learning about technologies from the process of constructing the product

We have used a number of different media technologies throughout the period of our coursework including filming equipment, editing software, other softwares for different purposes and other forms of media technology e.g blogs. the technologies we used helped us to understand our media better.

recording

When we did the recording, we started by doing all the outside scenes so that the weather was similar for each shot. We had a few props including a bottle of beer, a few shopping bags and casual clothes scattered around to make it look as if we had been at the scene for a short while. We spent around an hour there re-taking shots until they flowed together well. We found it hard sticking to the storyboard but we managed in the end. Once we had filmed the outside shots we moved inside and recorded all the shots inside. Near to the end we ran out of tape in the recorder so we had to continue the next day, but this did not matter too much as the conditions inside would stay the same.
The evening and next morning of recording was productive and we got through all the scenes that we wanted. We learned a huge amount as we encountered many difficulties. For example, we now know that we need to be more organised - running out of tape was a set back that we had to overcome. Sections that we thought would be easy proved harder than we had expected but in some cases others were easier than we were expecting. For example, creating a split screen was not as hard as we had imagined.
Overall the recording was fun to do.

editing

Using a programme called Final Cut Pro we uploaded all of our recordings and put them onto the time line in the order that they will be in the final clip. We started by cutting out all scenes that went wrong (for example, where people had burst out laughing) or had better versions on one of the re-takes. This was time consuming as we spent a long time cutting the clips down and joining them perfectly. We used many effects including cuts, wipes, fade in and fade out, fast motion and split screen. Using Final Cut Pro was challenging at times but the more we used it, the easier it became.

video for premilinary task

securing locations

Location was a big issue for us as we wanted to give the idea that we were in a hotel. To do this we could have possibly hired a hotel room for a night but this was inconvenient and would have been expensive so we started by making a spider diagram regarding different possible locations that we could use and then we slowly narrowed each scene down to one final place. We came to the conclusion that our outside scene would be taken in our old athletics stadium and our inside scene would be in a boarding house in our school.

We would use no particular costuming, just our usual teenage clothes, as this film clip is to be based on normal teenage activities but with a twist.

Holland

This is our thriller film that we created for our media As levels project and its called 'Holland'.
enjoy :)