Beckie Donaldson AS Media

Question 7

Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?

Camera:

After filming our preliminary we realised that using a simple handheld camera was not going to work for our main task. We wanted our video to be shot using an HD camera as it would look smarter than the handheld. With having a larger more professional camera we were able to use a camera stand, which avoided the shakiness that we had in our preliminary. We used a Nikon J2 as it was easy to carry around to the various locations and recorded in HD and strongly picked up the colours.

Mic:

In our preliminary we used the mic that was on the camera, this meant that audio was quite quiet and blotchy in places. To avoid this in our main task, we used a proper microphone which we attached to the camera. This picked up better sound and avoided distortions.

Editing:

To edit our preliminary we used iMovie, though it was good, it did not have the extent of features needed to make our main task video look professional. So we decided to use Final Cut Pro as we could use colour correction, sound correction and add many other useful effects. We had never used Final Cut Pro before so we had to learn how to use the new software which was interesting and in the end I believe it paid off.

Acting:

The actors in our preliminary task were fellow class members with little acting experience. We didn't think it would make much of a difference, however after watching it we decided we didn't like how wooden it came across and decided to get people with acting experience.

Planning:

In our preliminary task the only planning we did was a story board, which meant when we came to film it, we spent a lot of time messing around as we didn't know what exactly to film. However to avoid this in our main task we spent a lot more time perfecting the script's and knowing which shots we would involve.

Question 6

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

When starting to film our main task, I did not know much about filming or editing, my only previous experience being with the preliminary task. We had some with filming and editing which taught us a lot about softwares that we wouldn't normally use.

With the filming, we learned that keeping that planning is extremely important, and keeping the camera steady is a lot more important to the final product that you think. When we first filmed, a lot of our shots were shaky, so when we put them together it just looked messy and unprofessional. On top of this, we didn't get all the shots we needed, there were too many messy zooms which made it look like a home video rather than the more executed feel that we wanted, and there were little mistakes throughout our piece (such as the actors looking directly at the camera too often) that we needed to change. We ended up re-filming, but we planned out in detail beforehand, so we knew what shots we needed to have and what things to look out for.

In the last scene of our film, the kidnapper is seen to be wearing a shoulder bag which has not been present in any other scenes. We needed to remove the bag from the scene, but could not re-film again it as Oscar who played the kidnapper, had to go back to boarding school and was no longer available.

So we had to experiment with different ways of editing. At first we tried covering the back through effects, by making the video really grainy, however this didn't match with the rest of our film and we decided against it. Later we found out you could Photoshop videos, so we spent three hours going frame by frame and editing the bag out. Unfortunately we couldn't find a way to upload the photoshopped video onto Final Cut Pro, which was the editing software we were using at the time. Despite seeking advice from multiple sources we just were unable to find a way, so had to leave the bag in.

Through that we learned how to use Photoshop and Final Cut Pro for editing, however for next year we should make sure we find out if it's possible to put Photoshopped videos into Final Cut Pro as we could use it without wasting time.

Question 5

Question 5

Having a female actor such as Frankie Reffel as our main character, attracts a female audience due to her being relatable to the viewers, and this plot 'could' happen to anyone. Our film attracts a teenage audience due to the age of our actors, who are in their teens. This appeals to the teenage sense of rebellion and adventure which is why teenagers would go to see our film. Although our audience is not explicitly limited to females due to Oscar Perriman playing the main villain which interests a male audience as it add's an air of masculinity. We would attract our male audience through the typical thriller genre and having lots of crime and action.