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

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 Question 6

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Patrycja

Dawn

In editing I have learnt that in order to make everything work together I need to know the features of premier pro. Doing the preliminary task allowed to learn the basics of premier pro such as how to import a file, how to change the size of the file and overwrite it to the timeline, how to add titles and how to add effects and transitions for both videos as well as audio. When constructing the final piece I have learnt many more features but not only learning how to apply them onto the clips and sound but also what are each of them used for e.g. effects in order to change the look of the video into something new and make it different than just colorful, transitions to change from one clip to the other smoothly.

The whole editing process was hard as it included a lot more features from adding titles which was the easiest part to exporting the video clip to a media file which was much harder as you have to know what media file to choose so that it works on every computer. Adding titles was quite easy as you only had to look for a button at the top bar that says new title, however if you wanted to make changes to the title it would be much harder to find the options to do this. I really enjoyed editing the final video as it allowed me to learn new things that can be done with premier pro for future use. I also learnt the basics of logic pro and how to import the file from logic pro onto the premier pro. Making the sound was much harder for me, so Dawn and I decided to make it even and I did the editing and she did the sound. We also decided to try different things, so I tried to do some sound which was going really well until I didn’t know how to find the sound that I want and were to put it. We helped each other all the way through constructing the product as we made equal decisions and agreed on things together.

Although I wasn’t really involved in editing as much as Patrycja was, I edited one clip on my own – we had called it a day and an idea came to my mind to make the mid shot of our female character more interesting. We had previously found it difficult to edit this clip in smoothly. I began by adding cross-dissolves on the beginning and end of the clip through ‘video transitions’ and ‘dissolves’ to help with smoothness. Then I went to ‘video effects’, ‘distort’ and added a ‘timing’ effect on the entire clip; this didn’t affect the cross-dissolves. I when on the ‘effect control’ panel and used the ‘echo effect’ to make the female character seem like a distortion in time – suggesting that she’s a ghost. When I showed this to Patrycja she really liked it and we both agreed to keep it in our opening sequence. Despite my lack of experimentation with editing, whenever I watched Patrycja as we were sorting out the non-diagetic and diagetic sounds I took onboard what she was doing and this helped me understand and appreciate editing using Premier Pro.

Camera work is one of the most important parts of the production process because without the filming we wouldn’t have anything to edit to make our opening sequence.

We started off with using a camera and a tripod in order to film. We got to know all the features starting from how to switch a camera on, how to zoom, how to watch the certain clip, how to open up the lances and how to take pictures using the camera. The weather was one of the biggest issues as it stopped us from filming because it was snowing and we didn’t want the camera to get damaged, so we had to wait few days in order to film again and match out pathetic fallacy that we wanted. Operating the tripod was not that bad as we have done it before for preliminary task. I learnt how to pan using the tripod so that it is smooth, how to make the tripod bigger and how the tripod needs to be placed in order to have straight shots.

For filming I learnt the basics first; turning on the camera, charging it, zooming in and out, recording, reviewing and deleting videos and of course taking pictures (examples). It was relatively easy learning these things; it took about 20 minutes to experiment with the camera to discover how to use it. I even found that there are special effects that can be used when recording or taking a picture, like having a frame around the screen. However, the main challenge was learning the correct way to shoot a shot with the tripod. Panning is a prime example, it can’t be done handheld, unlike a POV shot, and it must be shot on the tripod to get the correct levels and turning speed. It also depends what kind of panning is required, a high or lower angled position to be specific. During the filming, I did many pans, two of which we used in our production. The first being of the street at night having the neon ‘CAMDENLOCK’ sign. I needed to level the tripod with the floor and make sure the camera was attached and secure to the tripod so it wouldn’t wobble or be a wonky clip. This shot had to be repeated because I found it very hard to have a smooth turn with the PAN. The second being on a balcony – getting a higher shot of the street. The tripod had to be at its maximum height, I needed to have the legs extended and wind up the camera to gain the right height, then I put the legs of it together and began recording. I realized that I couldn’t turn it too slowly or too fast because it would result in a shaky picture. This particular shot’s pan was not used because it was too unstable, yet we used the ending as a nice establishing shot of the area. I’ve learnt that practicing the pan shot is very useful because it requires a steady hand in order to get the smoothest turn and can help with developing other shots.
Learning the 180-degree rule was initially quite difficult because we always had to bear in mind the position of the characters and camera in order to maintain this rule. During filming it took us a while to use the 180-degree rule because of the continuity we also needed to constantly obey the rule in order to make our narrative more realistic. It helped me realise that allot of time goes into filming, even in just a few shots.

Shot reverse shot or match-on-action helps the flow of a conversation seem more believable because it displays the exchange between the characters. It can also happen before a POV shot to reveal who’s POV the audience are seeing; which can be broken to create mystery or suspense as an audience don’t know who’s POV they are seeing. In filming we incorporated match-on-action without a conversation exchange between the characters; in order to maintain the suspense through the lack of conversation. The over-the-shoulder-shot with our male character walking by the female, was very difficult to frame. This was because I needed to ensure the tripod’s legs were evenly lengthened, I had to check the… to see if the camera was level, then I had to make sure the framing was good enough to fit both characters heads in. This one shot took so long to shoot and I needed to do a few takes to save filming it again.

