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

By Owen Maers

Research and Planning• I used YouTube a lot for my research and planning, it allowed me to share vlogs

that I had done but also analyse other opening title sequences. I already had a lot of previous experience with YouTube so I have not really learnt a lot more about it during this project but I think I used it well and appropriately.

However, at the start of the research and planning phase I was reluctant to use it as I was shy to speak in front of the camera all the time and much preferred typing. I now understand that watching a video is much more entertaining than reading.

Slideshare• Slideshare was completely new to me at the start of the course, I had never heard

of it but my teacher told me about it and I used it a lot over the duration of my research and planning. It allows you to upload PowerPoints, you can then use the url to embed into your blog. I even ended up using it for history revision.

Canva• Canva is a website allowing you to make really quick and simple graphics which

can be downloaded as .png to display on your blog. I hadn’t heard about it before the course and I definitely became more efficient at using the software over time. At first I struggled with making the graphics but towards the end I was very good at it even making my own billboard.

Pie charts and Mind MapsI used the website https://imgflip.com/piemaker to create my pie charts which were used to summarise my questionnaire results. The software was easy to use and I had no difficulties

For mind maps I used the website https://www.mindmeister.com/ it was very easy to use and a creative way of summarising all of ideas into one image.

Word• I used Microsoft word if I wanted to jot down any quick ideas I had for my blog or

planning the film. I also originally wrote the script on there before uploading that to Celltx which transfers words into a script simply and then uploading that to Scribd. This was all really easy and I had not problems.

Not my screenshot, just one I found on google images.

Facebook • Our group used Facebook to attempt to find actors for our film, which worked as Owen Jones

convinced his brother and his girlfriend to act in our film. We tried to hire other actors but they either weren’t interested or dropped out at the last minute. As a group, we communicated and organised things over Facebook, for example filming dates and permissions. Here are some examples of this.

Filming – Cameras• With previous experiences in Photography, filming was not an issue for me and I knew the

camera (Canon 700D) pretty well, being the owner of the similar 1100D myself. I had filmed bits and pieces previously but not taken it as seriously as a proper media film. However, I feel I did a pretty good idea of directing the film and filming it, I have certainly learnt a lot about filming through creating the film as in what makes a good shot but I also had a lot of fun doing it. It was certainly a step up from the Prelim where we used a basic flip up camera, which was obviously very simple and I had no issues using.

Prelim camera

Final filmcamera

Tripod Tripods are used to steady a shot, I had no problem using a tripod as I had previous experience in photography with tripods. Below is a picture showing the difference between using a tripod and no tripod. It makes the camera stiller so it is able to focus on minute details making a crisper image.

Tripod No Tripod No tripod

Post Production – After effects• I used Adobe After Effects to create the titles for our film opening. At first I

struggled with the software as I had never used it before. I began grasping how to make titles starting off with basic text before delving into animations. This took a while to get the hang of but I overcame this barrier by watching YouTube tutorials and asking for help from other students. I also had problems exporting titles which I spoke about in a video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmgbpjGIo_Y – titles feedback https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmCT7GKaDak – general titles talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HQ31UBg7m0 – showing how to export • Anyway after overcoming these problems I think I ended up producing some

quality titles and was proud of what I had created, reflecting upon how I used After Effects I would say that I became better as I spent more time on the software and becoming more familiar with it, this in the end made me very efficient and I could make a good set of titles fairly quickly.

Premiere Pro• To edit the film together we used Adobe Premiere Pro, I picked up how to use the

software really quickly but there were some things I couldn’t do. I could easily do the basic such as cut the video up (mark in and mark out) and get the timing correct between scenes. Continuing to use the software meant I became better at it and could edit faster and more efficiently.

Garageband

• Honestly, I didn’t use garageband too much as the other two people in my group made the music in our film so I can’t comment on my experience with garageband.