Evaluation Question Six

Evaluation Question Six

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

Through the process of producing our film opening, I have improved on my technical skills with the technologies we have used. We used the Canon XHA1 Camera, like we did in our preliminary task. I feel that I have learnt a lot more on how to use the camera than I did in the preliminary task. Such as connecting the mains battery pack to the camera – it connects the same way as a battery is place inside the camera in the same slot. I am a lot more familiar with the camera’s function now than I used to be and feel more confident in using it. For example I know how to use the “VCR Play” function now to playback rushes as I was not sure how to do this at first. Although my role was a Director in our production, I noticed that the camera was quite light weight and portable to carry as we had to carry it to numerous locations as we filmed. The Vinten Pro Touch Black Tripod was also easy to attach and we did not encounter any problems with the camera or tripod. I learnt that every time we attached the camera and move the tripod you have to check if the spirit level is balanced. Otherwise the shots will come out tilted. The tripod enables us to film steady shots which are important as it shows of professional skills, rather than what you would see in a handy cam, the footage is all shaking as it is hand held. The Cannon XHA1 is also quite compact as it is used by real film makers and has good professional quality.

The sound equipment we used was also of very high quality. We used the Sennheiser K6 Microphone which was placed in a Rycote Windshield System connected to the Boom pole. I learnt that as you connect the XLR Lead from the microphone to the camera, the lead can be easily taped to the boom pole to prevent the disturbance of the lead hitting the pole. This makes the sound quality a bit more efficient as well. The sound person in our group Akin, used the Sennheiser HD 205 headphones to listen out for any loud interferences which would ruin our sound quality for our film. We decided to record sound as well as a second option if we decided to keep diegetic sound with the soundtrack. But we decided to keep just the soundtrack in the end as our final decision. This equipment was very lightweight but we had some difficulties with its portability as we had to look it very carefully and because the sound is always connected with the camera we had to carefully manage the two together when moving with them. It was easy to set up as we did not encounter any difficulties.

To edit our film we used Adobe Premier Pro software. The advantages of using this software are that it is very efficient and once you know how to use it its quite simple. However the disadvantages are that it can be quite overwhelming and complicated to use at first. We used the Firewire lead to connect the Cannon XAH1 Camera to the computer to digitize our rushes. We saved the film onto an 80GB Lacie Drive which enabled us to edit our film on any computer rather than saving it onto the hard drive of a computer. By experimenting with the software I learnt how to use many different effects onto shots such as “Fade” and “Dissolve”. I also became more confident in digitizing and creating a flowing linear sequence of shots together when we had to assemble edit all of our shots. We encountered some problems with the soundtrack being lost as soon as we disconnected a USB stick with the soundtrack on it. To solve this we saved the soundtrack onto the lacie drive as well. This time we used a lot more titles than we did in our preliminary task and once again this broadens the range of skills and knowledge I have learnt during editing. These are technical skills like connecting the camera to the computer and digitizing. Also learning how to use the software increased my knowledge. As now we are in a generation that we have technology for film-making, it’s possible to edit footage in any way. Without technology it would not be possible to create films with special effects and films would not be in a great quality.