I found out that I couldn’t record and zoom in on a character because the zoom affected the focus on the camera and blurred the image. The zoom was very useful when framing the shots, it helped me experiment with how a shot could be taken, what significant details could be focused on in a clip etc. But it’s not just about how to use the camera, although it does play a very important part, it’s also about timing, especially concerning the weather. One weekend it was snowing which prevented us from filming – I’m glad we didn’t because harsh weather conditions like snow could have really damaged or affected the equipment. The following weekend I had planned to film and was prepared to film in the rain; making sure I was dressed warmly and in water proofs, along with a large umbrella to cover the camera from the rain. I wanted to get most or all of the filming done on that day, basically every shot without the characters to make the filming process faster; less people with you make fewer distractions. I filmed all that day but kept needing to charge the camera. I learnt that the cameras don’t have a long life-time when off the charger and charging them should happen on a regular basis.

Sound is the thing that I know least about, I know few bits such as bouncing the sound off and overlapping different sounds together in editing but Dawn is more knowledgeable with that.

The making of the sound and editing of it, using Logic Pro and Premier Pro, played an important role in the construction of our final product. There’s a large variety of sounds concerning different sections/groups like ‘strings’, ‘guitar’ and ‘electronic’ to choose from; the sounds I used from Logic Pro were loops on the program that had already been made. I spent hours searching through the loops to find ones that would work well with our genre and the camera shots. I searched for keywords on the search bar in Logic, like ‘abstract’ and ‘violin’, to narrow down the list of sounds I had to go through. Once I’d found the sounds I’d click and drag the loops onto the grid in separate rows – these rows would automatically be named as the loop I’d placed in the row and would follow the preferred sound settings for each loop. This was very useful because the similar sounds, like violins, could also join that row and loop, allowing me to experiment with different compositions until I found the right one and until Patrycja had agreed with me. After experimenting with a group of loops, by dragging them underneath each other and making sure the sounds joined at the right timing, I selected the compellation, clicked ‘file’, ‘export’, ‘as audio file’ and put the mp3 on my USB to give to Patrycja. I learnt how to merge and construct unique compositions that suited our genre and I also became more familiar with Logic Pro as I composed. Using audio transitions and adding the sounds and sound effects I’d merged together onto Premier Pro was really exciting because both Patrycja and I would listen and make sure the timing was near enough perfect to finish each clip. I was very particular where the sounds would go, whether or not the sound needed an audio transition, it could cut in too sharp or was too harsh a sound for the audience, and in that case we’d need to lower the volume of it on the clip through Premier Pro. An issue with the non-diagetic sound was that it didn’t cover up the diagetic sound on the shots. During the shots with our male and female character I had added a sound to Premier Pro and directed Patrycja with where to place it, the build-up in non-diagetic sound merged with the diagetic sirens and ended our opening sequence. Watching and listening to this makes it seem like an easy process. However, this particular sound was such a challenge because we needed to overlap the diagetic sounds from the clips to have continuity in the clips and then add and get the right timing with the non-diagetic build-up. I’d say it was one of the hardest sounds to do because each split second made such a difference. I enjoyed it because it challenged our own skills and knowledge of the programs, making us really push ourselves to get a good outcome – let alone perfect you know.

The handy part of being in charge of both sound and camera was that I had an idea of what sounds could be used during filming, made note and searched for them in Logic Pro; which gave me a broader understanding of what sound would be appropriate for .

Blogging was one of the most important areas that we needed to focus on throughout the whole process of constructing the final product as we uploaded every little piece of research and planning towards the final production, the whole process of constructing on how it was made and why we made it like that and not a different way. The evaluation of the product which was also uploaded on blogs- allowed us to get some feedback from teachers and friends in order to find out what we did well and what we needed to make better next time. The technologies that we had to face with were actually making a blog, which was quite easy to do as it’s about ourselves, which we already know about. The other little pieces that we had to focus on was converting files, importing images and videos to the posts, editing the posts and commenting and following each others blogs but also other websites that are useful.

The blog was an extremely useful tool to document my progress, along the way I’ve found how to make a blogging experience easier through various gadgets and how to get files onto posts. Before adding sound or video clips to posts, I had to convert the content into either audio or video files, (mp3s & mp4s); this included editing the content using Premier Pro which wasn’t my strong point but I improved more as I practiced. After I’d done this I’d click on the image or video symbol in a post and choose the files and import them. Sometimes I had to do this repeatedly because Blogger still has glitches concerning uploading videos. I also learnt how to edit previous posts for grammar or spelling mistakes and comment on others blogs too. Concerning the format of my blog, I added gadgets to make it more organized and easier to use. I added, ‘Total Pageviews’ which showed how many views my blog has, ‘Search This Blog’ for people to write in a keyword to access posts easier, ‘Translate’ for other language readers, ‘Link List’ to highlight blogs I’m interested in and recommend, ‘Labels’ associated with my posts again to make viewing blog posts less time consuming, ‘Popular Posts’ to display and suggest appealing posts, a ‘Blog Archive’ exhibiting all my posts on the blog and ‘About Me’ to make my blog interesting and personal. I had never had a blog before and having a blog and maintaining it is an interesting experience, I’m looking forward to creating some more!