What new skills, techniques and knowledge have you learnt from producing the preliminary activity?
In producing the preliminary activity I learnt how to use a camera for filming, I have moved to a different media form which requires film clips rather than photos, which has meant that I have had to develop skills in filming. Doing this task has taught me the importance of planning as I have learnt that clips are made faster and at a higher quality if I go into each session with a clear objective of what shots I want to get. Furthermore, without planning shots often become confused and then have to be re-done at a later date. I have learnt about the software iMovie which I previously had no experience with, I learnt how to edit my clips with as smooth as transition as possible, I discovered the importance of titles to make it clear and coherent. Similarly, when editing my clips I also learnt how to edit music, this is because the soundtrack that I selected had a middle section of music that I didn't want, I therefore, had to delete that section and replace it with another without ruining the music.
How did you work with other people in your production team?
I think we work well as a team, we were all in the scenes in different parts which meant that we had to organise our roles carefully so that there was always someone available to film as well as someone else able to position the lights without it running the scenes. As a group we put in extra hours to make sure that we had the right shots. Everyone was clear on their roles which made the process move at a faster and more efficient rate with less mistakes.
What role did you play in the production?
In the production I had multiple different roles, I had to act in certain scenes as well as incorporating lighting through my phone as a flashlight. Due to the filming being in a dark place, I used my phone's flashlight to make sure that the camera would have enough lighting so that I would not have to adjust the brightness, as that may have affected the quality. For certain scenes, such as the establishing shots, I was the person filming, as within the clips I had a certain idea of what I specially wanted the shot to look like. For the close ups of the ghost I had to improvise to make sure that the shot had the correct lighting, therefore, myself and Gemma stood on chairs either side of the camera with our flashlights posing down.
Would you have done anything differently?
If I were to do anything differently I have chosen my soundtrack first before I started editing the clips together, because when I added in the soundtrack to my clips there were parts that I didn't completely fit with the clips and the dialogue. Due to how short the parts that didn't fit were I was unable to edit out parts of the soundtrack as the music would loose its clarity. Similarly, I would have re-shot some of the close ups as when evaluating my final product, I have noticed how some of the shots have lost some of the focus in the zoom.
What parts of the process did you find the most challenging?
When editing, I found that selecting the correct soundtrack was challenging as it needed to fit with the conventions of a horror trailer and correlate with the clips. Also, I found deciding what camera shots to use for each scene difficult because I didn't want to continuously use the same shot and a convention of a horror trailer is making someone jump and reusing the shots wouldn't have allowed me to do this.
How did you overcome this?
For both of the main difficulties that I faced I used current trials for horror movies that have been released last year or this year. This allowed me to discover the type of music that was used to accompany trailers and how they were incorporated with the different clips. Similarly, I was able to discover how often close ups were used in a effective and efficient way. This allowed me to compare my own clips and plan if any needed to be re-shot again, this made the editing process easier as it allowed me to have a clearer idea of what I wanted mine to look like.
How successful was your final media product? What are the strengths and the areas that you need to work on in future products?
I think that the filming of the clips were successful, as the clips were in focus and achieved the effects that I wanted. However, I think a weakness is that I may not have included all of the required shots as I found when editing the time limit to be quote restricting. Furthermore, I think that through the process my editing skills improved but when evaluating I think that the use of a white background transition shouldn't have been used, in favour of a black background transition. The areas that I think I need to work on is the editing as whilst I think I improved, I believe that there are still parts that need to be improved. Finally, I think I need to work on using the tripod as some on the shots were not fully level and did not move in a perfect movement at the same speed and level.
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