AS Evaluation- Question 6

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

Throughout the making of my thriller opening,I used a variety of technology to help me in the research, planning and evaluating stages. I mainly used ‘blogger’ to present and keep all my research and planning posts etc. I used ‘free sound’ to find copyright free sound effects etc, such as 'Girl laugh2' (0:37 in the clip), 'breathing sounds' (1:15 in the clip) and 'splash.wav' (1:22 in the clip), which I could then add into my thriller opening.
 I used Final Cut Pro X to edit my thriller footage, and add in transitions, such as the Gaussian effect used in the flashback scenes. I also used a camera and a tripod when filming. I learnt how to use the camera and tripod through the experience of the preliminary task. Before this task, we went through how to extend the tripod, how to pivot it, and how to attach the camera to it, as well as how to use the camera properly. However, most of this came with the practicing of the filming. When filming there were a few shots I struggled to film, such as the aerial shot we wanted to show the little girl dead at the end of the thriller. There was no way we could get carry out an aerial shot at our location, and I didn't realise this until the day of the filming. To overcome this problem, I improvised and chose to film it from a very high angle, with the tripod fully extended, looking down on the little girl. I think this worked better than the aerial shot as it portrayed her to be the victim one last time, and showed she was dead, building suspense. Other than this, we managed well when filming the other shots; it was simply a case of trial and error to see what worked, as we had never done this before.

The editing software I used (Final Cut Pro X), helped me in the editing stage of my thriller. It involved me uploading my footage onto the computer, and then selecting the best ones by being able to preview them first, before dragging those I wanted to include onto the timeline. Once this was done, I could put the clips in order and cut or trim any parts which I didn’t want to use. I then learnt how to add transitions into my footage, such as the Gaussian effect used in the flashback scenes, how to change the lighting to make it low-key, add sound from 'free-sound' and how to create and add credits etc. I would say that my strengths in editing my thriller are that I can trim and cut down the footage easily, to ensure it was under 2 minutes long, as well as adding transitions into the thriller and confidently un-matching the original sound from the footage, so that we could add a particular sound effect on top. For my weaknesses, I felt that as the software we were using was reasonably new, we couldn't use it to its full potential, such as making a particular edit the way we wanted to, because we were not experienced with the software.To create the credits for my thriller, we used Final Cut Pro X, and for the evaluation, we used Blogger, Prezi and videos to show a variety of technology.

One area of my opening thriller film that reflects my editing skills are during the first flashback, shown between 0:25 to 0:33 seconds into my thriller. Firstly, I wanted to make the audience focus on the tree which was being zoomed in on and so changed the lighting and saturation etc, so the darks and mid tones were lower, which gave the tree a dark luminous effect, making it look intriguing, so the audience would wonder what would happen next. This is followed by the transition of a fade into the first flashback showing the two sisters playing around a tree. For this flashback, I changed the lighting and saturation's etc again, but this time increased the midtones and whites to make it look like high key lighting, so the audience would be able to distinguish between the flashbacks and normality in the clip. I added a Gaussian blur effect on top of this, and adjusted the levels of blurring, so that the audience could still determine what was happening, but it still minimised the detail, creating a sense of confusion which will build suspense. As well as this, we played around with the soundtrack, so that it matched to the images, building tension.