EVALUATION OF EQUIPMENTWHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

(ACTIVITY 6)

CAMERA

The camera we used was Sony HDV HVR-ZYN which is a professional camcorder. This was suitable for our group as it was easy to use even though it had many features e.g. zoom, focus, and a built in microphone as well as an external add on microphone. It also let us edit the lighting of the footage to make it darker giving it a more edgy and mysterious feel to it. The camera was easy to transport from location to location.

However we did have problems with the sound on the footage, as you could not hear the dialogue from the actors as we had the microphone too low, this lead to us having to re-film parts of the production again losing valuable filming time.

TRIPODWhen filming we used a Tripod, this ensured that the pan shots were smooth and the camera was steady during still shots. Without the Tripod the footage would have had unwanted shakes, this would of distracted the viewer and took away the professionalism we were aiming for.

The Tripod was also practical as the camera we used was heavy, meaning it would have been uncomfortable to hold it for long periods of time. It was also collapsible so it was easy to transport to and from the locations.

PINNACLE STUDIOS 15For the editing of our production we used Pinnacle Studios 15, which is a video editing programme. It allowed us to layer our shots so we could use overlay titles. It also allowed us to use more than one sound track at a time, which was important to us as we used non-diegetic sound effects and non-diegetic background music at the same time.

I have previously used pinnacle studios to edit my preliminary production, which gave me the basic knowledge of how to use the programme.

The only issue we had with Pinnacle Studios is that due to the schools restrictions on the computers we were unable to save the production to our user area, meaning we had to save the production to the specific computer we were using. This caused a problem as we could not edit on any other computer in the school, this limited us as we were unable to edit if the computer was being used by another student.

VIMEO

To upload our production I used Vimeo, which is a site that allows people to upload and share videos for free. After uploading our videos to Vimeo I embedded them into my blog. Vimeo was a convenient website to use as it was easily accessible from our computers at home and it produced videos of a higher quality than websites such as YouTube.

BLOGGERWe used Blogger to upload pieces of our coursework to. We used this site as it was free and easily accessible from sixth form and home. Blogger was also easy and simple to use meaning quickly allowed us to upload pieces of our coursework. Blogger allowed us to go back and edit/adjust previous blog posts, so if we needed to make any changes they were easy to make. On Blogger you can also personalise your blog, embed videos and upload pictures and links.