Evaluation Question 6

During this process of planning and producing my practical production my skills have expanded since GCSE in a number of ways. I have learnt about array of different electronic devices, software and programmes. I feel as if my knowledge on shot types and editing skills have vastly improved due the fact more skills are required in order to achieve a high grade.

PLANNING AND RESEARCH

Since starting my practical production project I have used Blogger on a weekly basis. To keep hold/track of all my work towards the project including production updates, production schedules, scripts etc. Blogger is able to present my work in way which shows my progression through the project as it lays out work in a chronological order. The use of social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook have enabled me to keep in contact with my other group members (Emma and Liam) allowing us to arrange where to meet, what time etc. when filming was necessary. In addition to this I was also to keep in contact with them through the use of messaging applications including iMessage and Whats App. These made the process a lot more workable and easy. We took images using an iPhone and edited them accordingly on programme Picasa 3, these images included characters, locations, props etc. Sites including YouTube, Megashare and 4OD helped us during the research stage to look at the film conventions of genres similar to ours including sound and camerawork.

PRODUCTION

When filming our production we used a ‘Canon Legria Camcorder Plus’ this camera was different to the one I had previously used at GCSE. At first I felt at a disadvantage as I weren’t familiar with the settings and buttons etc. however after a few hours with the product I had adjusted to it. Our camera is considered as low budget equipment. The camera enabled us to film the footage we needed however at a low quality. We weren’t able to manually adjust the focus, aperture and exposure which put us at a drawback in comparison to other peers in our class as they had the type of equipment to do so. We filmed the non-diegetic sound voiceover of David with the use of an Apple iPhone; this appeared as strong quality as the phone was held the correct separation distance between the mouth and microphone. 

POST PRODUCTION 

Once entering the post production stage we used numerous software to help edit our footage. We imported our videos to the computer through the use of a memory card; our videos were thenconverted on Format Factory to MP4 which enabled us to then edit our videos. Our videos were edited in the programme Adobe Premiere. I had previous experience of this programme however my knowledge was only little as I was previously self-taught through online tutorials. Finally any non-diegetic sounds which we used from YouTube we converted online using website www.youtube-mp3.org, also we downloaded the old style countdown from YouTube in an MP4 format using website keepvid.com.To conclude I feel all technology we used during this process was essential to create the production we did. Premiere I feel was our main tool when editing our footage as it enabled us to adapted footage to appear in the particular way we wanted, as well adding sound effects and video transactions.