What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

Introduction I have learnt that the power of media allows individuals to express/see and therefore understand the world. The media can be crafted and manipulated so an audience only sees what is wanted, this can influence an audience hugely. Throughout the process of constructing my media product I have used and learnt from a range of media technologies such as: websites, camera-shots, angles and movements, editing technology and the use of sound.

All the technologies that were used allowed our media product to look and sound as effective as possible and to allow us to convey our idea and specific emotions to an audience. It also adds a sense of realism to our sequence and allowed our sequence to make sense so our audience would understand the storyline.

BloggerBlogger has been an effective piece of technology throughout the entire production of our final opening sequence. At the beginning of the course, blogger allowed me to document my understanding of film clips and to show my knowledge of film language, mise en scene, sound and editing. Blogger was also effective in helping me to establish and show an understanding of the conventions of an opening sequence but also the conventions of horror films, this made it easier when planning our opening sequence. Blogger is a good site to track my progress as my preliminary task and own research is included on my blog, this was useful so that I could look back on previous work to see what areas I needed to improve on and also so I could use new knowledge and incorporate it into our opening sequence.

Also from blogger I have learnt how to use embedded codes to publish documents through Scribd, as well as uploading pictures and linking to YouTube.

Scribd

Scribd is a digital library that mainly focuses on selling and streaming books, but also gives the opportunity to upload PowerPoint presentations into an embedded code which can be transferred onto blogger. Through using this software I have learnt how to embed a code and then transfer it onto my blog, this has been effective as it means my blog has a variety of media technologies and techniques on it, opposed to just large blocks of text.

YouTubeIn the pre production stage of our opening sequence, YouTube was effective in aiding my research, I was able to watch opening sequences of horror films to establish typical conventions and expectations of the genre which helped in planning. Also, YouTube was helpful in establishing a target audience range, by watching trailers of similar opening sequences we wanted to create we could see the rating but also comments of their audience to see who it mainly appealed to.

YouTube was also effective in showing tutorials and blogs to show how different camera shots and angles can be achieved and how they’re effective to an audience. Also our group was able to upload different stages of editing onto YouTube which helped us to gain feedback from our target audience easily, but also allowed us to see our progress from our first edit to the final piece.

SoundSoundBible and Purple-Planet

Sound accounts for 50% of a film and helps to heighten and empathise what is happening on the screen, both SoundBible and Purple-Planet helped us to find appropriate sound effects that we found difficult to recreate ourselves such as the girls laugh and the soundtrack with the book. Both these websites helped us to find sound that would help to create an eerie soundtrack and the book soundtrack gives a softer tone and slower more memorial sound to add to the newspaper articles.

Our group found matching the sounds to the video clips fairly difficult, I learnt from the process of production and from these websites that you should explore continually look for clips until you find the most appropriate one, in order to get the best effect in our opening sequence.

EditingOur group planned our time so that we would have a large proportion of time to edit our opening sequence. For our group this was the hardest part of our whole production, mainly due to us all being unfamiliar with the editing software but also the detail that needed to go into each individual clip so that the action was continuous and so that sound matched the action appropriately. We had to be detailed and specific in our placement of each individual clip to ensure that it flowed effectively and didn’t look false, it took a lot of time to prepare an initial edit and after this we had to crop and delete or swap clips so that our sequence didn’t look jumpy. It was also important that throughout our production our storyline made sense and our audience would be able to see and understand what was happening.

We found the most difficult aspect to edit was sound, this is because we needed ambient sounds and also sound effects and our soundtrack to be correctly placed and with appropriate volumes in order for the sequence to seem realistic. We therefore had to cut and crop sounds so they wouldn’t overlap with each other and so they could be heard so we didn’t lose the continuity of our sequence. As well as this, we had to find appropriate sounds and this mainly resulted in us making our own. Here our two screenshots of our editing:

Serif Movie Plus x6 This is the editing programme we used to create our opening sequence, as we had edited our preliminary task of movie plus as well it meant that our group had some experience in using this software so we found it easy to upload individual clips, crop them and place them together. From the process of creating our opening sequence I have a better understanding of using this software, as I learnt how to upload sound clips but also how to change the volume of each clip, this helped to ensure our sequence sounded real. I learnt that we had to be patient with each clip and work with each clip and sound individually to avoid overloading the system, working slowly and in detail through each second of our clip allowed it to flow easily and for all the appropriate sounds to be included.

This programme provides effective tools such as the trimming tool and also titles and transitions which allowed our title and writing at the beginning to fit with the time period and genre of which our opening sequence is set. I have learnt that with this software to treat each section with detail to avoid mistakes and it is helpful for each member of our group to watch back the progress we have made. We did this by converting our opening sequence weekly and then as we were watching it we made a list of improvements to make, this ensured we didn’t leave any mistakes or miss anything out. This software also showed us clips that were jolty or blurry or too dark and showed us what we needed to re film which helped make our sequence more effective and a higher level.

CameraThrough the process of filming, we decided to film our opening sequence on a typical, everyday camera. This meant that all were able to use the camera easily, this allowed us to experiment with different angles and movements as some members of our group were better at filming specific things. This was easier compared to our preliminary task that we filmed on our phones, as the camera allowed us to be more steady when filming and gave a high quality while filming and afterwards when watching the clips back. One difficulty we did face was the lack of memory space, as we re filmed clips many times, many of them we weren't able to us but took up memory space. This meant that we had to stop filming and delete clips that we weren't able to use and pick the best clips from what we had filmed before we could carry on.

But through this process I have learnt about how camera technology and quality differs and therefore what would be most effective to use if I was to do it again. I have also learnt that if I was to do this task again that we should use a tripod to balance some of our shots so that they’re all steady which would help to highlight the shots when they are our main characters point of view, to show her nervousness and uneasiness.