JP: Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making your film opening?

• During the creation of our media product, we use a blog on http://www.blogger.com/ to help us work collaboratively and show each other research that we have undertaken that could be inspirational or helpful towards creating our final production. We posted any research we had made, planned and evaluated test shoots and discussed ideas for our final production together. The blog was extremely useful as it allowed us to share and develop ideas effectively as a group, and present our work professionally so our development and research processes were shown clearly to the teacher.

• When shooting our final production, we used a tripod, track and dolly for the outdoor shots as it helped keep our shots steady, we learned that this is completely vital as when shooting our preliminary task, some of the shots were shaky due to the lack of track and dolly. For some of the indoor shots, we had to improvise and use two longboards as a track and dolly because another group had rented it and we needed some moving shots. This was very effective and looked like we had used an actual track and dolly. We also used the Canon 550D when shooting our final production, whereas in our preliminary task we used the school camcorder. Lighting was a very important part of our final production, as we wanted to keep the shots very dark to make the antagonist seem more mysterious. 

• We overcame the problem of not having any fake blood for special effects on the day of the shoot by mixing red food colouring with golden syrup, and it created a viscous, red liquid which looked like blood, making the verisimilitude of our production much better. We also overcame the problems we had with natural lighting in our preliminary task by filming our final production all i one night, as the lighting/weather did not change.

• We did all of our editing on the video at school, and we avoided any kind of effects or transitions that would look amateur, like cross fades, dissolves etc, and just kept it simple. We created some of the scratchy effects by including grunge textures and keyframing the video so it would change light, position, etc. We colour corrected the entire video to give it a 'cold' effect, taking out some colour and reducing saturation, increasing the horror element of the piece. We also added a vignette to the piece, which carries conventions of film noir. We used Cinema 4D to create the bullet shell effect, and then colour corrected the shot using Adobe Premier Elements. The bullet shell was one of the most important parts of our production, as we believed it would make the entire video look more professional. We carried out a survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/, and shared the survey on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube, so we could get lots of feedback. When we got our feedback from this and interviewing people after presenting our final production, it was evident the bullet shell was successful and popular.

• We exported our piece straight from Adobe Premier Elements onto the computer's hard drive, and from there uploaded it onto http://www.youtube.com/ and backed the file up on two portable hard drives. Our production process could compare to some real life film productions in the way we learnt from previous mistakes and considered mise-en-scene, lighting and sound to the best of our ability. We also improvised at the scene of the shoot to improve our results and tackle difficulties, something professional film makers sometimes do.
• I have learnt a lot about technology and how it is very helpful with creating the right effects and atmosphere for a film. I have learnt how to edit movies on Adobe Premier Elements, and create and share surveys to receive feedback on possible improvements to be made. Colour correction was something I hadn't heard of before creating our film, however during the course of the year, I have learnt a lot about it and how it really affects the feel and appearance of a film. I have also learnt, during the evaluation, how to use sites like http://www.prezi.com/ and http://www.slideboom.com/ to present work neatly and effectively. We were asked to present our evaluation in different multimedia forms, and the prezi and slideboom created are evidence that I have learnt a lot about multimedia technologies and how they can greatly affect a production such as our own.