3. How did we use the in Pre-production
and Post-production?
We learnt about new documenting tools for example Youtube, Slideshare,
Prezi and Powtoons. This enabled our work to be both informative as well as
interesting.
We were able to document our research and planning that we did in the pre
production stage , but also in multiple different formats.
We also learnt how to tag and use labels in our posts this made our work more
organised especially when looking through our posts and finding out what to
do as well as the progress made.
4. Blogger
Strengsh
Easy to use when sharing picture
and videos.
Personal source of sharing your
work.
Its free
Theme is easy to change
Easy to embed power points,
prezis and slide share.
Weaknesses
Blog ownership remains with
blogger
Blogs can crash deleting all of the
work which is scaring if you work is
not backed up we went through
this twice.
5. YouTube
Strengths
It is a free
Easy to share your videos on other
sites(embedding)
It allow you to give our opinion in
the comment section
It allows you to get feedback from
people who watch your videos
You can personally brand yourself
Weaknesses
Videos take a long time to upload
depending on the quantity.
Limited editing control
There are limits for new accounts
YouTube severs can crash and leave
some videos inaccessible.
6. Prezi
Strengths
A free unique way of presenting
information.
Prezi allows creators to link text
and images to movement.
It saves backup online and can be
embedded anywhere
It allows you to zoom in and out of
the information which is unique.
Prezi is a very easy program to use
and you learn fast how to use it.
Weaknesses
Prezi can be time consuming
Limited printing options
Web based so the
can be lost if its not saved
properly before it crashes.
Can cause dizziness and audio is
hard to upload.
7. Mindmeister
Strengths
Easy to embed and share
everywhere.
It’s a online website so its
accessible
Engaging and flexible
Its available in the app store- so
you can create mind maps on the
go.
Weaknesses
Web based so error can occur with
the connection taking up time
instead of getting work done.
Formatting
Editing can be dangerous as you
can shift everything when trying to
edit your mi map.
8. What we learned about documenting
technologies:
We learned a variety of new way to document our research and planning on
different platforms. We learned how to edit and improve our blogs by learning
to label our posts and tags our selves making our blogs more efficient.
Furthermore we learned how to edit the time and date of our posts so that
we can have all our posts organised and looking presentable.
We learned different way to present our work for example prezi, slide share
and YouTube. And these enabled us to uniquely make our work different but
also interesting.
10. Microphone
Strengths
The microphone helped to enhance
the quality of the sound and
blocked out most of the ambient
sound.
Overall the microphone made our
better for example in dialogue
between the main characters
which was clear because the
microphone got rid of the ambient
sound.
Weaknesses
The microphone could not block
out all sound so we had to get rid
of the sounds that the microphone
was not able to block out the post
production stage by editing the
sound out.
We had to make sure that the
micro phone was attached.
11. Cannon DSLR 65OD
Strengths
The size and weight of the camera was
convenient so it enabled us to change
locations easily.
On the camera we were able to
manually set the focus as a result of
this we were able to acquire a better
quality. We were also able to adjust
the white balance and exposure to
adhere to out thriller opening.
The camera was very straight forward
and easy to us which made it easier for
us to adjust the setting so we could
get a better quality overall with less
work.
Weaknesses
The battery life of this camera
restricted our filming as the
battery life only lasts 2-3 hours. So
we had to work around this time
frame, this added pressure for us
to make sure that certain scenes
are shot before the camera dies.
12. Camera lens
Strengths
The camera lens made its easier to
have a sharp focus on certain shots
for example the montage were
there was multiple close ups which
are clearly seem because of the
sharp focus.
The lens is a compact and a
lightweight.
Weaknesses
However, for some scenes despite
continuously trying to focus the
lens some of the shots were still a
bit blurry.
13. Lighting (key, fill and back)
Strengths
Through the use of key lighting we
were able to make the subject and
our actors to stand out.
The lighting also emphasised our
antagonist as the use of the key
lighting created shadow that made
our antagonist look more
mysterious and dangerous.
The smaller light were used for the
back light because they were not
too bright but were just right to
separate the subject from the
background.
Weaknesses
A room gets very hot due to the
lamp used as the key lighting.
Because the lighting bought out
the shadows its made the editing
process challenging.
14. Challenges faced in the production process
and how we overcame these problems:
We faced a number of challenges one of which is;
The key lighting was really bright so in the post production process we had to
dim the light so that the characters could be seen and so that the shadow
looked more faint.
Another problem we faced is that because the camera on the tripod
prevented us to get and extreme close up. Therefore we had to use a hand
help camera to get the close up shot we needed.
