Evaluation Question 6

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

 The camera we used to shoot our film opening was a Canon HD video camera, the video camera was brand now and allowed us to film in very high quality, meaning that our filmed looked very professional and had a good end result. The camera was extremely easy to film with, it gave us a very wide range of settings to use and chose from when it came to filming, it was easy to attach to the tripod and it had an easy setting which allowed us to watch back every clip we had filmed in really good quality, quickly with the sound, meaning we could check it we liked the shot or not and could see if we needed to re-film anything. The camera came with a lens hood meaning that any glare or flare was stopped, meaning that our footage had an even better, more professional finish to it.

We didn't encounter any major issues when filming our film opening, we only had a few minor issues which were easy to resolve. When filming on location we did have an issue with how smooth the tripod panned at some points, meaning that some of our shots were jolting and didn't look very continuous, to resolve this we looked back on our shots and worked together to make sure the tripod ran smoothly. Another minor issue we had was when it came to recording our voice over, we were initially going to get the actress to record the narration directly to iMovie on the Mac, however when we put the recording to our rough cut we found it wasn't the best of quality, so we decided it would be best to record it onto an iPhone and import it into iMovie, this worked a lot better and the quality was improved.

The editing software we were initially going to use was Final Cut Express, we did some testing on this software, but we soon realised that although it would make our product look more professional and give it better quality, none of us actually had enough knowledge of the software to use it properly, so we decided not to use it. Instead we made the decision to use iMovie, we had all used this software before, we would easily navigate around it meaning that we could edit our opening with ease.

When using iMovie we encountered few issues, this is because we had filmed the correct amount of shots that we needed so all we needed to do in iMovie was edit them together and add the titles narration and music. We only made a few adjustments to the clips, we changed the brightness and contrast to give the clips the look we wanted. We also didn't like any of the fonts that were in iMovie, as an issue iMovie has is that the choice of fonts are very limited, so we decided to import one we liked from the internet and use that instead.

Next time we do any work as a group, or if we were going to make a whole film, we would most likely learn more and improve our skills in Final Cut Express, if we want our product to look professional and good quality, this software would be a better choice than iMovie.

During filming on the beach, we used a tripod, this helped us a great deal, it enabled us to position our shots properly, it also helped us keep them straight and stable, this improved the quality of our film a very large amount and made it look more professional, we could've used a dolly for some of our shots, however because we were filming on a beach we couldn't use one.

When it came to working as a group, we worked very well in the planning stages, we went location scouting together and went together to take pictures for our photographic storyboard, we didn't have any major dis-agreements either. When it came to the day of shooting, we all worked together really well, we all had our own role to play on the day, we all had our own script and pack with the plans and storyboards inside it, so we all knew exactly what we were doing. When it came to editing, we did work well together, however due to the fact we had clashing of lessons, some of us couldn't attend some of our scheduled editing sessions, however in the end we all shared our responsibility well and worked very good together as a group.

We used the website Blogger to document the research, planning, filming and editing stage
of our film opening, we all contributed to the group blog, and we all viewed it regularly, which meant everyone was in the loop with what we bing done and what needed to be done. It helped us to order or work in an effective, organised way which meant it was easy to read and access. Blogger enabled us to embed and upload video, document and pictures of our work and of other peoples past work to make comparisons, meaning we could improve and compare our work effectively.