Question 6

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

While constructing our media product we have used many different forms of technologies. Through this process i have learnt alot about these technologies, from how to use them to how they work. These technologies were essential for us to progress and create our media product to the standards that they are at. 
Here are some of the different technologies that we used to create our media product:


www.wix.com 

This website wix.com was one of the most used softwares we used for our project. This is because we used it to create our website in which we would showcase different information about our project such as research and other vital information. This website also was used as a link to our media group blog where, as a group, we updated the blog daily with new information about the goings on of our project such as filming schedules and location scouting. On wix.com i have learnt how to create a website and customise templates to fit my preference. From this website i have also learnt how use a blog and how to update it with information and up to date data. I found this software to be a great asset to creating my media product because from this website we could advertise our media product and group to anyone who is interested on the internet. I also found it helpful because from noting down things like filming schedules and location scouting i could refer back to the website to remember this information and monitor our progress as a group. Before starting this project i was clueless to how to create a website or blog but with the help of teachers, fellow peers and online tutorials i quickly became acustom to using this tool and started to progress swiftly with it. 

iMovie 

This software iMovie played the biggest part in the creation of our media project. This is because iMovie was used to edit our media product. Without iMovie our project would not have looked at all professional or entertaining as the editing plays a big part in the tension building and scary scenes in our film. We also used iMovie to create special effects such as the montage shot. For the montage shot we edited many clips of film to make them very short and to create a very quick slideshow of different scary images, we then added filters to give the film a gritty, spooky look and feel. At first i was slightly confused about how to use this software as the amount of information displayed on the screen can be a bit daunting, however, like wix.com, i quickly became acustom to using it with help from teachers, fellow peers and online tutorials. Within a few days i was editing, uploading, adjusting and importing our film with ease. I found this software to be a great addition to the softwares we used to create our film and without it i don't think our film would have been to as high of a standard. A tool i found very useful to use on iMovie was the clip trimmer tool. This tool enabled continuity of clips and it allowed shots to flow from one to another much more easily. The shots in which this tool was most particularly was the scene in which we created and showed the montage shot. With this tool i could cut the scenes down to very short segments so that it would become a montage/slideshow of different scary scenes that happened in the film. We also used iMovie to overlay a soundtrack onto our film. This soundtrack was very vital to the film as it was a very scary soundtrack in which played a big part in building the tension in the scenes and keeping the audience at the edge of their seat. The soundtrack was very easily over laid onto the film by just dragging the soundtrack from iTunes and simply places it on top of the film. However we needed to edit the soundtrack slightly so that the most uptempo and loudest parts were when needed, like when Luke's character was spotted in the window.

Camcorder 

For our media project the school equipped us with a JVC Everio camcorder to film with. This is a small, compact and light camcorder with great picture equality, a good choice for an amateur filming group such as ourselves. The camcorder has a built in hard drive disk (HDD) which can store hours upon hours of filming. This was useful because it meant we didn't need to fiddle around with memory cards and have the risk of loosing them and it also meant that we could film for hours on the camcorder without running out of room, making it more convenient then keep exporting the video files to the iMacs. The picture quality on these camcorders are good, but no exceptional. They are good enough to make a film out of but in my opinion they lacked detail and depth to create a professional looking hollywood type film. But keeping in mind that they are very cheap compared to a professional camera i think that they were the best choice for our group. The lightness and compactability of the camcorders meant they were easy to take to location as they fit in any conventional bag or the carry case provided. This also meant that they were easy to hold, convenient for me as i was the camera man. 

Being the camera man meant that i, out of anyone in the group, would have to get most familiar with this technology. Having already used a camcorder before this project many times meant that i was already very familiar with using this technology and had no problems with using it whatsoever. However i learnt that i could take still images using the camcorder, this is something i never knew before. I also learnt how to use the interface of the camcorder as it is partly touchscreen, this is something i havnt come across before and was excited to learn how to use, which took no longer than a day. The camcorder was a very vital part of our project because without it we wouldnt have been able to film our project.

I did not particularly understand fully the difference between HD cameras and normal cameras before, not knowing how much the quality of the two differed, our group firstly used a non-HD camera for our first filming session because a HD camera had not been available and we were eager to begin the filming process; however when we uploaded our footage onto the Imac we discovered that it was of very poor quality.  We had dimmed our shots to add to the gritty and spooky look of the opening however we found that this made the quality even worse and the image became very grainy.  It then became apparent that we would have to use a HD camera to re-film the footage. This had a great impact on our filming because it meant that we had lost a weeks’ worth of filming, it set us back greatly. Once we had a HD camera we re-filmed the forest and house scenes, and the original footage we had filmed worked as a test shot source and we were able to film the scene much more effectively adding in shots that differed from ones we had originally filmed to make it look more effective. We successfully re-filmed the footage, improving it with new shot angles and better picture quality.

www.youtube.com

To distribute our media product and our other videos we used Youtube. Youtube was a great website to distribute our videos because it is such a popular website, with millions of people watching millions of videos every day. This therefore means that our video has the potential to reach millions of people around the world. This would give us great recognition which is perfect for a new and upcoming media product such as ours. Youtube also gives the viewers a choice to give feedback on the video. This is very helpful to us as we can see the positive or negative feedback and act upon it to progress and improve our media product. 

We also used Youtube to look at films that might inspire us. The film we looked in depth at was ‘The Ring’ because our initial idea was similar because of the fact that our opening scene is about a character falling into the psychological trap of the antagonist. We also used YouTube as a source to get our soundtrack from that we played throughout the film. We also used Youtube to find, simulate and manipulate certain diagetic sounds such as the scream that comes from Aimee's character when she is killed at the end of the opening. We also found the swoosh sound, which is sounded every time Lukes character appears, in the same place. 

Here is a video of me and Luke demonstrating and explaining the different software's we used to create our media product.