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

Camera

During shooting, we learnt a lot about how the camera works. For example, we decided not to change focus manually too much because when we viewed the footage, some of it was out of focus and therefore we were unable to use it. We used the microphone on the camera, but in hindsight, maybe we should have used a boom microphone for the exterior shots because the sound of the wind was very loud and needed to be edited so that it didn’t disturb the viewing experience

Tripod

We learnt that the tripod is incredibly useful when you aim to get steady shots. The spirit level helped us to see when our shot was straight.

We utilised this by shooting the calmer scenes with a tripod and shooting the more tense scenes handheld to create an uneasy feeling for the viewer. This makes the scenes contrast because of the different moods that are evoked by the different ways of shooting.

Mac computer

As I had little experience with a Mac, it took time to get used to its functions. But I found it very useful as it was equipped with all of the creative programs that we needed such as Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro

Due to gaining experience on another project, Final Cut Pro wasn't new to me so it didn't take me as long to get straight into editing. Through the log and capture function, we picked out the footage that was suitable so that we could select the best shots from all of it. This was a fairly long process because we had to watch about 40 minutes worth of footage to select what would go into a 2 minute sequence

Through the timeline feature we were able to put the shots into the order that we wanted them. This was where we would fine cut the footage so we could perfect the action match edits and ‘snap’ the scenes together so that it flows well with no gaps in between the shots.

This sequence had a lot of different layers of sound from diegetic sounds, to effects to non-diegetic music. We altered the sound of the phone ringing with the pen tool so that it sounded like it was coming from another room. We also had the same bit of music on a loop throughout the second half of the sequence which we had to fade in and fade out so that it sounds like one continuous piece of music.

Because the parts of our sequence in the bedroom had very little light, we had to use colour correction so that the audience could actually see what was going on. So we lowered the intensity of the black colours and raised the whites so the scenes were brighter. We also intensified the red because of the connotations of danger

After we had completed editing, we exported the sequence to QuickTime so that we could then put it on a disc as well as upload it to Youtube.

Blogger

Throughout our project we have been recording the progress on our very own blogs. These have been useful because of we can incorporate images and video clips to help us illustrate the points we make.

We started the blogs with our preparation work such as research on existing horror films. We then went on to put our drafts of scripts and our storyboard. Finally, we were putting production updates on there to record our progress on our project. The blog has been useful for me to look back on and see what I had written before so I can relate it to more recent work. It’s also interesting to see how certain things in our sequence changed as time went on such as the script and ideas for shots

YouTube

I uploaded our opening sequence to YouTube through an account I had made previously. Once on YouTube, you can use the embed code so that you can put it on your blog which is very useful. You can also see comments that people have left on your video giving their thoughts on the sequence and giving criticism. This is helpful because getting audience feedback means that you can improve on what you’ve done if you do another project in the future

Facebook

Due to many of my peers being on Facebook, I was able to find people to watch our sequence very easily.  Some of my peers even used the ‘share’ feature in order for the sequence to reach an audience outside of my friends list