Evaluation - Question Six
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From the process of constructing this film opening sequence I have learnt a lot about specific technologies.Setting up the camera once on location, before any shooting began, i had to perform an equipment check which included:
From the process of constructing this film opening sequence I have learnt a lot about specific technologies.Setting up the camera once on location, before any shooting began, i had to perform an equipment check which included:
- Camera bag
- My Canon XHAI camera
- Battery (portable and charge pack)
- Tripod (and bag)
- Tape
- Clapperboard
- Chalk
- Lens cap
Once everything was okay, i packed away, when to our set and set up the equipment once again. Luckily we didn’t have to travel fair as our set was in the studio. Unfortunately, i am not as skilled with the sound equipment as i am with camera, so Matt was given the role of sound operator so he had to set up the Boom microphone. Although we had originally decided to not use any sound due to our non-diagetic soundtrack that would be added in post production. However, we later realised that using some of the on set sounds may benefit us in keeping the authenticity, we particularly wanted to get the sound of the nails scratching across the table, which can be heard in the being of our product.
To set up my equipment i had to follow certain steps to make sure everything was safe and secure:
Unzip the Libec S322 Tripod (Grey) case and take it out carefully. To release the legs of the tripod, i had to untwist the grips at the bottom of each leg and extend to the highest length, then tighten the grips securely to prevent it from falling or slipping. Once the bottom half is secure, i then had to repeat the process with the top half of the tripod, extending the leg length to fit my height, so once the camera is on it would be at my perfect eye line.
Unzip the camera case and unclip the strap that is holding down the camera. Holding the camera firmly by the handle i removed the lens cap and tested the shoehorn which was secure. However, in the event that the shoehorn was loose, i could easily just tighten it with a 10 or 2 pence piece. When the camera was slid onto the tripod, i locked it in from the side and tested that it was firmly safe by shaking it softly from the handle. It was. :)
I then checked the spirit level, depending on the make of the tripod the spirit level handle differs, but I had the Libec which i find to be all-round easier. The handle is just under the head or the tripod, and once the camera was in place I watched the spirit level and manoeuvred the head to the bubble sat within the middle circle, making the camera level.
Now straight, I took out the portable battery and placed it in the battery space at the backend of the camera. I put the tape in and then released the viewfinder and turned on the camera to [A] which is the best setting as it auto-focuses the camera for me without adjusting the rings.
Matt then had to proceed with his sound checks and make sure that the LDR lead was in the correct socket and that the camera was on the correct setting so the sound was being picked up from the Boom and not the microphone built into the camera. I did this by going in to Menu>setup>sound and turned LDR switch ON.
Once Matt reassured me that the Boom was working we were ready to shoot.
Production
Shooting in this new environment was highly appreciated by me as we were given a lot more time, which meant many more shots and use of camera. Working with Matt and Rachel was very useful even though i was the only camera operator, we had fresh eyes on each shot and we all came up with new and different shots. Shooting the same shots from different angles was one lesson that i learnt well during this task, as it gave a us a lot more rushes to use in post production. When analysing our opening sequence i realised that many of the shots were either the same action just filmed at a different angle or additional shots that we thought would work well, and they made it sucessful. PROBLEMS Fortunately there were not many problems whilst filming and we were extremely and surprisingly organised. The first problem we encountered was that Daniel , was unable to arrive on set until 10am due to his unexpected working hours, so that held us up buy 2 hours. However, since he started work at 4am and it was now 10am, he was hungry, so once everything was ready we arranged to get him something to eat and started at 11am. The second problem we faced was the Boom mic wasn’t working and suddenly stopped so, we had to use the built in mic. Luckily we didn’t have any dialogue to this was not a disaster! Thirdly, because the dolls button and the label had to be sewed this once again took up about 45 minutes of shooting time. However, we managed to pull through, get loads of additional shots along with the ones we wanted and we finished on time :)
Editing
Once we finished filming we had to familiarise ourselves with the software of Adobe Premiere Pro. We had previously used this software to edit our Preliminary task so getting to grips with it wasn’t that hard. The only problem was that we now had to add a soundtrack, harder effects and edit a longer film. The process of editing was pretty easy and simple once you got the hang of it.:
When filming was over we then had to digitise our rushes take by take. We did this by attaching our camera (with tape inside) to the hardrive using a firewire lead which linked into the back of the hardrive and camera. Attaching the 80GB LaCie drive was a similar process, but it just plugs into the USB port on the front of the hard drive., this acts as a usb and saves our work each time we edit something, so we have to repeat the LaCie process every time we logged on.
