Main Brief valuation question 6

Camera Work

We used Adobe Premier Pro CS6, Adobe Auditon and Adobe After Effects to edit our opening sequence. Premeir Pro allowed us to edit the clips together seamlessly and rpvided adequate potions for trasitions and basic sound editing. Major sound effects such as volume, fade and echoing were created using Adobe Audition. Having never used Audition before, I used a 'trial and error' approach to figure out how to apply which effects. It was clear on how to split one clip, but it took time to learn how to control volume and add effects such as the reverb and echo. However (with a growth mindest) I was able to edit our music to fit the sequence with the correct effects and dynamics.

For filming we used a Canon 700D Camera with two

different lenses : The Kit Lens 18-55 mm STM and a 50 mm

Mark II. The camera films in 1080p, so we were assured of

producing a high quality video. Durng the filming process

we learnt that we could not use auto-focus whilst filming

because the lens made too much noise and distrupted the

video. Therefore we learnt how to manually focus a shot

whislt the camera was rolling without making the camera

shake too much. We did use a tripod to steady the camera

for some of the shots, which makes our video look more

sleek and professional.

Prezi and MindMeister

Blogger

Prezi and MindMeister are two different styles of creative technology that I used whilst evaulating my media product. Prezi creates interactive presentations that are a little more exciting than just a powerpoint (they have a wider range of themes and designs, which are more appealing.) MindMeister creates mind-maps that can be used for personal or business purposes sich as revision or presentations. Prezi was relatively easy to understand and use, and the trial (free) version still had a lot of uses. MindMeister was also easy to understand but its trial version did not have a wide range of functions: you could only include text, and you had to upgrade if you wanted to include pictures. Therefore I had to include more detail in the different sections of the mind map but this did not cause too many problems. In this process I learnt how to use different pieces of software that have all sorts of uses-not jsut for media evaulations. Now I know how effective they are and

they will be able to benefit me in future projects.

To track and record my progress for both of my briefs and my AS Media Studies Course I used Blogger- a blogging patform powered by Google. This is relatively user-friendly and has many uses besides creating text posts. It allows me to upload pictures and videos, embed hyperlinks on blog posts and I can update/edit blog posts at any time. Its phone app came in handy for publishing posts on the go or if I had no access to a computer. I learnt the basics: what imporant information to include, formatting to make titles and terminology stand out, and layouts of the blog to make it aesthetically pleasing. I was espcially pleased with the selection of fonts and background images and how simple it was to format and edit.

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

WhatsApp

In order for my group to communicate easily we set up a group chat on WhatsApp. Not only did this mean we could instantly message each other, but it also meant we could send video files, pictures and voice notes to one another at no cost. This was very effective as the messages were instant, allowing us to make any last-minute arrangements and changes. All members of the group could see the messages sent so we all had an equal weigh-in on any decisions made. It came into good use when members of the group wereout of the country on school trips as they could still remain in contact on WhatsApp using wifi, which would have been difficult if we were relying on text messaging.

In order to watch the openings of many horror films and to upload both of my briefs to the internet I used YouTube. YouTube is useful as it is used by amatuers and professionals, meaning it is easy to use in terms of searching and uploading videos yet still retaining a high quality for my videos. I learnt that it does take a while to upload videos depending on their quality and length, but the higher quality of the video, the more professional it looks so it was worth the wait (over 10 hours to upload the bloopers!)

Google Drive

Google Drive was invaluable to me during the process of constructing my product. It stores 15GB of data free, which was a bonus as video clips take up a lot of space. Google Drive allowed me to share clips with the rest of my group and we could edit them at the same time from different computers. Google Drive also comes with additional programmes such as Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides. Google sheets was used to create my horror film questionnaire. This meant whenever someone answered the questionnaire the results were collected in a document and saved to my drive, so all of the results were in one place. This was also useful for presentations as they could be completed on Google Slides and saved to a class folder where everyone would have access to view the presentation. Overall Google Drive was incredibly handy during this process.