Evaluation Part Six - Jamie Wiltshire

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

The digital camera we used to film is very useful to travel around as they are small and light. Another feature of the camera was a screen which enabled us to view our footage to decide whether we liked it. The camera had a USB connection which made it really quick to import everything on to final cut ready to start editing with. The other camera we used was an SLR, this wasn’t as convenient as it was a lot bigger, although the quality of its footage was better. An issue we came across with the camera was the focus. We learnt that the focus on this camera wasn’t as good as the digital camera as it took longer to focus. Therefore, for the scenes with a lot of movement we used the digital camera. We also got a tripod which made the camera shots steady and not shaking around. The digital cameras we used provided HD quality shots which improved our filming because they picked up the finer details like someone’s facial expression; it also gave our opening sequence a more professional appearance. 

We used Live Type to create the title ‘Corruption’ which was displayed right at the end of the opening sequence. I used the code type effect on the text because it linked in well to the story of our sequence. Final Cut was quite easy to use which was really helpful as I previously never used it; it also had a massive range of texts and backgrounds to use. The only thing I found difficult with it was changing the colour of the font although I think that was due to my lack of experience with the software.

To edit our film we used the software Final Cut Express.  Not only can you make the opening sequence brilliant but there are also tools to control the sound for example either making the sound quieter and then making the soundtrack louder. Final cut was good as it was easy to use which helped a lot as most of the group had never used it before. Also, it allowed us to produce the video in the highest quality and resolution possible and also use transitions between shots that you cannot make in any other video editing program. An issue we came across with the software was that it kept crashing; this made it important that we saved it regularly to prevent us loosing work. Professionals or even just a person might use this because it lets them produce really good quality work with a wide range of effects without much confusion as it’s so easy to use.

We used the website Blogger to display our research and preparation for our film. Blogger made the research more interesting as it allowed us to use multimedia such as embedded clips from ‘Youtube’ and presentations from ‘Prezi’. Blogger also let us personalise the blog so that we could have it just how we wanted it, this includes the font and the background. An issue with using this was that it was in American which meant that some words were spelt differently but this was easily avoidable by checking through the spelling after finishing the post