Once logged on and Abobe Premiere Pro was open we then opened a new file entitled Phantom Films , our production company, and this is what our film was saved under.
To digitise i hit [F5] and the digitising screen came up. I pressed the record button and played the rushes, recording and saving then take by take giving each on a new name so i knew which was which.
Once all rushes had been digitises, we started our assemble edit, in which we just placed each shot on the timeline in order from beginning to end.
Assemble edit over, it was now time to edit, cut and add effects titles and our soundtrack to our film.
The soundtrack was the very last thing to be added to our film as Matt had to record it according to the length of our film using Cubase software, and even though it was too short, using cut, paste and the razor tool we were able to make it fit the film.
Abobe Photoshop CS was also used to create the missing poster at the end of the opening sequence.
The effects that’s we had previously planned to use in our film was one that we had seen form a previous A Level Media product , however it was harder than we had anticipated as it began to look like our film was messy and full of mistakes. So we scraped it and changed our opening sequence from fast and jaggered like Se7en to slow and detailed much like Dexter. During editing i was pleased to get the chance to use more technique within the software than previously. One technique was the speed and duration change, which i used on the sewing machine shot. Slowing the shot right down to 68% gave the effect of slow piercing rather than the usual quick jab, i found to be very effective as it seemed less violent and suited the tone of the overall sequence and the Toymaker's character. The other technique was creating a nd adding titles to the film. I found this particularly harder than other elements of the software and Matt had to show me how to start it off. However, once i played around with it i was able to change the font, colours,size,opacity and shadow of the fonts and i was even about t help out other groups with their titles .
To set up my equipment i had to follow certain steps to make sure everything was safe and secure:
Unzip the Libec S322 Tripod (Grey) case and take it out carefully. To release the legs of the tripod, i had to untwist the grips at the bottom of each leg and extend to the highest length, then tighten the grips securely to prevent it from falling or slipping. Once the bottom half is secure, i then had to repeat the process with the top half of the tripod, extending the leg length to fit my height, so once the camera is on it would be at my perfect eye line.Unzip the camera case and unclip the strap that is holding down the camera. Holding the camera firmly by the handle i removed the lens cap and tested the shoehorn which was secure. However, in the event that the shoehorn was loose, i could easily just tighten it with a 10 or 2 pence piece. When the camera was slid onto the tripod, i locked it in from the side and tested that it was firmly safe by shaking it softly from the handle. It was. :)
I then checked the spirit level, depending on the make of the tripod the spirit level handle differs, but I had the Libec which i find to be all-round easier. The handle is just under the head or the tripod, and once the camera was in place I watched the spirit level and manoeuvred the head to the bubble sat within the middle circle, making the camera level.
Now straight, I took out the portable battery and placed it in the battery space at the backend of the camera. I put the tape in and then released the viewfinder and turned on the camera to [A] which is the best setting as it auto-focuses the camera for me without adjusting the rings.
Matt then had to proceed with his sound checks and make sure that the LDR lead was in the correct socket and that the camera was on the correct setting so the sound was being picked up from the Boom and not the microphone built into the camera. I did this by going in to Menu>setup>sound and turned LDR switch ON.
Once Matt reassured me that the Boom was working we were ready to shoot.
