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

I learnt about two main areas of technology through the process of constructing this product: editing and the cameras. In order to construct our film opening we used a Canon 550D camera and a selection of three different lenses. Through the process of filming the opening of our movie, I have learnt that the 35mm is most suitable for wide shots, 50mm for mid-shots, and 75mm for close ups. Whilst filming, we tended to experiment with the different lenses to find the right lens to create our imagined shot. Also, something that took a while to get right was the focusing of the lens on the camera. Quite a few of our shots we had to re-do, as it was ever so slightly out of focus, and we soon came to understand that it takes very small movements to get the focus right.

We also learnt a lot during post-production, using the editing software ‘Final Cut Pro’. From the footage we had created, we knew it would take quite a lot of editing to create something that would make sense to an audience watching it on a screen. One aspect of editing that we learnt a lot about was the sound editing. Throughout the opening, the sound levels change dependent on how close to the laptop the shot is, due to the fact that the music needed to appear to be diegetic. When we started editing, we weren’t sure how we would be able to do this, however it was easy to find out the information we wanted simply by googling it. It turns out that this was far simpler to do that we first imagined, as we just had to cut the music to each shot, and then edit the sound levels accordingly.

Another thing we learnt on Final Cut Pro was how to add titles, and have them animated. We needed to learn this as we wanted each title to be typed as it appeared on screen. We were worried that this would be very difficult to achieve, and probably be quite a time consuming process. However, it turns out that there is a setting called ‘typewriter’ on Final Cut Pro when you create a title that types it out on the screen for you, and then you are able to adjust the speed as you wish.

Once we were happy with the sequence of shots we had produced, we sent our opening over to a colour grading programme, simply called ‘Colour’. This was a very simple programme to use as all you had to do was change the levels of colour in order to achieve the appearance of the shot that you wanted. The only difficult part of the programme was the fact that you had to render the entire sequence before you were able to send it back to Final Cut Pro, which although once we understood it, it wasn’t too difficult, it was very time consuming, and quite a boring process of waiting.