Question 6

Question 6 –

From the making and editing of my production, I have gained so much experience in which will benefit me further along in my media career. I used various different technologies throughout the pre-production and production process of my project. The most predominant hardware in which I have used is the Apple Macs. Within the Apple Mac, I used the editing software ‘iMovie’. I used this as a basis for the majority of my production as I found that it was easy to navigate and there was an appropriate range of filters, transitions and other editing techniques in which I could have used on my film. Overall learning that this is a reliable and sufficient software to use when editing if on a low budget. The only downfall experienced was the fact that there are a lack of titles available conforming to the expectations of the horror genre.

Above is the template of the software iMovie which we used to edit our film.

Another technology used in order to make the mise en scene was Photoshop. However this was something that I have experience in using, therefore this was a swift process. We used this to make the Polaroid’s in which feature as part of the mise en scene in our opening.  The procedure of filming, using the camera and hardware in which comes with the camera e.g. tripod, did not add strenuous time to the filming of our production as we already had experienced similar processes in our preliminary task, therefore we already had learnt the basics then.

Deciding which hardware/software to use was a decision that took some delegation. When making the Polaroid images we came to an agreement that Photoshop was the software in which would make give us the most realistic outcome. However with the editing software, we were torn between using Adobes Premier Elements in which we used for our preliminary task, therefore we already had some prior knowledge on how to navigate and use the tools and in contrast using the Macs to use iMovie which we lacked experience in.  Further to discussion, my group and I agreed that using the Macs would be more beneficial as we would be able to finalize our project on a software named ‘iMovie Final Cut Pro’.

One hardship in which I faced when in the editing process was the fact that I didn’t have the hardware and software at home. This made it difficult when deadlines became fast approaching, as I was limited to the hours in which were allocated at school. If I had the software accessible at home, the practice of editing would have been completed in a more active manor. Something in which also made it difficult for my team and I to carry out the task of editing was the demand for the editing suite. As we are one of many groups in which needed to access the suite, we had to divide the time equally between year 12 and 13, meaning that accessibility to the suite was limited.

The creating and setting up of the blogs was a long process as I think all of my media class would agree! Coming to grips with the navigation of the page took some time but now I depend on my blog to hold all of my media knowledge! In order to make my blog look as neat as possible and easiest for the examiner to navigate and manoeuvre around my page, I added an archive to categorize my work. This is beneficial as now I know how to apply this feature to my future blogs. 

Something else that I had to become a first time user of was YouTube. Despite using YouTube for entertainment purposes, I never had a channel, therefore setting up a channel to post videos throughout the production process was a new experience, yet one I will continue to use both in and exterior to my media career. I found that YouTube was also a great way to connect with the audience and acquire audience feedback quickly and effectively. 

Although there was versatility in the variety of shots, such as point of view shots, over the shoulder shots, close up shots, continuity editing, panning etc. There still were some shots in which we couldn’t achieve due to the limitations of our equipment. We planned and hoped to achieve a 360 degree shot of jars full of grim substances, yet this was unachievable due having no funding, knowledge of software and ultimately we couldn’t come to grips in the way in which to film it with the limited time we had! However if we had planned our creativity better I’m sure we could have found a way to create such a shot.