Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 6 from Emily Hotton on Vimeo.

6) What have you learnt about technologies through the process of constructing this product?

I have become much more confident in editing software such as Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects. Adobe Premiere is an editing program, which allows editing to be done in a non-linear fashion. This not only saves time but also allows for changes as it allows you to go back and alter any clip at any time. I have found that using this software throughout the course of the year has increased my confidence in the software and has enhanced my editing skills.

I also used Adobe After Effects to add titles, where appropriate in my film opening, and also to create my Ident. During the title production I looked at a range of different fonts, which I found could be suitable for the genre of my opening, and also the transitions of these different titles. After I made the draft of my opening I realized that I thought a different font would be more suitable for my opening as it didn’t look as professional as I had hoped. I decided to take out the typewriter affect and to simply add keyframes so that the titles appeared and slowly disappeared smoothly.

I created my Ident initially also using Adobe After Effects. I had to learn how to create a glitch effect to make my opening look as professional as I wanted it to by watching a Youtube tutorial. I had to add many different layers to the sequences and then adjust each of these layers individually. Although I found it quite hard to begin with, it soon came together and overall it made me feel more comfortable with the software. I now feel that after having to do this task I am able to use After Effects in way I never thought I would be able to at the start of the course.

I used a 700D Canon camera for the all of my. This camera was the same camera I have used throughout the course, which has enabled me to become very familiar with it and the different settings it has. I think the camera was a good choice of equipment to use as it provided me with high quality footage and also allowed me to alter different aspects of the film such as the aperture and ISO to give it a more diverse feeling. It is clear how I have developed in the knowledge of my camera though the difference of my preliminary task and my film opening, as in my preliminary task I have not changed my aperture very much and so it isn’t as aesthetically pleasing to watch compared to my film opening. I became most aware of this when I did my Aperture Task where I had 3 objects at different distances from the camera lens and by altering the aperture and ISO on my camera I had to change the focus between the different objects, whilst maintaining a good brightness. I also used a tripod throughout my filming, as I knew it would make the footage look a lot more stable and more professional once it was completed.

Throughout the course I have used different websites such as; WordPress to create my blog to document all of my work and research in chronological order, Survey monkey to create target audience surveys and Prezi to analyse the results. I have also used Vimeo to upload all of my filmed tasks. WordPress was a particularly useful way for me to upload work in all formats to the site such as videos, hyperlinks, Screen grabs and images. My knowledge of technologies from producing my opening has increased hugely and I would be much more confident on editing programs and using a camera to film a high quality piece of media text and then be able to document it on the Internet in the future.