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TECHNOLOGIES THAT WE USED IN OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Cameras

HOW HAS THIS HELPED?

When filming with the camera, I learnt how to convey my technical skills developed from my CESM study into our production. With this I was able to expand on my knowledge of camera angles and shot compositions to help it to represent important aspects of the character to the audience.

We all had an equal amount of time working with the camera, allowing us all to advance individually as well as a team.

HOW HAS THIS HINDERED?

We experienced some technical issues, for example, we had to ensure that we received the same camera for our re-shoot as we did for the main shoot to ensure the video quality remained the same. This could have become a major issue for us as there were other students borrowing cameras at the same time as us.

With us all taking turns as cinematographer, we had to ensure that the locations of the shots would match together. For this reason we developed a shot plan with a blueprint of our location to ensure that the camera remained in the correct position. However, this did take up some time and resources.

On one occasion the battery life of the camera caused us to pause filming for 20 minutes so it could charge, resulting in a loss of daylight needed for our scene.

TECHNOLOGIES THAT WE USED IN OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Cameras

• Microphones

HOW HAS THIS HELPED?

The regular microphone built into the camera wouldn’t allow for sound to be picked up from long distances and in as much clarity as would an external microphone. Without this the audience may have missed important aspects of the dialogue such as tone of voice and non-verbal aspects of speech.

HOW HAS THIS HINDERED?

However, we simply relied on the microphone being attached to the camera via the built in stand. With this we weren’t able to get a few aspects of dialogue as clear as we would have liked. If we had had the right equipment, we could have had the microphone extended on a boom pole where it could be positioned closer to the speaking character and then it would stand out against any other background noise.

With the microphone being in such close proximity to the camera, we had to ensure that the cinematographer didn’t breathe too heavily into the microphone.

TECHNOLOGIES THAT WE USED IN OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Cameras

• Microphones

• Tripod

HOW HAS THIS HELPED?

With the tripod we were able to effectively compose static shots as well as a combination of pans and tilts with maximum control and minimum jolts.

It also allowed us to raise the camera to experiment with high angle shots where previously, without a tripod it would have been very unstable.

HOW HAS THIS HINDERED?

The tripod couldn't be be used for all the shots we wanted to produce such as tracks and dollys.

The tripod also took a large amount of time to set up. When extending the height of the tripod we used a spirit level to ensure that we got a non-slanted shot. Also when using the pan or tilt features of the tripod we had to make sure that the tension was perfect so that the movement would flow smoothly and wasn’t too loose for it to sink.

TECHNOLOGIES THAT WE USED IN OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Cameras

• Microphones

• Tripod

• Reflector

HOW HAS THIS HELPED?

It allowed us to ensure that the character had a strong key light on them without having to spend time setting up powerful and heavy lighting equipment.

HOW HAS THIS HINDERED?

Due to it being quiet a large piece of equipment, it required one team member to hold it whilst being used. We also had to ensure that it didn’t obstruct the view of the camera, so the positioning of it had to be rethought every time we recomposed a new shot.

TECHNOLOGIES THAT WE USED IN OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Cameras

• Microphones

• Tripod

• Reflector

• Editing software

HOW HAS THIS HELPED?

This is where the final storytelling came into place. We could cut together audio and video to make sure it created a clean flowing piece of work. In areas where it wasn’t so easy to make a clean transition or cut I used effect tools such as constant gain (audio), brightness and contrast and colour balance RBG.

Constant gain allowed me to blend two different audio clips together so that the transition between them sounded natural.

The brightness and contrast tool allowed us to change the opacity of the layer built up to create our clip.

The colour balance RBG allowed us to alter the colour of the clip to create a blue dusk-like clip from a clip that was filmed at midday.

It also allowed us to design a more creative text animated title.

HOW HAS THIS HINDERED?

With everyone in the class using this system at the same time it caused the program to be dramatically slow and raised the chance of crashing. With this we had to ensure that our work was saved periodically to avoid our progress from being lost.

TECHNOLOGIES THAT WE USED IN OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Cameras

• Microphones

• Tripod

• Reflector

• Editing software

• Garageband

HOW HAS THIS HELPED?

We were able to develop a score for our opening without breaching any copyright or royalty issues. We were also able to change the tempo, beat or pitch of the music according to the different directions of the film.

HOW HAS THIS HINDERED?

This software is only available on an Apple Mac computer, whereas all the other editing and development for our film had been done on a PC. This meant that there were a few extra steps needed to convert our audio from AIF to mp3 before it could be used in our editing software.