Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the Process of constructing this product?

Our Test Shoot

The things we realised we needed to improve after the Test Shoot were:

• Lighting. We had initially attempted sultry lighting by making it darker.
• Sound. We had made modifications to the sound before being entirely happy with the shoot itself, therefore our sound was bad once we had added shots
• Speed. We had not judged how long each action would take and therefore went over the allocated time
• Continuity. We had not thought about all the continuity errors which might have occurred
• Light. We had not properly understood the dynamics of the location and therefore lights could be seen in some shots
• Dialogue. Our dialogue was not natural and seemed as though we were just setting the audience up for the events of the film
• Product placement
• Breaking the 180 degree rule

Our real film opening

We managed to improve:

• Lighting. We made everything brighter and had the lights always coming from the same place and then made the shots more sultry through the grading in the editing process
• Payed more attention to the 180 degree rule
• Payed more attention to product placement
• Kept the sound at one level as opposed to the more undulating nature of the sound in our test shoot
• Actions were quicker and then slowed down when editing if needs be
• Red. We made the shots with red in them more obvious during the editing process: grading

Lighting

Test Shoot

Main Edit

Both shots were taken using the same lip gloss, but the Main Edit had better lighting and grading, showing what we had learned in the process of producing the opening.

We had many lighting issues in the Test Shoot

We learned from these issues and managed to solve them in time for the
Main Edit

Sound
In terms of sound, there were also many improvements.
The soundtrack in the main edit is more consistent and we muted the more unnecessary sounds to make the mood more sultry

We learned this through doing the main edit and discovering what did not sound right. The Test Shoot was a particularly important learning curve in terms of getting to grips with the production and post production processes.

What we used

Hardware
The Canon HV30 and its compatible shotgun mic


We found this camera to be particularly useful for the following reasons:

• Auto focus and manual focus. We usually used auto focus, but manual focus was useful when trying to capture the lipgloss shot
• HD. The camera could capture high quality footage, which was particularly helpful with the perfume shot as it meant that every detail of the perfume spraying was captured
• Digital. We could watch the footage back immediately and then judge whether or not we needed to redo a shot. It made the camera lighter and more portable. We could capture many shots without having to reset the camera or put in a new roll of film. It was the cheaper option. Footage could rapidly be transferred to our editing suites.
• Viewfinder. We used this to see what we were filming and also give the actors the ability to see what was going to be seen on shot as it could be turned around to face the actors being filmed. This improved the framing.
• We were supplied with a tripod, which meant that most of our shots were more steady and we could shoot from higher angles than we could if we were to hold the camera
• Zoom. This was useful as our film opening comprised of many close ups. The zoom function made it easier to capture these.
• Shotgun mic. We were able to eliminate some of the background noise and have recording directed to the place where we were filming.

However, issues were not completely avoidable.

• The tripod was not low enough to be used in some of the shots, resulting in some being noticeably more shaky than the others, such as the first shot of the shoes tilting up to Rose and the shot of the man walking in.
• When zooming in too far, the image became out of focus. This meant that it was difficult to focus the lipgloss shot the way we wanted.

For lighting we used 30 watt Gulliver Lights as they had dimmers, which would give us the sultry mood we required for our film opening.

Software

We used Adobe Premiere Pro SC5 during the editing process. It is a quick and user friendly method of editing which alowed us to play back what we were to play back our progress instantaneously and we were able to use the Three-Way colour corrector and the ProcAmp tool when doing the grading for our film opening, which helped us achieve the sultry mood we required and helped us to define the red in the shot more as an implication of blood to forshadow the later events.

For the titles, we used LiveType and Premiere Pro for the VENGEANCE title this enabled us to alter the titles as a separate entity for the majority of the titles and then we decided to use Premire Pro for the VENGEANCE title as we felt that the title we had used in the test shoot was more effective and resembled blood more.

Communication

We used a range of methods, many of which involved Web 2.0, including

• Having meetings in person - it was easiest to understand one another and arrange editing and the shoot easily.
• Facebook - A good way to communicate with one another as all three of us had Facebook and the messages saved, therefore it is an easier way to communicate, particularly as all of our smartphones had Facebook apps and we were able to refer back to plans we had made beforehand.
• Whatsapp - This was useful when exchanging a quick conversation with another member of the team as opposed to the whole group. However, we were not particularly reliable on Whatsapp.
• Text Messaging - Particularly useful when keeping in contact with one another when on the go: for example, communication when meeting at the location
• Google Drive - In partcular for the proposal and the script along with other doccuments, the Google Drive was more useful than Microsoft Word as it allowed all three of us to edit the doccument at the same time and therefore work was done quicker and we were able to communicate on the doccument as opposed to having to open a new application.
• Email - Particularly useful for contacting the media department with any issues we had during the shoot or with any questions we may have had.