Evaluation Question Six

What have you learnt about technologies and the process of constructing this product?

While making our opening sequence, we used numerous pieces of technology and computer programs to produce, film and edit our opening sequence and to present our research findings on our blog. 

Through the research process, we used various programmes to present our finding and the development of our ideas for the opening sequence and our film company as a whole. 

The computer website Blogger (www.blogger.com) was essential to our project as we used it to present all our research, ideas, production logo and our opening sequence all in the same place. This website allows you to make a blog for free and this is a great way to present all our work as it places it all together in a very structured order and means our work can be accessed from anywhere from everywhere in the world that has access to the internet. 

During the production stage of our opening sequence we used a Samsung WB25OF camera. This was a great camera to use as it is lightweight and records in high definition with life-like colours and extraordinarily sharp details to give a professional finish. During our first filming session we struck a problem. The camera run out of charge as rather than turning the camera off when we were not using it, we left it on. This resulted in our first day of filming running over our scheduled timing. To avoid this in our future filming sessions, we made sure we turned off the camera anytime we were not using it.
We decided not to use a tripod in our opening sequence as we feel that if our footage is slightly shaky in any places it will only enhance our final product and will increase the thriller feel of the opening sequence.

We used an Apple iMac computer throughout our project and it was essential for the success of our opening sequence as we used an application found on Apple iMac's to edit our opening sequence as well as our production logo. This application is called Final Cut Pro X and is where we uploaded all our footage from our filming to construct our opening sequence. We went through all our clips and arranged them in order. We had filmed each scene at least twice so we could select the one that we felt was the best, adding quality to our final product. 
We cut, merged and added text and effects to our film to reach our finished product. We had never used this editing application before but it was simple to use and didn't take us long to pick up the basics and then build on them to end up producing a high quality, professional product. Final Cut Pro X gave us access to effects and audio settings that are not available any where else which enhanced the quality and uniqueness of our opening sequence.

Throughout the research period, we used a range of programmes to present our findings. We used Final Cut Pro X to edit some videos we created as a group to show some of our findings. We also used an internet programme that we were all new to called Prezi. This was a very creative way to display our findings and it showed what we wanted to say visually. Prezi is a free internet website that allows anyone once they have made an account with them to create presentations and save them for access anywhere across the world with internet access.

Through the process of creating our opening sequence, we discovered that producing a film is a very time consuming and technologically demanding process. The slightest mistake such as taking two shots at slightly different angles can result in a total loss of continuity, removing any sense of realism the viewer felt before this point.

The filming process takes a long time as you have to get the actors to do exactly what you want them to and this can take a while, especially if the actors are inexperienced. We were working with three young children and this sometimes made filming time consuming as they didn't properly understand what we needed them to do so we had to take each shot several times. On top of this, they often got distracted very easily which again lengthened the filming process.

In the editing stage of our opening sequence we were extremely thankful for the editing software we had to hand, Final Cut Pro X as it was integral to the production of our opening sequence. It allowed us to add effects to our footage that are available hardly anywhere else; apart from professional standard editing softwares. Even with this exceptional editing software, the process of cutting and merging our footage took a very long to ensure our opening sequence ran seamlessly from beginning to end.