Question 6

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

Planning & Research

We had to get to grips with blogger, in order to add posts and update the progression of our product. For this, we required a Google account and learn how to create and edit posts and upload embedded videos, documents or presentations.

YouTube was used throughout to first upload our preliminary task videos, target audience interviews and pitches to the class. It was also the source of much of our research into our chosen genre, e.g. student video analysis. This meant we needed to become familiar with how to create a YouTube channel, upload and embed videos.

We were previously familiar in working with both PowerPoint and Word helped, which were used to create any presentations or documents that needed to be uploaded to our blogs.

Before uploading documents from Word or PowerPoint straight to our blogs, we first had to become used to uploading them to Slideshare, before embedding them into our posts. We were shown how to work this through a class demonstration, with us following on our own computers.

Prezi was one of the main methods of creating a presentation for our blogs. This took some time to become used to working with it, which was mostly spent experimenting with trial and error when making a presentation.

Google was the main search engine we used during researching. This included searching for information on our target audience, film distributors etc.

Construction

We used a Panasonic NV-GS500 camera to capture our scenes. This is a basic, easy to use video camera that we were taught to use through creating our preliminary tasks. After getting to grips with how to operate the camera, this allowed us to use different camera shots and movements for our piece. These shots and movements include: Establishing/long shot, close ups, panning shots, shot reverse shot (180° rule), over the shoulder shots etc.

The boom microphone was used alongside the camera in order to capture the best quality sound, without any background noise. This was relatively easy to operate once plugged into the camera and was again used during filming our preliminary tasks.

A Hanns.G computer was used during the entire process from research and planning, to the evaluation. We all had experience in using computers, but not in some of the software used during construction of our product, i.e. Sony Vegas.

A sound booth and recording studio were used for the recording of the narration in the opening. This was previously set up before recording and so only required us to start and stop the recording, upload it to Sony Vegas and edit it into our opening.

One of the software included was Sony Vegas, which allowed us to upload our film from the camera and edit it. From the tools within the editing, this also allowed us to add in the black and white film and camera flash effects to our product. The camera flash effect was used as both a visual and audio clip, featuring a flash and the sound of an old polaroid camera. Once we were used to working the editing software, it gave us the opportunity to use different transitions between different scenes of the film. The main transition included in our film, was a simple fade to black and fade into the next scene.

Freeplay music was the source for finding the soundtrack to the film. From this, we found 4 separate jazz tracks and edited them into one. This was easy to operate, yet finding the appropriate tracks for our soundtrack was fairly difficult.

For our production logo, Photoshop was the main tool used to create it. Some of our group had already had previous experience in working with Photoshop, yet still took time to create the production logo.

Sound recorder and microphone were used for the recording of the Foley sounds used in our product. This was mainly for recording the camera flashes and the case file being moved across the table. There was no experience in using this, however did not prove difficult once we had worked out how it operated.

Evaluation

After the evaluation, YouTube will be used to upload our finished products and to receive feedback on our openings.

Just as it was used during research and planning, and construction, Blogger was used to post up individual presentations of our evaluation questions.

All of these were the main tools used for creating and uploading our evaluation answers to later be added to our blogs. The Microsoft programmes were used to create the presentations, and were later embedded onto either Slideshare or Prezi, ready to be placed on our blogs.

In the evaluation, Google was mainly used for gathering images to be placed in our presentations.