Evaluation- Question 6

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

We have learnt that a large variety of technologies are used to create film products such as our own, even though it is not big budgeted. New technologies such as editing programs alike Final Cut enable a person to more easily create and edit their own film without being an expert on film editing and also the increasing quality of portable camcorders such as HD quality camcorder products can allow a person to also create better footage for cheaper.

Without these technologies it would nearly be impossible to construct a product alike what we have produced with them, user friendly software has enabled many people to create their own small budgeted films and distribute them for free through the website ‘You tube’ which allows the viewing of videos across the globe. This website has meant that more and more people have began to create their own home videos or short films and show them publicly on the internet for social reasons or to advertise their abilities such as an unknown film director wanting to further their career.

Technologies used in constructing final film product

HD Camcorder

Allows footage to be clearer due to the increase of pixels on the screen and also includes other technologies such as a portable light. The camera is extremely small compared to large film cameras and therefore makes filming easier and quicker due to less time setting up the camera equipment

Final Cut Express 4

This new editing software enables an amateur film maker to easily cut his footage and edit it such as by adding sound, titles or filters to their sequence. This was one of the most important technologies in the process of constructing the product as it allowed us to add atmospheric sound to the scene and also take out unwanted diegetic background sound such as in the room where we wanted the background music to be clear. Different editing techniques are included in the package such as cross dissolving, split editing and also a cross fade. To do these effects you needed to click on the the split between two certain pieces of footage and then insert a particular effect such as a cross fade and also decide the duration of this effect.

You-Tube

The You Tube website also allowed us to view other examples of film making and certain scenes that influenced us whilst creating the product, You Tube is also the website which we uploaded our final footage onto. You-tube allows anyone to upload any of there own videos and footage to the website and allows this footage to be publicly shared, our group also uploaded our final product to this website.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud is a website where we were able to discover the music used as out background track, the website includes an array of copyright free music shared and created by people who use the website and can be downloaded publicly. The website allows anyone who wants to share there own music, they can upload their tracks for free.

Da Font

DaFont is another website which allows a person to download fonts to be used on computer software such as Final Cut Express, we were able to discover a font we wanted to use and later . inserted our credits whilst using this font into our final product.

Blogger

Another website which we used in creating our product was Blogger, a blogging website which is free for people to use and create blogs on a subject of choices. For each person in our group we had to create an individual blog which we used to show our planning and research for our final product such as uploading storyboards and ideas for the narrative.

Google

We used this search engine in a various amount of ways through the construction of our final product such as to collect images for our research and planning and other uses such as searching for other examples of film openings

Tripod

The tripod allowed our group to gain level shots on uneven surfaces, this has allowed to get much better and more aesthetically pleasing footage, for example for the shots inside of the train station, the shots we gathered would be uneven if we had not used a tripod.

Apple iMac

The iMac was the system we used to perform the editing of our footage and also the large majority of creating our planning and blogging. The iMac was useful as it is very user friendly and also has a large interface allowing a person to be organised with their work.

iMovie

iMovie is a new software explicitly for use on the Apple iMac's, during the construction of our product we uploaded our footage onto the computer through this programme due it having simple uploading options, the sequence was not split up into sections but was uploaded as one whole sequence which we were then able to export into Final Cut Express 4. The software does not have the same editing perks as Final Cut Express 4 therefore the iMovie program was not used during the main editing process, however the software is useful in other ways such as viewing particular clips or sequences as it is simple to use.

Portable Microphone

For our film we used the Rhode condenser stereo mic and also the Rhode condenser directional mic also to be put on a boom pole. These stereo mic's were exteremely useful as without these we would of had poor quality sound for our footage, the mics were very easy to handle as they were small in size and were also extremely easily to operate also as they did not need to be plugged into a mains or power source. The microphone allowed us to capture the diegetic sound we needed such as footsteps and also the bell sound when Tomos is outside the house.

BJH CMV CF