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

The main form of technology that I have used throughout the course is Final Cut Express on the Apple Mac. As neither my partner nor I had ever had any experience with using an Apple Mac, we both needed more time to get used to it and teach ourselves how to use some of the features.

I also used a Sony HD digital camera as well as the JVC one that the school provided me with whenever necessary. I already had some experience with using video cameras as I did a lot of filming in my GCSE ICT Film enrichment course. This meant that I already knew how to use the school cameras, which helped a lot and saved time. Using two cameras also meant that we could film the same shot from two different angles, which had a very effective impact on our film. Having the Sony camera at home also meant that I could go out and film even if the school had all their cameras fully booked. The HD on the Sony also gave a much better picture than the school one which meant I used this in the scenes where the light wasn’t great or I felt the definition would be important to capture in the particular scene such as the first scene near the river.

As I mentioned earlier, using Final Cut Express was a new experience for me. I had only ever really used Windows Movie Maker, which is a lot more basic than Final Cut. It took me a while to get to grips with the wide variety of features on Final Cut Express but I had a few friends who have used it before meaning they helped me with the basics and then I worked the rest out myself. It was vital for me to get my head around using Final Cut Express effectively as it was the editing that would make our film a success.

 

I was relying on my limited amount of experience with the programme in order to edit the lighting to make it match as we did not film on the same day meaning light differed. Initially I thought this might be a large problem because the lighting was quite dramatically different from the start to finish of the filming. It started off very sunny and the sky was clear and then suddenly at about 2pm when we were filming our last few scenes, it started to overcast and get dark. I used the colour corrector on Final Cut to match all the lighting well and effectively. This made a huge difference and other than the sky being blue in the last scene, no one would notice the lighting issue. Luckily the brightest scenes were the crowd scenes but fortunately we were planning on making them black and white anyway to symbolise foreshadowing.