Evaluation Q6

Q6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
This was a large task to tackle for a group who have had very little experience in the area of film before. Of course when assigning roles we put all cards on the table and assessed which each member contributed, those who had the most experience in one area were assigned to that job role and inevitably I had the most experience with a camera though it was always interesting to find out more about the technology I had access to.
The use of a camera was very important to our media production as without, there would be no product. I knew the basics however for the group to really benefit from me I needed to explore the special affects and features the camera had to offer. I learnt how to make use of the cameras capability through research on the internet and help from family friend. A good example of this is when Rose is looking around her and the shot is very blurry reflecting how she is still very trippy and tired. We chose to make use of a better quality of camera that had a DV input. This meant that footage was captured on a DV tape, however as far as technology is concerned this is a relatively old piece of equipment though it was perfect for our purpose. It meant that these tapes were portable and could be transferred into other cameras for perhaps different shots or standstill shots where it was important to have a tri-pod at hand. However one drawback to these tapes is that they are very easy to erase as I fortunately found out very early on in the production. This taught us to be very careful when rewinding footage and it was a valuable lesson that had we not known could of lost our entire film.

Once we had obtained a first draft we were warned that the film may take a long time to upload due to the poor quality of cables available however initial research showed how the camera had an input allowing it to be firewire compatible. This allowed the uploading process to take a couple of minutes as oppose to hours and also provided a better quality of image which proved important for finer detail. Again had I not retrieved this information the film quality would not have been so good and it would have taken longer to upload, meaning less time to edit.
The firewire enabled us to upload the footage on to the Mac’s and use specially designed video editing software called “i Movie HD”. I Movie HD is a renowned software tool used specifically for media use. Before I started on this media task I had never come in contact with an Apple Mac or its applications. One large benefit to the Apple Mac was that is saved our work to the hard drive thus allowing the group to return to the film at any given time and make edits over and over again. I Movie HD allowed us to enrich our product by layering video footage, additional sound such as voice over’s and in our case songs and credits. I Movie HD consists of four main windows: The browser in the far left, where the media files and sub clips are organized, the viewer, where the cutting takes place, the title along the title along the bottom of the screen where the layering etc, take place.
One drawback I movie HD is that it is not very intuitive to begin using, although it does not differ too much from other editing packages such as Adobe premier in that is uses the common opaque terminology for example “Rendering”. This being a potential benefit to those having used similar editing software in the past though for my group this terminology slowed us down to begins with. An example of the work that took place may be the fact that we knitted together “Closer-Kings Of Leon” with our footage. The footage telling the story and the music setting the pace of the story, before this task I had no idea in relation to the use of I movie HD but now I have a much greater understanding.
One site that was unknown to me before this media task was set was “Blogger.com”. Blogger is the website we were given to record our film/magazine activity and this website allows you to post your own views, opinions and related media work on. The site also allows you to upload pictures and videos as oppose to printing off print screens for paper. It also allows fellow class friends and teachers to examine your work for progression ultimately proving a very good, cheap website. I have a reasonable understanding as far as technological use is concerned although I have little experience when concerning things like WordPress which is a more advanced site much like blogger. Having no experience with blogging I found it very easy to use regardless of my technical knowledge. I found the interface very friendly and intuitive and this allowed me to navigate freely around the site adding entries, pictures and alterations which I would not have been able to do before.