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

After developing our storyline and planning our shots and starting to develop our storyboard and shot list, we agreed as a group that using the right equipment for our footage and film genre was crucial. This meant using a camera that enabled us to get good quality footage, whilst also being able to change some shots to slow motion, whilst keeping the good quality of the footage. The argument was based largely on whether to use the Canon 550D or the Canon Legria HV-30. Other technologies were smaller details, although still very important to our opening sequence. 

Camera

In the end we chose to film with the 550D because it enabled us to have 50 frames per second, and therefore use slow motion without losing the quality of our footage.

Lights 

We used 650w and 750w Arri Redheads. For most of the shots we used the slightly less powerful 650w lights which we had 2 of, whereas we only had 1 750w light. The 650w was less harsh and produced less shadows because it spread the light more evenly and less harshly. In our very last shot where Ella leaves the house, we used the 750w and tried to bounce the light off the wall from behind Ella to cast her half in shadow, representing her dark nature. We also thought that this would look realistic, because as she is outside she could just be standing under a street light. Although the lighting generally worked well throughout, we came across a couple of problems with shadows, that looked weird and unnatural and perhaps not very realistic, however we did not include this shot in our opening

Before we started filming we also made the actors aware of the fact that their were lots of cables around from the lights, extension cables and other equipment to make sure they did not trip over anything, or break any expensive equipment.

However some of our lighting was successful, for example the silhouette of our protagonist leaving the party and walking up the stairs as a silhouette, to represent her mysteriousness and so that no one yet knows who it is.

We used a PAG light for the point of view shots that were shot in the dark, to make sure there was some light in order to show what was going on at the party, but the PAG light was also weak enough to make sure the strobe effect was not hidden. The strobe light added to the parties atmosphere and made the party more realistic, as well as making filming easier and more relaxed, because people felt more comfortable dancing with a strobe on.

Software

We did all our editing on Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, which worked well for slow motion effects, grading and to use effects, like echo to create the sense that the people at the party were on drugs. 

We then had to go on to use Adobe After Effects, because after filming the point of view shot, we realised all the footage was grainy because not enough light had reached the camera lens during the party scenes. Adobe After Effects had a remove grain feature, which although took hours to remove grain, was well worth not having to do a re-shoot of all our footage.  

Lastly, LiveType was used to create our credits and font effects. We chose our font from a website and put our titles into LiveType to create the ghost effect that makes our titles disappear off screen.


Here is a Youtube video of the different effects and why we used them in our opening sequence:

Facebook

We also used social media; Facebook to communicate with our group, and created a page about our project which we added our actors to so we could make posts about any updates they needed to know about, information for the shoot about their costumes and script and to make sure they knew what time they had to arrive. Facebook enabled us to communicate with everyone easily and is a good example of how social media is a good way to market our film and communicate with our audience.