Question 6

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

Throughout the project I have improved my skills in both editing and filming. With the camera I have learnt the importance of manual settings and how to utilise them and from within what circumstances to use them and I have become more decisive in terms of editing and decision making. This interest in manual settings upon the camera came about when after a shoot we realised that half way through the shoot a number of shots had had their colour grading edited giving them a washed out effect meaning that we could not use them in our final sequence. 

I have become a lot more confident with the different software used in creating films on the computer. For example, I now know my way around Adobe Premiere Pro and know various shortcuts and  tools to help make editing a lot easier. We extended our knowledge of the software by using different video effects and transitions such as editing the Brightness and Contrast of a shot to make it look entirely different. This can be seen on all of our shots within the forest as we wanted to create a gloomy, eerie atmosphere to set the mood for the rest of our film. Along with Adobe softwares we also used Live Type on a Macintosh, this was used to create and animate the titles within our opening sequence.

I think that for our entire the group the most valuable thing we learnt was the importance of lighting. Lighting had an enormous effect on how our project played out as we originally wanted to film at night to cause the murderers hiding the body to seem more realistic and believable however it immediately became apparent that we did not have the sort of technology available to properly light our shoot. After changing the timing at which our opening sequence was set we soon learnt how to frame our shots so it appeared to be of a similar time of day to the other shots. This was very important as we wanted to remember our preliminary task and how important continuity is.

As you can tell from this shot we have various lighting issues such as camera lens glare and beams of light shining through the trees, we decided to ignore these issues as overall we agreed that the shot worked. However we still had to heavily edit the shot to reduce the glare on the camera and increase the contrast of the shot to make it more enigmatic and ominous. 

Question 7

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary I feel I have progressed an enormous amount in terms of both knowledge and practical ability. I know how to edit to a strong quality and have learnt a lot about continuity through editing and then finding out we have to have another re-shoot.

In terms of shot quality I have learnt about the importance of tight framing and creating focus on certain things to create enigma or to tell a story. The most important skill Ive learnt since the preliminary task was the importance and application of different continuity theories. These include the 180 and 30 degree rule and match-on-action shots which we enjoyed using in our editing sessions. Correct application of these rules assured that our sequence made sense and aided in immersing the audience into the film through seamless action.

As well as practical skills I also learnt alot about organisation, such as filling out shot logs to make for simplar editing sessions, which also aided our time management meaning that in the week of the deadline we were less stressed than usual as we were confident we would finish our project on time.

Within the editing process we found, as a group, it was neccersary to have our own timeline each so that we could play about with the editing software and start to learn our way around the footage without causing any damage to the files or changing something we probably shouldnt.

Working as a group was often annoying as we were all in conflict over how we wanted to shoot and edit our piece. However, as we spent alot longer together than we did in the preliminary task we began to spot trends in how eachother edited and got things done. This was beneficial as it meant our group finally began to agree on things and we could play to eachothers strengths whilst also nurturing our weaknesses.