QUESTION 6What have you learnt about

technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Hardware

1. Camera

We used Katie’s Canon 600d (a DSLR) to film our opening sequence.

This worked better than using a school camera because it gave us more freedom to film spontaneous sessions rather than having to book in advance.

2. Tripod

Most of our shots were done with a still camera, and the tripod was helpful because it prevented a shaky camera.

In hindsight, we could have used a dolly for some shots, like the burglars walking through the house.

3. Microphone

We used a RODE microphone and plugged it into Katie’s camera so that we could hear the dialogue more clearly and less background noise.

This worked really well for our product because it made the speech clearer and since we have a vital outdoor scene where the detectives show up and speak, the external sounds would have brought down the quality of our work.

4. Lights

We used a ‘Redhead Lighting Kit’ for the darkest scenes.

Putting the lights far away from the camera of turned away from it helps because the set doesn’t look too bright and also it doesn’t get too hot.

SOFTWARE

1. Premiere Pro We used premiere pro for all of the editing of the footage. Although the program gave us lots of problems (e.g.

Failure to export, not displaying the footage properly etc.) the editing was a relatively quick process and Premiere Pro was better than other editing programs (like Final Cut Pro). This program is flexible; you can put in titles on here and assemble a soundtrack but doing everything on here would mean longer to render and export and they would be lower quality than what we have now.

2. After Effects

After effects was used for the titles and effects in the opening.

After effects was new to everyone so it took a while to figure out how to work the functions. Joei did all of the titles by watching tutorials and looking for presets on the program. It took a while but they look perfect for the genre and the sequence.

3. Garageband

All of the music/ soundtrack for the opening was made in Garageband.

We had lots of first drafts of our film that we matched the music to. We started on sound while we were still editing because our deadline was getting closer and we hadn’t even looked at examples of sound. We went for a slow but rhythmic loop throughout the opening that builds tension.

Camera Tripod Microphone

Lights Premiere Pro

After Effects

Garageband

Ease of Use

Easy Easy Easy Regular Easy Hard Easy

Handling Issues

None None None Very Heavy

_ _ _

Portability

_ _ _ _ Good Good Bad

Quality Issues

None None None None Sometimes Bad

Sometimes bad

None

The lights were sometimes difficult to use because of the time it takes to set them up and position them.

After effects was difficult to use because none of us have used it before and it wasn’t easy to figure out

The handling issues with the lights was that they were heavy and we had to walk to Katie’s house every time we filmed.

Garageband had bad portability because you could only work on certain computers that had the loops that we used saved on them.

Premiere Pro and After Effects made the video blurry at times when we exported it. This ruined the quality of the film and we had to re-export it.

Health and Safety We have learned that when dealing with

the lights, always keep the wires out of the way of people otherwise they can trip over.

Another thing about the lights is that you cant cover them at all because anything you put in front of it will start burning.

When filming outside in the rain, make sure all equipment is covered especially plug sockets.

The driving scenes need to be filmed on roads with less cars going past.