Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

Pre-Production

Before we started filming, we planned our films using a range of media platforms to document and research different aspects of the film. We used blogs as they allow different medias to be displayed on them such as videos and PowerPoint presentations, so we could vary the presentation of our research. Blogs also allow us to edit past post and make improvements, which is easier than if we used paper to plan and research our film, and with the addition of comments we were able to get feedback on our posts and be able to edit them to improve them, making blogging interactive. In addition, because they are online, the internet is more accessible and quick to access for research.

Other sites such as Youtube were also used during the process of Pre-Production for the preliminary task and for research on different aspects of film making, this site is a rich content platform and many useful videos can be found on film making, as well as clips from other thriller films to aid our research and inspire aspects of our film. Another site used during pre-production was DaFont, which is a website which provides a very large range of fonts making it creatively empowering, as the fonts are also free to use and download, similar to Freesound which has a large range of sounds and soundtracks to use which are free to use. One drive allowed our group to collaborate on different parts of the research such as the mood board, where we could all communicate our ideas on one platform to each other. Dropbox allowed public sharing, it was where shots from different openings and scenes of films were shared, we could access them easily and use them in our research and analysis.

Production

During the filming we were able to use HD cameras which are useful for film making as they allow instant playback, meaning that we could watch the shots back and decide whether we wanted to keep them or re-shoot them, the cameras also allowed control over settings, zoom and framing which made it easier to film. The HD cameras also had SD cards which meant that a lot of footage could be filmed and transferred onto a computer easily for editing, and we could film lots of different versions of one shot and decide which one we wanted to use later, which may not have been available in old camera versions, which wouldn't have allowed such a high quality image as well. During production we used different lights to create different effects in the last part of our film, we used industrial lights at one point to contrast with the dark scene at the end, and a simple phone light to brighten the location a bit more and also add meaning.

Post-Production

During the editing stage of our film we were able to use a non-linear editing software, Premier Pro, which allowed us to edit our shots into any order and change the order of the shots, as well as refine the edit or the clips by tweaking the colour or cutting the length of the shot to fit the film better. A wide variety of tools were available, making it creatively empowering, as we were able to use transitions and effects on the program. On the editing software we were able to add and alter different sounds including music, we could change the length, volume and pitch on the program as well as layering sounds to create an uneasy atmosphere in the opening. Another thing we were able to do for our thriller was adding titles for credits and the title of the film, the program allowed us to change the fonts, colours and positions of each of the titles and also how long they could be seen for and when they would appear. This helped us to create a more professional looking project as we could consider the background and place the titles accordingly.