15. What we learnt about the technologies
when filming:
When filming we leaned many things about media technologies. One of these is
the camera and how advanced it is when shooting but mostly the setting in the
camera for example when shooting we wanted to get the main character in the
centre. And we then had to go into the camera settings and set the grids on so we
could centre the characters face and it would be right in the middle. This added
more professionalism to our full product and highlighted the character more.
Another setting on the camera that we were able to utilise is the lighting in order
to enhance the natural colours of our scene we had to set the white balance
manually to improve our quality which also enhanced the quality our full product.
The microphone is another technology that really made a difference to or full
product we learnt that it can make a huge difference in terms of the sound quality
and clarity. Furthermore, the fact the it can block out some ambient sound.
We also learned the way to zoom in and get extreme close ups through the camera
lens when adjusting the lens by twisting it we learnt you could zoom and focus to
get a more detailed shot.
17. How did we use them in production?
The tools came in handy more at the post production stage when we were
constructing and editing our final media texts for example the synergistic link
and our website.
We used the iMacs to run the applications for example Final Cut Pro,
Fireworks and Photoshop. Final Cut Pro enabled us to edit and create a
narrative.
Fireworks and Photoshop allowed us to produce the synergistic link between
our products.
18. iMac
Strengths
The iMac software is easy to use and
this allowed us to produce work on
time.
IMacs have auto save therefore when
our computer crashed all our work
was not lost we were still able to
access the work when we restarted
the computer.
The iMac has multiple programmes
and software's allowing us to edit our
opening and access the internet ,
YouTube plus our blogs.
Weaknesses
The iMacs would often crash which
meant that we were at a risk of all
our work being lost.
19. How we used Photoshop to create the
link?
We had to sketch the outline once
this was done we tried the
replicate the tongue as best we
could. After we completed what
we wanted the image to look like
we had to go over the pencil in a
darker substance for example the
black marker. Then we scanned the
image using a scanner. When we
scanned we moved the image to
Photoshop where we altered the
brightness and the contrast as well
as other element to make the
drawn image look digitally
rendered.
Form this digitally rendered image,
we began to add colour according
to the original image.
Lastly we then had to export our
final image.
20. Final Cut Pro
Strengths
It allowed us to easily to adjust an
fix the challenges we faced with
the colour and lighting so the
brightness and saturation can be
changed.
It offers a variety of transitions like
fades and dissolves between each
cut this made our thriller opening
flow better. For example, the
transition of the title for our
opening which fades.
Weaknesses
Final Cut Pro has a lot of editing
features in comparison to iMovie.
However, this made it more difficult
for the us to use as it was a bit to
complex at first.
Final Cut Pro at one point corrupted
our file and crashed which then lead
to all of our work becoming frozen
and malfunctioning. And to save our
work, we had to save our file every
5 minutes, just to make sure that our
work didn’t get corrupt again.
21. Photoshop and Firework
Strengths
Fireworks has pages and states instead of just layers.
This is great for creating multi-page or multi-state
designs and walking through the design w/o having
to turn layers on and off to demo.
The software allowed us to construct our own image
for the Logo
The software was relatively easy to use yet produce
professional work.
Images could be resized without creating a loss of
quality, therefore allowing us to both design a small
logo for our music video and then resize it for our
website and our magazine advert.
Weaknesses
Fireworks doesn't work well for
printing your designs. Since the dpi
is natively lower (you can change
it, but most people don't), the
images come out a little
bitmapped.
22. How we overcame editing challenges
Our first opening sequence came from Final Cut Pro which we edited and
made ours through adjusting the saturation and the pace. However it was a
found image so we could not use it so, we had to create a new one using Fire
work and Dreamweaver the challenge of this is that we had to use another
editing source to create our opening now. We had to learn how to use
Firework properly.
When filming some of our shots they were unstable which meant that we had
to stabilise certain shots on Final Cut Pro.
We ensured that our work was backed up so in case anything was to happen
we wouldn’t have to start from the top luckily, because this came in handy
when our iMac deleted some of our footage we used the back up to regain
the footage.
We edited out all ambient sounds through Final Cut Pro
23. What we learnt about editing:
We learned that the editing process is where you can fix any problems which
have gone wrong in the production stage. For instance the ambient sound
which can be edited out. We also noticed that the post- production stage is
one of the most vital stages because we were able to turn raw footage into
the product it is now. Without the editing process the opening would just be
plain and unshaped. This process also taught us the affect of certain audios
and or soundtrack and the influence this can have on a shot. In terms of the
atmosphere which this creates mystery , tension , build up and climax
especially if the audio matches the action going on in the opening.
