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

HARDWARE

HD Canon HV30 Camera


We were able to use HV30 video-cameras for our shoot, which was a real advantage as the footage was recorded to a very high standard, enabling us to edit easily and look more professional. However, the disadvantage of this was that we had to be very careful with them, and a lot of paperwork was involved to make sure they were always kept safe. Fortunately, this was made easier by the fact that we never needed to take the camera out of school.


Three Point Lighting


We were very privileged to be able to use our schools new multi-purpose Seward Studio, which came complete with a storage room with lots of lights. Three-point lighting is very good in terms of eliminating shadow and recreating a 'natural' look, but only when you have been taught to use them properly. It took some lessons and a few recces for us to work out how best to use them, which was made more complicated by the fact that different lighting was needed for different shots. Overall they really improved the mise-en-scene of our piece; we just had to be careful that the actors didn't overheat.

Overhead Lighting


The Seward Studio already comes equipped with an intricate set of overhead lighting. Unfortunatly for us, we wanted to shoot on the chairs rather than the stage, so we were only able to use a small amount of the lights, although we did learn how to use the lighting panel on the computers at the back of the room. This is a lot easier than manually controlling each light, and saved us a lot of time when setting up our shoots.
Camera Equipment

The equipment given to us for the shoots

Each group was given a set of filming equipment for our shoots, which really helped improve filming quality. Unless you intentionally aim for hand held shots, it looks more professional to have still shots, so the tripod was really efficient at doing that for us. It was made slightly more difficult because we sometimes needed to fit the legs within the rows of chairs, but still was a possible addition. The boom pole and mike were vital in recording spoken dialogue as the quality is much higher than using the camera microphone.
Green Screen

This is the method we used to take our green screen image of Frank (that was shot very easily) and put it in the clip.



Our final result was this; an animation of Frank appearing to be a hand drawn image.



SOFTWARE

Adobe Premiere Pro



The editing programme we used was Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, which is on the more advanced end of the amateur editing scale. I found this programme to be really useful and efficient - it allowed us to do all the effects we wanted to, as it has a very large bank of video effects and transitions. The only issue we had with it was with sound, as some clips only played out of one speaker, and there was no simple way to fix this, unlike on some other editing programmes.


3-Way Colour Corrector



Once we had finished editing the clips, we needed to start grading the entire video. Two effects that allowed us to do this were Proc-Amp and the 3-Way Colour Corrector. Between these, we were able to change the saturation levels and give the images a warmer or cooler tone. Initially, as we were new to the programme, it took a while to understand, and we started out with having our characters with faces that were too yellow. However, once we worked the effects out, the final result looked a lot more 'cinema-esque' than our initial shots. It took a long time to grade the images, but the final result was worth the time.


Magic Wand Tool

In transition: removing the background from the image

As we needed to include a green screened image,the magic wand tool was necessary for eliminating the backgrounds. The tool is fairly quick and efficient, although we hit some difficulties as we also needed the image to be in black and white, which made the process more complicated. Altogether, however, the magic wand tool is very good in removing unwanted background, and can still produce a smooth image if used correctly.


Adobe Photoshop CS3

We used photoshop to create our Lichtenstein effect, which proved to be fairly simple using the image effects available. The traditional Roy Lichtenstein 'dots' design was quite easy to replicate, and as both Photoshop and Premiere are both Adobe products, we had the added advantage of both of them working in synergy, meaning that it was easy to transfer the image from on e programme to the other  

An example of the Lichtenstein effect created using photoshop

Adobe After-Effects

Our main inspiration for the graphics at the beginning of 'EXCEPTIONAL' are from Spiderman 2. Premiere Pro is not very advanced in making graphic sequences, so we used adobe after-effects to create the montage. By scanning in four hand-drawn images, we we created the main part of the sequence, and intergrated nacompany and name credits between each image transition. On some video showing programmes, the movement can appear slightly stilted, but in general it recieved very good feedback from our target audience.




Internet: audio network



We used a website called the audio network to find our tracks for the film, as they provide songs at a very chap rate. The search features on the website were helpful in finding the right songs - in our case, clicking on the sub-catergory 'Epic' provided us with lots of options. The music is of a high quality and therefore sounds professional when played along with the film. The internet, of course, was also used for research purposes and presenting our portfolio, which was good as we could access it quickly from both home and school.