Post on the use of technology during the filming process.

Technology

In the preliminary task we used technology in nearly every part of the filming process, whether it was in pre-production, production or post-production and this has helped me to develop my skills in many aspects of technology.

The first piece we used was the I-pads, experimenting with the camera on it to get our practise shots. This allowed us to get our visions and turn them into real life through the use of the camera. By doing this we could view what worked and what didn’t. This was a piece of technology that I previously knew how to use, however it allowed me to develop my skills.

We then put our practise shots into motion on the I-pad through the use of I-movie. By using this piece of software we could link the shots together to see if it was possible to follow the narrative and that there were no continuity mistakes. I didn’t know that this piece of software existed and so to be able to use this helped me to develop my editing skills in practise for editing our final shots. I-movie also enabled us to use basic transitions, add in music and non-diegetic sounds.

Next we used the camera kit to shoot our story board properly. This was harder than I expected. In order to produce the shots needed we had to use a combination of different camera shots and angles. During this stage I learnt how to use the camera properly and how the use of different lenses and shots can create effect and meaning in our piece of work. By having a wide range of equipment during this allowed me to come to terms with what is to be used when it comes to our final piece. We got to experience using the steady cam, tri-pod, mic, camera and the range of lenses.

Then we had to encode our clips using MPEG Streamclip. We did this on the Apple Mac, and it took ages, but by doing this we could then progress onto the final stage before editing.

After this we had to export our video to final cut pro, this was relatively simple once we knew what to do. We then progressed onto the next stage which was editing our films and sequencing it in. There are so many ways in which we can do this, however during this progress we realised that we needed to re-do some shots and therefore we have started filming again. Before we did this, I didn’t realise that there were so many ways in which we could edit the film and this meant that I was able to develop both my knowledge and skills, so that during the final piece I know exactly how to use the software. I keep picking up tricks and new tips on how to improve our film clip which is really helping me to develop my skills in filming.

During the filming process we used two items of Apple technology. These were the I-pads and macs. I was impressed with the quality of these pieces of equipment and how they allowed us to improve and edit our footage. I was not a frequent user of these beforehand and so learnt new skills and broadened my knowledge on them.