Evaluation - Q6

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

I think that since the project has started, I have gained a lot more knowledge on the technologies that we have used and have also developed some new skills during this time. With the help of my group member, I have been able to learn how to use the iMac and edit my film which was new for me and quite difficult at the start. However once playing around with the different features that were on there and using some practise shots which we didn’t need, I was able to feel more confident in using the Mac. Before doing this project, I didn’t know much about how films are created apart from the basics however after starting this and having to use the different technologies at different stages, I gained a good understanding on how these work and what their jobs do and felt more confident in using them. I think that this task has reflected back on me in a positive way and will help me in the future as I got to know more about different software’s and for what purposed they are used.  Doing this project has been interesting and fun as it’s new to me which motivated me once I got into it.

During this project, I have learnt how films are made. Firstly by recording the shots that are needed which sometime are quite time consuming and to do so properly, a tripod is needed. At first I didn’t know that we could extend and shorten the height of the tripod as I never had to use one before. This was quite helpful for me to know as then I was able to use the different heights in my film.  I then learned about how Macs are used and what you are able to do on them. Because of the Mac I was able to edit my film to a high standard and have that professional look in it due this. This helped me understand why Macs are quite expensive and popular within so many people which is due to the fact that the Mac allows you to do so much with the different software’s that it enables you to use and the quality work it produces. After a while, I became more confident on how editing works which is due to us editing all the time frequently for long hours which boosts my motivation so I can do more so that my work is the best of my ability. It was interesting to see our much our film has changed from the start to the end due to how editing we were allowed to do. I think that the main difficulty in editing was when we had to get all the clips consistent with one another as it was extremely hard to get one clips ending at the right time of when one clip was starting but it was quite exciting to learn how to overcome these problems when fiddling about with the different features. It’s quite exciting to see how a film is made especially when you look back at the start when the filming process started. Though professional film makers would have the most expensive and highest quality equipments, I think that with the equipment we used bearing in mind the schools budget on these we have been able to make our film to the best ability it could be and have the sense of professionalism in it.

We also used Garage Band to create the music in the background which was a very exciting and new experience for us. Me and my group member both took turns to play around and create our own music trying to make it a scary background music which would fit in with our film. Though it was interesting, it was difficult as well. This is because at first I didn’t actually know how it works and how you can create the music so that it would suit the atmosphere of the film. We had to go through each sound that are on there so that we know what they sound like and it’s hard to do this as even though some of the genres had names such as ‘dark’ which I thought would be intense and scary sounds but this wasn’t the case and so we had to go through each genre to find the music we wanted. During this stage of the production, I learnt on how to create different types of music using different instruments without having to know the features of the actual instrument.

Also during this project, I have learnt how to use and how a blogger works. This was also a new experience for me as I have never used one before. I think that having a blog as been quite useful in ways such as being able to save my work that I have done so far on to the blog and putting it as draft so that I can add stuff onto it if I want to. The only problems that I had with the blog was that once you post the work you couldn’t move it around and put another post before it. However after some time, I found a way to overcome this problem.