DW: Evaluation Part 6

• During this project was the first time I’d ever used a blog. In order to produce the best output as a group we decided that we should split up work into even sections, we also agreed that it would be beneficial to do the tasks that we were best at, i.e. Alex favoured digital and imagery tasks, Molly preferred writing up on our progress etc. and I preferred to do analysis tasks. Doing work this way meant that we not only completed the work on time, but also to the best of the group’s ability.

• When filming all of our work we made sure to use the tripod and steadying equipment as much as possible – to achieve the clearest and most stable shot possible. We liked testing as many different shots and angles as possible and all agreed that “the more footage we get the better”. We aimed to use lighting to our advantage in as many shots as possible as we felt lighting really helps create mood and atmosphere on camera. We used Premiere Elements 9.0 to edit our footage. During editing of our footage we tried to only use subtle and simple effects features, we felt that over-doing it on the effects can often make sequences suddenly become amateur and perhaps poor, which we decided would be even more so with our limited knowledge of special effects. Having said this we liked to use changes in contrast, transitions and also key framing when possible to help improve our footage.
  

• Any problems encountered whilst shooting our work we tried to overcome as quickly and as easily as possible, due to the little time we had to shoot most of our work. For example – if we were filming a tracking scene and felt that the camera tracking was unsteady and jolty then we would use a dolly or tripod to try and improve on this, if we wanted to use a high angle shot in a sequence then we would find a location where we could easily and safely position ourselves high up enough to capture the footage we wanted. On another occasion we had problems illuminating locations or objects in the dark and therefore brought suitable lighting with us to the shoot. Problems such as these were often encountered – like in most production processes; we felt that you just have to combat them as quickly and easily as possible, preferably without affecting the end result.
  
• When editing our piece we first compiled a sequence of every shot we had captured in the correct order of events. We then began to cut out parts that were irrelevant, too long, or had background noise in etc. This then meant that we were left with sequences in the correct order, with a decent amount of different shots that we could play around with e.g. putting effects and transitions on them, switching them around, adding sound effects and so on. We liked transitions where it would dip to black or white, we believed that these look professional and not too “in your face” but for many of the scenes we just used simple cutting techniques. For our titles we tried out different fonts and colours before we decided on a certain one, we also experimented with transitions and effects on the actual titles. (image below shows an example of effects and contrast changes in premiere elements).

• For me I felt that choosing soundtracks was the hardest part of the editing process, especially for our final piece. I feel this way because to give the optimum effect of a sequence – the music has to fit the series of events perfectly, tension must build with music as well as on screen, the same for emotion – it must be conveyed by the activity in the scene but also by the music accompanying it. This was particularly hard for us because we could not create our own soundtrack to fit our sequences due to little knowledge of how to go about doing so, not being helped by lack of time.
  
• Once we were happy with how it looked we would then watch it over and over, showing it to others too so that we could see what we should cut or add to finally finish it off. We feel that editing it this way allows optimum viewing of each and every scene, in a mixture of different formats before choosing how each part looked best.
  
• Once our piece was completed we rendered and exported it onto the D-Drive of the computer, where it could then be put on memory stick, burned onto a disk or even put on the internet for example using YouTube to upload it.
  
• In my opinion, our production process is extremely similar to that of a real film in that – you learn from your mistakes. There are some things that just don’t go the way you planned and often when you are putting everything together; the actors, the location, maise-en-scene and so on it can be very difficult to obtain the effect you were hoping for. You learn from this and therefore can help yourself combat, or work around it in the future. This process has also showed me that producing a film can be exciting and thrilling, you can put your ideas and concepts to full effect, you can then test them, alter them and develop them to produce an end result. On a real scale film production there would also be many more people involved, each department would be catered for (depending on size/budget of the film) for example a group of people would be working on sound and music, another on effects and editing, another on the actual shooting, actors… The list goes on; we had to do each of these roles ourselves at one point or another during the project. Although obviously the timescale and money involved is nothing like that of a real film production, the process does allow you to learn in a reasonable amount of depth around many parts of the real production process – from the green light to the final cut.