Production
Shooting in this new environment was highly appreciated by me as we were given a lot more time, which meant many more shots and use of camera. Working with Matt and Rachel was very useful even though i was the only camera operator, we had fresh eyes on each shot and we all came up with new and different shots. Shooting the same shots from different angles was one lesson that i learnt well during this task, as it gave a us a lot more rushes to use in post production. When analysing our opening sequence i realised that many of the shots were either the same action just filmed at a different angle or additional shots that we thought would work well, and they made it sucessful. PROBLEMS Fortunately there were not many problems whilst filming and we were extremely and surprisingly organised. The first problem we encountered was that Daniel , was unable to arrive on set until 10am due to his unexpected working hours, so that held us up buy 2 hours. However, since he started work at 4am and it was now 10am, he was hungry, so once everything was ready we arranged to get him something to eat and started at 11am. The second problem we faced was the Boom mic wasn’t working and suddenly stopped so, we had to use the built in mic. Luckily we didn’t have any dialogue to this was not a disaster! Thirdly, because the dolls button and the label had to be sewed this once again took up about 45 minutes of shooting time. However, we managed to pull through, get loads of additional shots along with the ones we wanted and we finished on time :)
Editing
Once we finished filming we had to familiarise ourselves with the software of Adobe Premiere Pro. We had previously used this software to edit our Preliminary task so getting to grips with it wasn’t that hard. The only problem was that we now had to add a soundtrack, harder effects and edit a longer film. The process of editing was pretty easy and simple once you got the hang of it.:When filming was over we then had to digitise our rushes take by take. We did this by attaching our camera (with tape inside) to the hardrive using a firewire lead which linked into the back of the hardrive and camera. Attaching the 80GB LaCie drive was a similar process, but it just plugs into the USB port on the front of the hard drive., this acts as a usb and saves our work each time we edit something, so we have to repeat the LaCie process every time we logged on.
Once logged on and Abobe Premiere Pro was open we then opened a new file entitled Phantom Films , our production company, and this is what our film was saved under.
To digitise i hit [F5] and the digitising screen came up. I pressed the record button and played the rushes, recording and saving then take by take giving each on a new name so i knew which was which.
Once all rushes had been digitises, we started our assemble edit, in which we just placed each shot on the timeline in order from beginning to end.
Assemble edit over, it was now time to edit, cut and add effects titles and our soundtrack to our film.
The soundtrack was the very last thing to be added to our film as Matt had to record it according to the length of our film using Cubase software, and even though it was too short, using cut, paste and the razor tool we were able to make it fit the film.
Abobe Photoshop CS was also used to create the missing poster at the end of the opening sequence.
The effects that’s we had previously planned to use in our film was one that we had seen form a previous A Level Media product , however it was harder than we had anticipated as it began to look like our film was messy and full of mistakes. So we scraped it and changed our opening sequence from fast and jaggered like Se7en to slow and detailed much like Dexter. During editing i was pleased to get the chance to use more technique within the software than previously. One technique was the speed and duration change, which i used on the sewing machine shot. Slowing the shot right down to 68% gave the effect of slow piercing rather than the usual quick jab, i found to be very effective as it seemed less violent and suited the tone of the overall sequence and the Toymaker's character. The other technique was creating a nd adding titles to the film. I found this particularly harder than other elements of the software and Matt had to show me how to start it off. However, once i played around with it i was able to change the font, colours,size,opacity and shadow of the fonts and i was even about t help out other groups with their titles .
In hindsight i have learnt?
I am much more familiar and comfortable with my equiptment and the Adobe Premiere Pro editing software, therefore when it comes to future tasks, i will have saved more time as i will know what i am doing and can get straight to work.
I have to prepare for anything to go wrong, as even though we thought we were organised, Daniel turning up later lost us time and we managed to work around it.
I should always stick to the tasks that i work best at as it helps the group dynamics more as what i am not good at someone else maybe good at it.
Always put your ideas forward as other group members may be able to develop it into a better one.
After thoroughly enjoying this experience i have now realised that i definitely want to get into the film industry whether it be through filmmaking or acting. :)
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