Evaluation Question 6

Nathan

In the production of our film, we used a variety of software programs and technological equipment. All of these programs that we used helped us create our film and helped us when coming to edit. The software programs and websites we used consisted of ...








The Equipment

When using the camera equipment we come across strengths and weaknesses of the equipment. The equipment we used to film was;

• The Camera - The camera was obviously the most important part of the filming process as it
  
  actually filmed to whole opening. However, we did come across the strengths and weaknesses of the camera. The strengths of the camera were, 1. The camera was extremely clear and the sound recorded on the camera was crisp and easily understandable which was very important. By having this camera, it enabled us to film clearly signify the necessary elements to the audience clearly meaning they could understand the narrative. 2. The camera was small and portable. This was a huge factor in the production of our film as we were moving around a lot and changing the angles at every scene to find the best view, therefore this camera helped us when doing this as it was lightweight and easily portable allowing us move around time efficiently. The camera did also have its weaknesses, however only a main weakness which was the limited recording time we had due to the battery. This was a huge weakness and could have set us back in the filming stage of production as the camera unfortunately cut out on us as we were filming. However, we had an alternative. We filmed the last 3 shots on an iPhone 6s which resolved this problem. But, this caused complications when editing our piece as the contrast was different between the camera and phone.

• The Tripod - The tripod was also important as this allowed us to pan the camera with
  
  sustained stability. The main strength of this piece of equipment was the extremely high stability that it allowed us to film with. This was very important when filming as this made our film look professional which was key as we were a mainstream production company. However, there were a few weaknesses when we came to use this piece of equipment. The main one being that the tripod was a little frustrating we trying to use it on grass. This is because, the main part of our film opening was on grass as it was filmed within a woodland area meaning the ground was uneven. The tripod struggled to stay standing straight therefore we had to result to holding the camera at some points within the filming. The other smaller issue with the tripod was that it wasn't as portable as the camera meaning that, because of some shots, we need to place the camera in a narrow space in which the tripod couldn't fit into. This therefore meant that we had to film by holding the camera reducing the stability and quality of the shot.

• The iPhone - The iPhone 6s that we used to film had its own strengths and weaknesses to. The
  
  main strength being the camera and microphone built in the phone. The camera was extremely clear and picked up the image very well enabling us to continue filming and the microphone picked up the sound extremely well. However, the film from the phone was in a different contrast to the camera meaning the shots looked different making the editing part a little tricky. Also the microphone on the iPhone seemed to pick up more background sound meaning that the shots had slightly louder backgrounds sounds than the camera shots. This meant that we had to adjust the sound levels when editing to try and make the two clips around the same sound. Overall this was the best alternative we had and it worked fairly well, but as it resolved filming problems, it created editing problems.

The Problems When Filming

We faced two main problems and one minor problem which was easily resolvable. the two main problems were;

1. The limited filming time with the camera due to the battery life - This problem was a major one however we managed to solve it by using my phone to complete the filming. As we were half way through filming our opening, the camera died on us which was a problem. Luckily we had my phone to complete the filming. We again, solved this by using a phone however this created more issues, but it solved this problem that occurred.

     2.  The contrast and sound difference between devices - Because our camera battery died on us, we had to result in using an iPhone 6s. This meant that the contrast was different between the cameras creating a problem when coming to edit. After a lot of time editing we managed to slightly correct the contrast to make it look like the same camera, therefore we successfully resolved this problem.




The minor problem that occurred when filming was;

1. Reduced stability due to complications with the tripod and camera - This problem was not a major one just a minor one. The tripod failed to stand up start and made the filming increasingly unstable meaning we needed to sort it out. We solved this problem by taking the camera off the tripod and filming by hand. This increased the stability but only by a little however it was an improvement meaning that it solved the previous issue.

The equipment we used to enhance our film was a tripod. The tripod helped us have a stable filming situation and enabled us to film and keep the same position if we needed to cut and re film based on the situation. we didn't use any other equipment as a dolly would not have helped us as the ground in which we filmed on was very bumpy and rough meaning the tracking shots would not be smooth and would look unprofessional.




Editing Software





The problems we encountered were that the contrast was different when it came out on the iMac. This meant that the editing part of the production of our film was increasingly difficult, however we got it sorted as we managed to change the contrast. Considering these problems, I have learnt a lot when it comes to iMovie. I can now easily change the contrast of a piece and fade music in and out when needed. I also learnt to precision cut a detached piece of audio as I needed to find a specific point in able to duplicate it and add pieces together. We were not very careful when coming to edit as we did not check our film for little mistakes. For example, our detective buttoned up his coat and then in the next shot his coat was unbuttoned. We therefore should have made sure that we kept it buttoned up so the film looked even more professional. Next time I would make sure that we checked this and maybe start editing straight away as we left it a while and then needed to quickly edit and rush our final cut.

Our Group





We used Blogger to log our work by posting different pieces of work to show what we had done to keep it in order and check it off our checklist in order to complete everything efficiently. We found Blogger helpful because it allowed us to see all the work we had done in the correct order allowing us to see what we had and hadn't done allowing us to complete our work efficiently with all a group input to our film opening research and planning.