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

During the project I have learnt to use a variety of new hardware equipment. For example, we experimented with a shotgun microphone and we used pag lights in order to help light the set when filming in the basement. As well as this I furthered my understanding of/ability to use the HD camera; this became useful for innovative shots such as the establishing 'through the floor' shot. As shown below, we used the tripod for most of our shots.

We used computer programs such as Adobe Premier Pro in order to edit our footage and Macromedia Flash to create our indent on the PC. We used the software on the Mac (specifically Soundtrack Pro and LiveType) to find sound effects and create titles for our sequence.

Importantly, I began to use Blogger. This was used to post updates during the project and the work done before and after it. It was very useful because it can be accessed from any computer with internet and therefore I was able to work on my blog at home and at school whilst it became easier for my teachers to view as well.

Looking back at your preliminary task,what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full prodcut?

I feel that this is a significant improvement on my preliminary task because I have become more familiar with using the equipment, knowledge of techniques (for example the 30 degree rule and the 180 degree rule) and editing a narrative sequence so it works and therefore there have been less mistakes.

 

In the prelim task, the pan following the movement on screen wasn't very smooth (0:13) whilst my new sequence the entire action runs far more smoothly (0:54).

In addition, I have learnt to film the entire action from different angles in my new sequence whilst in the prelim we tended to stop filming too soon and therefore there were strange cuts (0:12) that didn’t work well and looked unnatural to the viewer.

Shots

On March 4th I posted a video that had been filmed in one shot.

From 0:52 to 1:20 we filmed one continuous shot and although this has cutaways, it reflects what I wanted to do with our piece.

Similarly, on February 2nd I posted a clip from Harry Potter, identifying the POV shot and the lighting which combined gave a sense of tension and mood that fitted well within the genre. Due to the change in location and therefore story our version wasn't as dark or mysterious. However, from 1:23 to 1:43 we have a similar shot in which we have a POV shot of somebody exploring their surroundings whilst watching somebody else's movements.

Final sequence

Finally, here it is!

19.3.10

We're signed off! It's a relief to have finished the piece; it's something that I'm really proud of and it has been fun to film and edit. We had to rush a lot in the last couple of days but so did most other groups. I'm happy with the finished result and I hope that the people who come to the screening agree with me.

15.3.10

Having captured the footage from yesterdays reshoot, I'm confident that we can reach the deadline. At the moment we're putting the finishing touches to our sequence before adding titles and music. The next few days will be tough but I'm sure that we can complete the task on time.

12.3.10

I'm looking forward to Sunday's reshoot and finally getting all the footage needed to make our sequence. Hopefully we can also come up with some new ideas as well as simply reshoot the shots that went wrong last time around.

In today's lesson we started to create the titles for our sequence and began to discuss the music for it. We're also cutting down the length of it which is extremely useful because it means we know how long the shots we will reshoot must be (for example we may be able to shave a second or two off of some shots).