The document discusses the process of creating a short film called "Fraction". It describes filming with a Sony DV camera, editing with Final Cut Express, creating music with GarageBand, titles with LiveType, and publishing the final product online. Key steps included storyboarding, shooting a rough cut, getting peer feedback, and editing the final project based on that feedback before publishing online.

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

2. Throughout the production of our final project, we used a Sony DV recording camera to film Fraction. The Sony DV recording camera turned out to be relatively easy to use, and we came across no complications whilst using it. Although the quality of the HD cameras was of higher standard, we chose to use the DV camera as we were more familiar with them, as we had previously used them for our preliminary task. The difference in quality between the DV recording camera and the HD recording camera was so slim that we didn’t mind the fact that we didn’t film Fraction in the highest possible quality.

3. We have used a number of different programmes and equipment to help us record and edit our final project. For example, when filming, we had to use a tripod to stabilize the camera so that our footage wasn’t shaky. Also, when uploading our footage onto Final Cut Express, we had to use a firewire which connects the recording camera to the back of the Mac. We needed somewhere for the footage to be stored while filming and so we had to ensure that a tape had been inserted into the recording camera before filming. When it came to editing, we used a number of different packages and programmes such as Final Cut Express, GarageBand, Livetype and Photoshop which I will be talking about in the next few slides.

4. Final Cut Express When we had finished filming Fraction, we uploaded it from the Sony DV recording camera to Final Cut Express. Although we were familiar with the basics of final cut (e.g. cutting long scenes and placing them in a sequence) from our preliminary task, we weren’t very on clear on how to use various editing techniques and transitions. After using Final Cut Express for about an hour, we eventually got the hang of how to use it. Final Cut Express is a useful programme when it comes to editing because it offers a wide range of visual effects, audio effects and transitions. One strength of Final Cut Express is that it had both a visual board and an audio board. This prevented any confusion whilst moving the footage and audio about. One limitation of Final Cut Express was that every time we uploaded a piece of footage from the camera, we had to copy that footage into the media files folder. If we didn’t put the footage into the media files folder, our work on Final Cut express would fail to play and certain footage would go missing.

5. GarageBand We used GarageBand to produce the non diegetic soundtrack for our final project. Being new to this programme, we found it very difficult to understand how to use GarageBand in the beginning, but as we composed and developed the soundtrack, we did eventually become used to it. One limitation of GarageBand was that there were not enough samples to choose from, so when we were deciding what samples to use, our choice was very limited. However, we managed to find some good samples which also happened to be thriller conventional which we used to create our soundtrack. One positive thing about GarageBand is that there was an option whereby you could choose what kind of sounds you wanted based on mood, genre and instrument. We were looking for dark, cinematic and intense sounds, and Garageband offered this. Another positive thing about GarageBand is that you could click on the sample to hear a preview of what it sounded like, before adding it into your soundtrack. It was fairly easy to, cut and change the tempo or volume of certain samples and overall it was user friendly.

6. LiveType Livetype is the programme which we used to create the titles for our opening sequence. Again, having no knowledge of how to use the programme, we found it quite difficult to use at first. However, one member of the group very quickly got the hang of it and used LiveType to create some really good titles for our opening sequence. We also used LiveType rather than Photoshop to create our final instituional logo because we felt that the instituional logo could do with some movement. LiveType was relatively easy to use after tampering around with it for a while. One limitation of LiveType was the fact that the transitions were limited, there weren’t that many transitions to choose from. However, we did find some transitions which fitted in with the font which we decided to use. One strength of LiveType is that there is a wide variety of different fonts to choose from.

7. Photoshop Initially, we had used Photoshop to create a draft of our institutional logo. However, once we had created it, we felt that a still frame institutional logo, was a bit boring. To improve our institutional logo, we created it on LiveType rather than Photoshop because that way, we can involve the movement of the font to make it appear more entertaining. One limitation of using Photoshop is that you are unable to create an institutional logo without any movement. Also, certain things need to be downloaded in order to create a decent looking background, e.g. we had to create the background of our draft institutional logo on a Mac from home which already had specific software's installed. One strength of using Photoshop is that its user friendly and its easy to change the composition and colour of the text.

