EVALUATION | QUESTION 6

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

Camera

• Throughout the entire shooting of our film, I was set the role of cameraman to shoot our footage. This meant that I had to get used pretty quickly to some of the basic elements and techniques needed to shoot good quality footage. "It's not what camera I use, it's how I use it that makes me a filmmaker..."

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• I already had some basic knowledge of how to operate a DSLR camera however throughout the weeks of filming, I became more and more comfortable in using the camera so that I could adjust settings like the aperture, contrast and shutter speed.

Tripod

• I was very fortunate to have been able to borrow Andrew Johnstone's broadcasting tripod for our film. This was much more stable and smoother tripod to film with when mounting the camera on-top of the tripod compared to the ones which belong to the school.

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• Using a tripod when filming made it easier for me to film certain shots in our film where there were no movements occurring, such as the first few seconds of the interview scene. There was also a spirit level meter guiding me were I had to position the camera in relation to the floor so that our footage was alligned properly.

Microphone

• We were both very fortunate again to have been allowed to borrow was Andrew Johnstone's Boom Microphone. Sound and audio was altogether the role which Alex was set to be in charge of during the filming. On the other hand the camera couldn't connect to the microphone via the AUX port as it would only connect using an XLR port.

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• This meant we had to record to our audio through an MP3 recorder containing an SD card which would mean we would then be able to transfer the audio files onto the computer ready to sync and edit on Sony Vegas. Alex had to make sure he was pressing the record button for the audio at the same time as I was rolling the camera footage.

EDITING

• My techniques in editing have improved massively since I first started learning how to edit at the beginning of the year. In particular, learning some basic techniques with Sion Roe during the workshop really helped me to adapt myself when editing footage together and has helped me out even more when I eventually switched from using Premiere Pro to Sony Vegas.

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• I also managed to create a typewriting effect on After Effects which I was motivated to do myself as I knew this would add flare to the film which turned out very successful. In the end I learnt how to cross cut edit, toning, contrasting and keying which helped to create our final product.

Backup

• As Alex, the two actors, and I were in the drama studio for several hours shooting our footage, it meant the camera and microphone was using up a lot of battery (in particular the camera). This showed to me that I had to be sure to turn the camera off when I wasn't recording and the same for Alex when using the mic, so no batteries were wasted

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• We also both learnt how important it was to carry an additional SD card or batteries with us in case any technology was not functioning properly.

Sound

• Alex was in charge of sound for our film and he was in charge of adjusting the audio levels so that there was no distortion in the sound produced. He also had to make sure the audio synced properly with the footage as we recorded our sound and footage on two separate devices.

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• A problem he found was that we could her little radio signals being produced in the recorded audio as this had come from our mobile phones which we had in our pockets. This was really annoying to fix as it was very noticeable at first but we soon managed to get rid of it in the end using Audacity. He also added some sound effects like punches in our film.

SAVING WORK

• There were many times as well were we both forgot to save our work for the day or the computers at school would crash which resulted in our files being corrupted. It meant that we both stuck to editing our film on our computers at home to avoid any major problems from occurring. We also each saved a copy of the files on our memory sticks if we were to work elsewhere.

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