Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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

Camera

We used a Samsung PL100 to shoot our entire film, including our additional filming.
This is just a normal digital camera with a filming option, rather than a camcorder. We chose to do this as we felt that we could use this type of technology better as we were more familiar with and the various options it contained, rather than learning how to use another recording option. This camera model also has a front LCD screen which allowed us to be in front of the camera, and set up the scene, whilst seeing what was in frame and how it would appear on film.
Our initial filming for the beginning of the sequence, was filmed entirely on this camera, and the work was easily loaded on the computer. However, for the second part of the film we used a different SD card; here we unfortunately had trouble loading our work onto the computer as the memory card was corrupted and subsequently we lost all our work, this resulted in us having to re-film this whole section and for this we used the first memory card which we knew would work.

At first, we had some trouble with getting our camera angles right, in order to utilise the location and our characters to get the mood and atmosphere we wished to create across to our audience. This was also due to our inexperience with the tripod, and having to learn how to use this, in order to get the right frame and right angles for the scene.

Final Cut 

We used final cut to edit and put our film together. We learnt how to use the basic functions during our preliminary task, but we were still not completely comfortable with the program. However, after exploring and messing about with it for a bit, we soon learnt how to use it with ease and became fully confident with it; this enabled us to do our work quickly, effectively and with a variety of different effects. We used several different effects including placing our footage in black and white, adding an effect called 'luma keying' to make the scene darker still, as well as changing the exposure of light in the shots. We also adding the flashing effect on certain clips to make them stand out \t certain points. 

I also found it useful for shortening and blading shots in order to change the shape and duration of the clips; this allowed us to remove large portions of clips which didn't need fit with the film and break them them up to prevent it becoming too repetitive. 

 

There was also a large amount of titling options available, includinig the style and where thy appeared on screen. for this we just chose a basic title, and moved it about the screen, and changed the size and style ourselves, to the one we felt fit best. 

It was also good for adding music to the footage. Firstly, we had to mute all the soound from the filmed clips, and then placed our music on, after first downloading it through a YouTube converter. We used 3 different types of music; to get them where we wanted them, we had to move and cut the clips, to make sure that they were in the right place, this included changing the volume on certain clips to make sure the right sound was heard at the right time. The third sound, used on the 'flashes' and the title, was from a clip 3 minutes long, but we only wanted a couple of seconds of sound, this meant that we had to liten to the clip several times and blade it to get the right section. 

 

We also changed the speed of certain clips, both fast and slow. We used this on certain scenes to speed up/slow down the walking tempo and to increase the speed of the clouds in order to make it more effective. We done this on several different clips, and I feel that it was effective in doing what we intended.

The method can be seen on the left .

                                  Apple Mac's

We were introduced to Apple Mac's at the beginning of the course, in order to complete our media work. These are greatly different to the standard Windows programme, such as taking screen shots, and it took me a while to adapt to the new functions and programmes. We used them to create and use our blogs, but more importantly, we used them to create and edit our film. These Mac's had the Final Cut programme we used and this was greatly important, as this programme is not available on any other software, showing the importance of these Mac's. These helped us to create high quality work on a sophisticated programme, which would not of been possible on a Windows computer. 

Survey Monkey

We used a programme called Survey Monkey to create our questionnaire to ask our target audience. We created 10 questions about our finished product to ask our target audience, after we created our survey we emailed it all to our target audience. We sent this along with the link to our video on Youtube, our aim was for our target audience to watch the clip as many times as they wished, and fill in the survey about it and send it back to the Survey Monkey website, where we can gather the information and an anlyses can be made, provided by the website. 

 However this didn't work for us, we created and sent off our questionnaire without problem, but was unable to be completed. Our audience told us that when trying to submit their survey, they were prevented to by the website being told that 'it is required all questions are answered', after checking several times that all questions were answered, it was determined that the survey was not working. As a result, we had to abandon the idea of completing the surveys via the internet and had to print them out and have them hand written instead. 

 YouTube (Converter)

We used both YouTube and Youtube Converter.

These were of fundamental use in the production and distribution of our final product, however, YouTube was of a greater use throughout the whole product. I used YouTube to first discover and analyse exsiting  real media products, this gave me access to many different films within the thriller genre, and gave us inspiration for our own production. We also used it to upload and distribute our own production to our audience, we gave them the link to our uploaded video and this allowed them to view in their own time and in any location. This website is ideal to spread videos for free with not much effort which is good for people with no/limited funds for marketing their products.

We also found Youtube Converter to be of great help. We used this to get the sound effects for our production; for the wind effect and banging in the flashes but not for the main piece of music. We simply found a sound we wanted to use off YouTube, insuring that it was free to use, pasted the URL and then the music was downloaded, then simply placed it into Final Cut and cropped it until it was in a position that we liked.

Blogger

We used blogger to keep a record of our work, both before and throughout our final product. This allowed us to keep track of our work and record all our research, keep a diary of the construction of our film, and allowed us to evaluate our work. 

Blogger allowed us to use a number of different media platforms to present our work - From YouTube videos and sound cloud clips, to other presentation methods such as Prezi, Slideshare or just the basic blog entry. 

At first, I found the concept of blogging quite awkward, but after a while I became more confident with the concept and with my developing uses of technology. 

 Create a Graph

 As we were unable to use Survey Monkey amd had to complete our questionnaire by hand, we had to create our own graphs by analysing our data. We googled graph makers and found this 'nces Kids' Zone, create a graph' website. We simply inputted our data and created a graph  - Although not overly technical it was a very important part of our evaluation, as it allowed us to learn more about our target audience.

  Music

We obtained our main piece of music from the Free Music Archive (FMA). This had a very wide range of music options, which was free to take on the exception that the creator was mentioned in the credits; which we did do. We wanted a slow, eerie piece of music, which would help to set the mood of the film. We browsed several different pieces of music and played them over our film, trying to get the perfect song. Once we found the one we wanted, we again simply downloaded it through the site and dragged it in to our Final Cut project. 

 

What Have I Learnt?

Through this whole media course, I have learnt a great deal about the use of different technologies, and what it was like to use them. I wasn't that familiar with any of these methods, and had never even heard of some of them, so the thought of quickly learning to use them was quite daunting. Throughout this course, I have definately learnt a great deal about different technologies available and how to use them, my technological skills have developed greatly, and all it took was a bit of time and dedication to learn how to use all these different softwares to a high standard, which I think I managed to achieve. 

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 4: Who would be the audience of your media product?

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or chalenge forms and conventions of real media products?