What have you learnt about the

technologies from the process of constructing your product?

Camera I didn’t have any experience of using a camera and

other equipment before filming my opening. After being shown how to use the camera I had no problems with using it and I feel like the filming of my opening was successful.

I used a Canon 600 D on a standard lens of 18mm – 55mm lens I mainly used the camera focus on automatic to get good exposures. I feel like it was a successful process using this because I didn’t have to get the camera in and out of focus and the lighting looked good in the shots.In contrast to this, i did also use the camera focus in a manual setting. I did this because I filmed 3 focus pulls for my opening. One was on the first close up of Tony’s face to introduce his character. The next one was after the scene of when Tony got shot. It begins with an extreme close up of Tony’s “dead” eyes out of focus and as the camera goes in to focus it also tracks out to his “lifeless” face. I feel that it worked well because it created a lot of tension and it looks professional. The last focus pull I did was when Tony was lighting a cigarette. The camera was out of focus when he was lighting it and then came into focus on the lit cigarette. Again, its interesting for the audience to see some quick and easy effects that will make the small frames with interesting detail to them look better and more professional. My experience of using this skill has had a positive affect on my film and my audience. In upcoming tasks I will definitely use this.

TripodDuring the first stages of my filming process I was using the schools tripod.

However, due to the access of it I decided to use my Mums photography tripod. It worked well for me because I was able to use it a lot and during my construction process I had to do a lot of re-filming. It was easy to put the camera onto the tripod which saved a lot of time. Adjusting the height and panning the camera was smooth and easy to use.

I didn’t have any problems with this piece of equipment which helped me a lot to get level, clear shots. I used the camera to pan up and down on Tony in the flashback during my opening and it was a success.

Audio At first, |attempted to record Tony’s

voiceover through the canon 600 D camera alone. I realised that it wouldn’t be good enough because you couldn’t hear his voice clearly. I then borrowed a Rode microphone from the school that easily attached to the camera. The voice over sounded clear and his words had a tense affect to the audience which was what I was aiming for.

Due to the fact I attached the microphone to the camera I uploaded it onto Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 as a video clip. I had to then detach the sound with the footage and delete the video clip. This was easy to do after my teacher explained it to me. I had to do this to most of my clips in my opening as I was using loud music and there was no dialogue from the characters apart from Tony’s voiceover in the beginning.

Editing I used the programe Adobe Premier Pro CS5 to construct

my footage into my final piece.

Before studying media studies this year in sixth-form this year I had never used this programme before and I found it difficult at first. However, I looked at online tutorials and my teacher showed me how to use the tools. I had to do a lot of editing on my footage. For example, I edited in jump cuts on some of the footage by using the razor tool to separate it and deleting every other clip. Also, I easily changed the speed duration to a higher and slower speed in some of the scenes.

I found this programme useful because it was easy to upload the footage onto it. Once I knew how to use the programe it was easy to use. It has helped me with many things – lighting, colour, speed, putting footage in reverse, sound and cropping different clips if needed.

I also used After Effects CS5 to put an after effect of a

shatter to the title of my film ‘Blow’. I found a tutorial online and after following the instructions I was able to successfully do it and it looks good. I then had to save it and transfer it to Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and I edited it into the middle of the opening.

I Learnt:

• I learnt how to use the camera that I will have to use throughout sixth-form. I learnt how to control the exposure and use the focus.

• I gained experience of using a tripod and had to use it carefully to frame a good shot.

• I learnt how to use the Adobe Premier Pro editing programmes and it will help me in future tasks. I now know a lot about how to edit different effects in my work.