8. Have you used any digital effects on your sounds and images? Using Final Cut Express meant that we had a variety of different video effects to choose from ranging from blurs to colour enhancements. We have used a number of digital effects for Fraction such sped up scenes, Gaussian blur, light rays and more. As well as using video effects, we have also used audio effects to amplify the diegetic sound. When the detective is walking to the crime scene through the leaves, we have added an audio effect called reverberation to the sped up parts to make the audio match the visuals at this moment. Also, we edited the still frames of the photos to make them black and white by using a visual effect called grey scale. We did this to make it clear to the audience that they were photographs.

9. What is the process you went through to create your product? Firstly, we had to think of a concept and narrative for the film so that we could write a treatment and gather ideas for the mise en scene etc. Once we had done this, we were then required to set up our individual and group thriller blogs on Blogger, on which we had to upload our treatment. Everything on our blogs was part of our pre production research. We also evaluated past AS thriller coursework and analyzed opening sequences for major thriller films which we embedded onto our blogs, from Youtube. This helped us to gather an understanding of the pros and cons of an opening sequence, and it allowed us to avoid making the same mistakes that others had made in the past. It also allowed us to use and challenge conventions from major thriller films. Youtube allowed us to gain easy access to past AS thriller coursework for us to evaluate.

10. What is the process you went through to create your product? After we had evaluated past students AS thriller coursework and analyzed opening sequences for major thriller films, we were then required to draw up a storyboard for our idea. The reason we had to draw up the storyboard was so that we could get an idea of what our final project should look like. Drawing up the storyboard also allowed us to get an idea of what kind of camera shots and angles would be used in each scene. Once we had drawn out the storyboard, we then had to capture still frame images of each drawing and upload them onto final cut. We then arranged them in chronological order to create an animated storyboard which we uploaded onto our group blog.

11. What is the process you went through to create your product? After uploading the animated storyboard to our group blog, we then had to shoot a rough edit of the opening sequence with titles and a soundtrack and upload it to our group blog. Uploading it to our blog meant that it was easy for the group to access. After shooting the rough edit, we then decided to get some audience feedback from our peers which is also on the group blog. Overall, we received positive feedback. However, we did receive a few criticisms which was useful because this allowed us to go back and make amends to the parts that were not so good. Amends were made on Final Cut Express, which was useful because our work was already saved on there. Detailed notes on the feedback were posted on our group blog on the same post as the rough edit. We then had to ensure that both our group and individual blogs were being constantly updated with whatever we did on that day.

12. What is the process you went through to create your product? After ensuring that our individual and group blogs had been updated with daily logs, and after receiving our audience feedback from our peers, we then decided that it was time to produce our final project. Bearing in mind what our peers had said to us about our rough edit, we then began to edit various parts to perfect it. We opened up Final Cut Express and we edited the titles, the soundtrack and we inserted diegetic sound and still frames of what the forensic team were taking photos of. This wasn’t difficult because we simply added parts and edited what we already had.

13. When it came to converting our film on Final Cut Express from an FCP. File to a QuickTime file, we simply just went to file, then export, then we clicked on QuickTime movie to change it to a .mov file. This then enabled us to upload our movie onto our blog, where as before, when we tried to upload a FCP. File to our blog, errors kept occurring whilst uploading. Converting the file was fairly easy. However, when it came to converting our soundtrack on GarageBand to an mp3 file, we experienced some difficulties to begin with. Every time we tried to compress our soundtrack into an mp3 file, it kept converting it into a mp4 file. The problem with an mp4 file is that it contains visuals as well as audio, and this prevented us from dragging it onto the audio board on Final Cut Express. However after trying different methods, we eventually managed to transfer our soundtrack onto the desktop as an mp3 file, which we then dragged onto final cut.

14. Publishing Methods We have published our final project, Fraction onto the internet on a number of websites including Facebook, Youtube and Twitter to receive feedback from people other than other media students in our class. We uploaded it onto Youtube so that we could annotate it and give good reason for what we have done. After uploading our final project onto Youtube, we were then able to post our video onto Facebook to receive feedback from our friends. Overall, the feedback that we received from our friends on Facebook was very positive, and publlishing Fraction online proved to be very beneficial for us.