Question 7

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

My group and I have learnt a handful of things from the preliminary task to the final product. All of the things have contributed to the final product's completion. 

Continity editing - Continuity editing was a concern, especially with the dialogue that we originally planned to include. To ensure the final product would flow perfectly, we shot the scenes several times and using different angles so we had enough footage to work with. Team-work - I was working with 2 other people but we still divided tasks equally nevertheless. We gave honest feedback to each other's contributions and offered help as much as we could when a member needed it. When we had to come up with the film title and develop a sypnosis for the film, we all wrote our own short synospis then merged all three of them into the final one. During the filming we all took turns to film certain parts of the opening which allowed everyone in the group to have an active role.

Planning/Getting ready - We were all required to plan effectively as it would enable us to work better and in better conditions. For instance, we had to plan where and when the filming was taking place almost a month in advance so our group, as well as the cast could book time off work for example. On the day, we had all of our material ready to utilise so nothing goes wrong. The camera was fully charged with an empty memory card inserted and the tripod was fully operational. We also brought some bits of our coursework which was essential for us such as the storyboard and the shotlist.

Camera shots - We were advised to vary our shots and shoot from different angles which makes the piece more interesting to watch. During the filming, we got the cast to film various scenes several times (at least 3 times) using different angles every time. At the beginning of the year, we were taught many shot types, angles and movements such as panning shot and title shot.

Researching into target audience - We also researshed about our target audience further which proved to be essential. Thanks to that research, we found out what our target audience expected out of horror films and used their feedback effectively. We used SurveyMonkey to create a survey and handed it out to our target audience (which was teenagers and horror film enthusiasts) which enabled us to be more organised as paperwork is less reliable as it is more likely to be lost.

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies form the process of constructing this project?
We have acquired skills on many technologies, which we were not familiar with at the beginning of the process. Indeed, all of the technologies below allowed me and my group and I to make our construction as varied as we could, so we could learn skills for later.

Blogger – Blogger was an essential piece for us, as it enabled is to display our work throughout the year. We could display the information in different ways such as using a Powtoon presentation or even by importing a PowerPoint presentation, which renders our blogs less repetitive. We learnt how to change the fonts or even the layouts to make the blogs as personal as we could. We also learnt how to import pictures and including them on any posts. Finally, we also used the HTML option, where we could include HTML links of Youtube videos so we could include the Youtube video directly. Using Blogger allowed us to store our coursework electronically instead of carrying loads of paper. 

iMovie/Premiere Pro - We utilised both of the editing softwares during the process. The softwares are rather different to one another but they were both facile to use and handle. We first used iMovie for the preliminary task, as iMovie is not as complex as Premiere Pro is. iMovie allowed us to familiarise ourselves with editing and gained certain editing skills. We learnt how to import all of our footage from the camera we used into the software and we also learnt how to post it onto Youtube. We also became familiar with basic effects such as transitions and fade outs. Premiere Pro had more in-depth editing tools which enabled us to do things we could not on iMovie such as creating titles, which facilitates importing. 

LiveType - We fleetingly utilised LiveType to get familiar with creating titles. We however thought that none of the effects or the fonts that were available fit the horror genre, so we carried on with the titling on Premiere Pro. 

Camera/Shooting - For the shooting, we used the Canon Legria HD, which allowed us to film our opening with high definition graphics. We were not familiar at all with the camera at first but we quickly got accustomed with using it. We carried out several training sessions with the same camera or occasionally with similar cameras.

Youtube/the Internet - We utilised several websites to back up some of the analysis we were doing throughout the year, for instance Youtube to post our 60 second pitch. We were not too familiar with Youtube at the beginning of the year and we had to create a Youtube account so we had an account to post our videos with. Websites briefly utilised include Prezi and Freesoundz.