Section A - Digital Technology

Point 2 - Camera

For my AS project, I used a different camera to the one I used for my A2 project. This was because of the lack of cameras available to me from the school at the time; I borrowed my friends camera, a Nikon D3200. Compared to the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS, Laura's camera had a much higher quality which meant that my shots looked very proffesional. Because AS project was shot in quite natural bright lighting, it meant that the quality of the camera emphasised the colours of grey, brown and black around the bathroom, making it look particularly skillful. This was ideal for the tone of my piece as it meant that the solemn tones of the location were made obvious, and they made a certain statement about the bleakness of the protagonist's life. The lower quality of the Canon I used for my A2 project was not at all a problem when filming or editing. The shots in the low lighting in my room are still crisp and good quality, esspecially on the close ups of Rachel holding the mannequinn in her hands. This can be seen as an improvement in myself with using cameras with lighting, and knowing what cameras work with certain lighting. For AS, the lighting stayed pretty much the same throughout filming, meaning I did not have to play around with changing the lighting of the room for the camera's benefit and to ensure best quality. However for A2, I had to make sure that my bedroom was sufficiently lit enough to get good quality from the Canon camera. This shows a degree of skill developed over the two years as I am not more aware of lighting in relation to quality of shots.

I used a Nikon D3200 Camera to film my piece, which proved to be quite easy and simple. After a lot of hassle trying to get a camera from school, there were none available in the time I needed it, so I used my friend Laura's.

The camera its self was light and there were clear directions and buttons on the screen and the body of the camera. The quality of the shots were extremely good, they were not grainy and they presented the colours in a true light. The only problem I had when using it was trying to focus on certain areas. For example the close up shot of Kieran washing has face is slightly blurry.

Section A - Digital Technology

Elleah Stanton

How have your skills developed with Digital Technology over the two years and how has this influenced your production?

Point 1 - Adobe Premier Pro CS6

At the beginning of my AS project, I had never used Adobe Premier Pro CS6 before, so my skills were non existent. However after my preliminary tasks, The Prisoner and Haematemesis, I had really come to terms with the basic toold software after editing shots together. I did not use the other effects very music in the preliminary tasks, due to the fact that I was still coming to terms with how to cut and put shots together. In The Prisoner, there was a scene where we wanted to speed up the shot of the two men staring at eachother. We did this using the tools on premier pro, however looking back it was not a good idea. This shows had led to me not wanting to use the speeding up tool on the software as it looks quite unproffesional and not very slick. Come my final piece, I was then skilled enough to advance on to the effects. I produced a few rough cuts of my final piece with the saturation changed, which I did to see if it would make the video look more solemn and dull to illustrate the morbid nature of the protagonist. In A2, I used the colour tools to alter the contrast and brightness, and even tested out some of the filters in order to create a dream like world that the main character would be revealed to be dreaming about at the end of the music video. Over the two years I have become a lot more experimental with using the effects within Premier Pro in order to create a certain mood. For my A2 final piece, I will be playing around a lot with the different filters available as I need to create the impression that the world that Ben is being picked up and moved around in is a fantasy world that the girl character has created. Also, there are a lot of shots at the beginning of the piece that contain a lot of colourful props such as colouring pencils and pots of paint, so I will definitely be playing around with the contrast to make it look fun and bright.

In A2 for my final piece, I was able to work very effectively with editing, something that was necessary to make my final video work because it is driven by a heavy beat. After looking at different exisiting pop music videos, I was able to decide what shots would look best in an edit with the music. I found that pop music videos were edited very quickly and fast paced, so this meant that I was able to use Premier Pro to edit my shots so that it looked like a real music video.

In AS, As for software that I used, I used Adobe Premier Pro CS6 to edit my piece. I found this quite easy due to the fact I have used to edit all of my other tasks, including my preliminary task. I learnt how to change the colours, contrast and brightness of the shots which came in handy as I need to make all my shots look bleaker, yet more defined. Other than this I was quite accustomed to this software and encountered minimal problems.

Despite all the effects that are available on the software, I didn't really use many of them. This is because I wanted the mise en scene to be as ordinary and normal as at it could, so that the abnormal murder weapons and corpses would stand out as the real feature of appeal.

On the majority of the clips I made the contrast 17.0 and kept the brightness as 00.0 so that the picture didn't look too faded and edited. This was quite time consuming as I had to change each of the clips individually. I also made the saturation 70.0 as this made the colours look grim, matching the tones of the narrative. I made two versions of my final piece, one where the saturation wasn't changed and the colours were more vibrant, and the one that I used for my final piece where the colours are darker. I asked a few people what looked better and I came to the decision that the one with the changed saturation looked more effective. It was subtle enough so that it didn't look like the saturation had been changed, but that it was just set in an extremely grim atmosphere.

Point 3 - Tripod

In my AS blog, I talked about using a bigger tripod in A2 to ensure it would reach all the angles I needed. For AS, my tripod was also borrowed off my friend and it was half the height of the ones I was used to for my preliminary tasks that year. This lead to lot of trouble when filming close up shots of my protagonist as he was too tall for the tripod to reach his face or shoulder. For example there is a shot of him getting changed in the wardrobe in which I had planned to have as a non hand held shot, however due to the tripod being too small, I had to do a hand held close up over his shoulder of him getting changed. For A2, using a larger tripod was definitely something of an improvement of planning of digital technologies this year. Without a larger tripod, I would not have been able to get the correct angles for the shots of Ben landing in all the different places. This tripod was a lot easier and effective to use, meaning the quality of my shot has improved over the years.

I had had issues with the cronk on the tripod which I used for my preliminary tasks in AS for pan shots.The turning of the bolts could be heard and the movement was not smooth. However in A2 I manged to succesfully pan for a shot without jolting movements and loud noises.

In AS, I also used a tri-pod for the non close up shots. I found that the tri pod was incredibly small and did not leave much room for different types of shots. When I needed to film from higher than 1m I had to do hand held shots as the tri pod would not reach. If I was to do this project again I would make sure that I get a large tripod, preferably from the school. So this lead to a few shots being slightly wobbly, however I think that I managed quite well giving the situation. The shots are not obviously wobbly, the only problem that came from this was that I had to cut down some of the shots that were too wobbly, so that these parts were cut out.

Another problem I encountered with the tripod was the fact that the panning lever was stiff, leading to pan shots being wobbly and jerky. To counter act this problem when it arose, I decided to pan myself without the help of the lever, this give me slightly less jerky shots, however they are still rather wobbly. For example the first shot of the piece where he is sat on the bed looking out the window had to be cut down on either ends so that it looked fluid. It was also slightly tricky filming the shots in the walk in wardrobe as it was quite tight attempting use a tripod and to fit me and Kieran in the door way. This was especially tricky when I needed Kieran to leave the room past me so I could then pan down to the corpse on the floor. We had to do this take quite a few times as he kept knocking the tripod as he left, or he was walking out of the way of the tripod which obviously meant loss of verisimilitude. However, we managed in the end and it resulted in a shot that I am quite proud of.

Feedback from examplar essay:

via: http://www.jcgmedia.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=209&Itemid=239

"throughout the answer the focus is on the difference the use of technology made to creative outcomes, with detailed, reflective discussion and a clear sense of progression over time, from the use of green screen to more effective cross-cutting. The balance of examples, reflection, progression and address of the question justifies a top mark."

Point 4 - Photoshop

I did not use Photoshop in my AS projects, so I cannot particularly comment on how much I have developed in skill using this software. However I can mention that over the duration of A2, I have certainly become a lot more able using the different tools and effects to make my ancillary products.

When A2 is finished, I will write more on my skills in photoshop.