Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

To film our thriller opening the equipment we used was a camera, tripod and a dolly. We used the camera to gain all the footage we needed, including some stills of our location before we shot our opening sequence. It was easy to figure out how to properly use the camera to record everything we needed, especially as none of us had used a camera very much before. We had learnt from our mistakes as during our first filming we didn’t use our tripod so our footage of Ellie walking towards the door is very shaky but also the opening panning shot of Cambridge was too fast. When we watched this back we realised we should have used the tripod, because it would give our opening sequence a more professional look. When using the tripod the second time around our panning shot of Cambridge was much steadier and slower, this helped us make the credits follow the movement of the camera better. In addition, we added a dolly onto the

bottom of the tripod, this ensured that we would be able to follow Ellie walking towards the door and the shot would still be smooth and steady. Once we had finished our filming and uploaded our footage onto the computer we had to import all our footage into Final Cut. Final Cut is what we would use to edit all our footage together and add in the sound, which we had picked from Garage Band. To begin with, I found Final Cut quite hard to use as I had never used anything like this before

so I had to learn quite quickly. Once I had picked up the basic knowledge that I needed it became easier to use and I became more confident in using it. It wasn’t only new to me but it was new to everyone in the group, so we all learnt whilst editing our footage. When we thought we had finished editing our final piece we watched it again and realised there were a few gaps in the sequence when the screen went black so we had to zoom in so we could see the gaps better. We realised we would

have to use the lasso to grab all our footage and sound to move at the same time so everything was in the right place. This made it easier for us as everyone learnt at the same pace and if anyone made a mistake it didn’t matter as none of us would have really known how to do it properly. In addition, we also used final cut to make our credits move across the screen to follow the panning movement of the camera, we felt this worked well as the viewers’ eyes would already be following the movement of the camera so they would easily be able to follow the credits too. We also used Garage Band to find all the sound/music/sound effects that we would need for our final opening sequence. As we knew the kinds of sounds we wanted it didn’t take us long to find them on Garage Band, then all we had to do was save them, export them out and then put them into the right places on the timeline in Final Cut. For example, we added the helicopter sound when the sequence is on the roof of the car park to make it show the main characters importance as if she has just got off a helicopter, also showing that she is quite high powered.

In addition, we also practiced using After Effects and Photoshop; however we didn’t use either of these soft wares in our final piece as we felt we could get the right type of feel just by using Final Cut

and Garage Band. This was because the more we used these two soft wares the more we learnt how to use them and the more confident we became. This can be seen from our use of fades, which we would have never have thought of using at the start of this project. Finally, we felt the type of movement we wanted for our ident and our credits were available to us on final cut and as we were better at using these we decided to stick with them. I feel that our credits and movement in our ident work very well to create the feeling that a normal thriller opening sequence creates.