Evaluation: Question 6 - Technology

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

We were familiar with many of the technologies that we used in the process of constructing out media product, as well as being introduced to some new ones such as the lighting kit. After practicing earlier in our A Level course we were ready to use all the standard equipment owned by the school that all groups had the option of using.

Here is a list of technologies we used to complete our task:

Camera & Tripod

Advantages:

• Lightweight and portable; potential to try handheld shots, as well as quick whips and pans
• Easy to pick up and move for a change of shot/angle and easy to transport
• Uncomplicated; only required a short tutorial for our whole group to be able to use
• Half of our group were familiar with this model from using it during GCSE Media Studies
• LCD screen has almost twice the resolution of most standard definition camcorders
• HD quality; produced respectable footage for its size
• Available; already owned by the school 
• Tripod very adjustable

Disadvantages:

• Limited resolution; will not look the same as a professional studio film
• 25 FPS footage limited our potential to shoot in slow motion, fortunately we didn't need to
• Slightly grainy image produced (unwanted)
• Noticeable background noise of the camera running
• Can easily wobble if nudged
• Sometimes the tripod was slightly stiff to whip pan with, forcing us to do this handheld

Georgie/Lucy jogs the tripod slightly by accident as she passes 

Blue Yeti Microphone

Advantages:

• Easy to use; audio files could be transferred via USB to editing computer without hassle
• Good audio quality gave us a sample of how our dialogue would sound before shooting it

Disadvantages:

• Can struggle with words where 'p' is pronounced

Arri Lighting Kit

Advantages: 

• With our knowledge from a safety and use tutorial, they produced very effective 3-point lighting system for our set
• Adjustable 'barn doors' could control amount/intensity of light they emitted 
• Despite weight and size, the kit could comfortably fit into the boot of my small car to be transported 

Just to the right of (Georgie's) Lucy's head is one of our lights 

Disadvantages:

• Can become very hot; crew may burn themselves touching it without wearing protective gloves provided. The heat also warmed the room we shot in significantly, causing some discomfort to cast and crew, meaning we had to turn our lighting off between shots or after extended use
• Without shooting in a studio it was hard to reproduce the same lighting in different shots where our equipment had to be moved
• Quite heavy; it would have been time consuming to move it a lot in order to be perfectionist with our quality of lighting
• Quite large; hard to hide in our shots

Adobe Premiere Pro

Through some previous use I was fairly confident as using Premiere Pro. My knowledge was quite basic however, and I learnt to grade the sequence by changing ProCamp settings and using the three-way colour wheel to correct the colouring to how we wanted it; looking more realistic and gritty.

Not every shot was given the exact same grading settings because of natural fluctuations in light from cloud cover, etc. We worked hard to ensure that the colouring was as equal as possible in each shot to avoid it being obvious that the sequence was shot over the course of a day like it was, and seem more believable that its events happened in real time. This will have allowed our audience to suspend their disbelief and engage slightly more in the narrative rather than be distracted by lighting continuity.

As can be seen to the left, however, keeping lighting consistent is extremely difficult. Due to a local resident cleaning their car earlier a few metres up the road, water by the pavement reflected a huge amount of light up from the sun which was practically impossible to completely tune down in editing.


Facebook

Advantages:

• Could communicate at almost any time; e.g. while travelling to school, at lunch time, on weekends
• Our group all had Facebook and were familiar with its messaging service
• Free 
• Practically no disadvantages!

Understanding the virtues and downfalls in the technology available to us allowed us to utilise it to the fullest extent we could in the time we were assigned. It brought us effective communication, as well as the ability to shoot and edit films, all the while learning how to use it better in order to improve on the end product further and further each time I am involved in creating one.