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

One of the most important pieces of technology we used and had to learnt how to us was the camera. We learnt how to start and stop recording and to go back and watch the shot we just took. I learnt that even though it seems really easy to start and stop recording, we all learn at least once you need to make sure you know when your recording because you can end up recording things by accident or think your recording when your not.

When filming some shots we used this piece of equipment to help us make the lighting look brighter when it was too dull. It also helped to show a characters face more clearly when the lighting is bad because it reflects the light onto where you direct it.

The camera stand was majorly helpful when filming because it kept the camera steady making the shots look more professional compared to someone just holding the camera and shaking.

The camera stand could hold the camera at low heights and low heights because the legs could extend and unextend

On filming day I used my phone to take pictures of our sets. We also used it as a prop in on of the scenes

We used the Apple Mac computers to edit our titles and opening sequence, research information, create sound tracks and to upload journals onto our portfolio.The Macs were really helpful because there were loads of useful programs we could use such as Garage Band and Final Cut Pro which we wouldn’t of been able to use on Microsoft computers. At first the Macs were a bit confusing to work but by the end we knew how to use them and the programmes on them. We also learnt loads of key board short cuts.

We used an IPad we used an app to record voice overs. In the final version of our opening and titles sequence we didn’t end up using the voice overs because we had technical difficulty trying to get them from the IPad onto the Mac.

Throughout our time using the cameras we became more and more confident with them as time went on.

The tripod was also useful because the handle enabled us to shoot tracking and panning shots without the camera shaking. On filming day as he day went on we became better at making sure the camera didn’t shake when we were shooting these two shots.

We used video effects in Final Cut Pro to put effects onto our opening and titles sequence. There were loads of effects to show from. Over time we learnt which effects worked best, which effects looked good over lapping each other and how to edit the effects. The effects were very important for making to sequence loom professional. We also learnt that keeping it simple was better because some times when there were too many effects it did not look professional.

In Final Cut Pro we were able to chose from a huge rang of texts for our titles. We learnt how to move the text, to change he text size, colour and font and we also learnt how to change the angle of the font. For example we wants the titles to line up with walls and markings in the shots.

Final Cut Pro

In Final Cut Pro these bars showed us what the sound levels were like throughout the video. We learnt that the sound level should be a maximum of -6 other wise when the sequence is played allowed on the big screen it wont be good quality sound or it may be too loud for the audience. The yellow tips show that the sound level is over -6.

In Final Cut Pro we learnt how to add sound effects to our sequence. There were loads to chose from and we also learnt how to make the sound effect repeat and how to cut it down if it was too long. We were able to make the sound effect loud or quite and we could also make it build up through time to create suspense.

In Final Cut Pro we learnt that the purple bubble were the text and the green was the sound. We learnt how to move and cut them down or make them longer depending how long we wanted them on he screen and when we wanted them to show

In Garage Band you could chose different types of instruments, for example you could chose Classic Electric Piano or Swelling Sub bass etc.. After choosing one of them we learnt you didn’t only have to only chose one you could chose several at once. Depending on what type of sound you want to produce depended on what instrument you chose.

The blue panels show the sound, how long the sound goes on for and how loud the sound is. We learnt that you can make the sound as short or as long as you want, you can change the volume and change the tempo.

There were loads of different sound categories to chose from which had loads of different tune and sound effects to chose from

Garage Band

On the filming day we used n Apple Mac Book to help us with props. We learned that we could use this to make the set look more believable. It was helpful because we were able to get a CCTV phot up onto the screen to give our audience a clue into the character Charles.

We learnt how to use YouTube and how to upload our videos from Final Cut Pro to YouTube straight from the programme. We have also learnt how to embed videos from YouTube into our journals.

We used Google a lot to research information. We were able to find useful information on target audiences and Thriller genre conventions.