6. What have you learnt about technologies from the progress of constructing this product?

 

During the making and editing of our horror opening sequence we use many technologies to construct our film. Some we knew how to use and other we hadn’t heard of.

One piece of hardware we used was a small ‘Sony HD camera’ to film our horror opening.

We were allowed to rent out these cameras from our sixth form so we were able to film the scenes on it then use the SD to upload all our filming off that onto the ‘Macs’. The ‘HD cameras’ were very useful to film has they had all the appropriate controls we needed such as zooming in and out. This hardware allowed us to get the best quality filming we could as we did try and experiment filming with our phones for some test shots and the quality of the filming was poor.   We learnt how to use this device to create the camera shots we wanted for each scene. We used these cameras when filming our preliminary so learnt a lot of the controls then which enabled us to film more efficiently when creating this horror sequence.                                                                                                                           

Another hardware device we used in the creation of our horror film was the ‘Apple Mac’. We used this hardware as it had all the software we needed such as ‘Adobe Premiere’. We learnt how to use the apple macs during our preliminary filming but there were new things we needed to learn about the ‘Apple Mac’. At the start it was quite challenging as we weren’t used to using this hardware device but the more and more we used it we became more familiar with it making it easier for us to use.  By the end they were simple to use which allowed us to create the film how we wanted as the ‘Apple Mac’ didn’t limit us in any way.                                                                                                                                       

A Tripod was another deceive we used to create our film. It was very useful as it allowed us to keep the camera steady which enabled the shoot to be straighter than what it would have been if it was hand held. It enabled us to learn what height would be best for each scene as were able to change the height of the tripod to suit us. The tripod was useful when doing low angle shoots such as when ‘The Child Collector’ goes up a slide. We were able to shorten the tripods legs instead of having to remove it from the tripod and having to do it hand held, the tripod instead allowed us to create a low angle we needed to create the effect of superiority that ‘The Child Collector’ had over his victims.

   Software’s were other technologies we used to create our horror opening. The software we used to edit our film was ‘Adobe Premiere’. We used this software device to edit all of our film. We learnt a basic outline of how to use it during our preliminary filming, adding video effects such as dissolves to make it more seamless, However  not as in-depth as we learnt all the different controls this time around as we wanted to make the film more specialized. We also learnt how to cut our film and split a scene in half to make the scene more suspenseful  helping it on its way to capturing the quick pace cuts horrors normally do have. We also learnt how to change the lighting of the scene to make it more dust than dark which is the effect we wanted. We also learnt how to change the pitch and volume of the audio which helped when editing the screams into our film as well as making the music quieter in the scenes building up to the climax to eventually getting louder to create an eerie and tense atmospheric feel.                                                                                       

Another software device we learned to use was ‘KeepVid’. This software allows you to download a video off websites such as ‘YouTube’ and ‘Dailymotion’. We learnt how to use this when we wanted to get a video of a green screen with blood running down it. We downloaded this video off “YouTube” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2cZsR9nt-A ) onto “KeepVid” so we could then import it into “Abode Premiere” and use it in our titles as seen on the image.                                                                

 

“Incompetech” was another software we used during the ceation of our film. We learned how to find the music that suited our film off the  and then dowload and import it onto the ‘Adobe Premiere’ software where we could imbed it into our film. We also used the website ‘soundfsx’ to download a neon light sound for during our titles when our logo flashed up in red lights. We learned how to use these websites as we wanted to get sound effects and music that would have a effective impact on our horror film puls, by learning to use these softwares it meant we were not limited to the sound effects we wanted to create as the websites hasd all the sounds we needed.                                                                                                                                                                            

We also learned how to use the software ‘picaface’ to create the avatars for our film. This software was useful as it allowed us to create theimage of the characters in our film once we had cast the actors. The software was quiet simple and easy to use as it went step by step to creat a face and image of the chacrter. However, a downfall was that we could’nt add the prop of a mask to our killer avtar meaning we couldn’t really create an accurate image of our killer we just had to make it as similar as we could.                                                                                                                                                 

 Finally, another online tool device we used was ‘blog.com’ for our blogger accounts.  Learning how to use ‘Blogger’ was difficult at first to grasp however, the more times I created a post I understood the layout more. This software was very useful as it was easily costumized and allowed me to have all of my work and findings surronding my preliminary task and horror opening  as well as othe reaserach I found to be in all in one place. This made it easy to group all the information together in an easy accessable place.