to record a short voice over to fit some context into our film and by using a voice recorder it made the dialogue clearer and easier to edit into the film.