6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

1. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? MEDIA – PIERS JONES

2. SHOOTING We used a Sony HandyCam camcorder to record our film. It was very simple to use and had some useful features (such as night mode). It allowed us to record and then replay what we had using the built-in screen. I found that it takes a long time to create the right shots and get it right.

3. EDITING The software we used to edit our film was Serif MoviePlus. It was extremely easy to use. I learned that editing is a long and boring process, but the results are very rewarding and we found that the editing stage actually had a comparable effect on the quality of the final product to the storyboarding and even more than the filming.

4. EDITING We found creating match-on-action’s particularly difficult as it involved alot of time and precision I found I had trouble at first working with the audio because I had not used the program before, but we worked it out and used it effectively.

5. EDITING I learned how to use transitions such as cross-fade, add sound tracks and effects. We used editing to vary the pace of the film. At the start, some of the running scenes were followed and preceded immediately with a ‘boom’ noise and a black screen with the names of our group members. This created a shock effect and created fear.

6. EDITING We had to use a ‘darkness’ effect on one of our shots to make up for the fact that we had poor lighting. It helped to intensify the effect the natural darkness had. We had missed out a shot in our filming process (showing the door slamming) and as such had to improvise with the editing software. These experiences showed us the power the editing has over the film and how useful it is to both improve and fix the movie.

7. SOUND We had trouble finding copyright-free music that worked with our film. However, I found some on a popular copyright-free music sight and it worked better than we had hoped. The program we used to manipulate sound was Audacity. We used it to create the ‘booms’ that went with the black name stills and to slow down and change the music in places.

8. SOUND The software was very easy to use and is free and open-source, showing that powerful media software does not need to be expensive. To the right is a screenshot of Audacity while we edited the piano sound track. It has a very clear and basic layout but there is alot of functionality.