Evaluation Q6 - David Brady

Equipment used:

Canon DSLR 650 EOS

Omit tripod

Camera lens’

LED Spotlight and filter

Flip-cam 

Final cut pro 

IMovie 

Strengths:

• ·  Lots of tools to make editing easy on Final cut pro
  ·      Used the tripod to get steady shots, not shaky, give us the chance to pan easily
  ·      The flip cams were very good to use for filming interviews as they were small and easy to use good for us moving around finding people to interview
  ·      IMovie was good to record focus groups and audience feed back as it records them watching while they can view the opening. 

Weaknesses:

• We couldn’t tilt smoothly; we wanted to take a shot that with the tripod was impossible to  do.
• ·      The flip cam is very shaky and can look unprofessional. 

 What we used the equipment for: 

      DLSR- used for filming the main opening, learnt how to use the focus to create the illusion of what the character is looking at.  We used this in the scene with the group photo, also we learnt how to white balance the camera, which we did for the scenes inside the house as we didn't have to do it with the natural lighting. 

      Tripod was used to create steady shots that didn’t shake, this made the opening look more professional, for example: 

      The tripod allowed us to take this opening shot without the camera shaking which in turn set the opening up. it was important that we used the tripod as we wanted to create an unnerving, still feeling that wouldn't have been possible without a tripod. 

      However it did limit us in some of the shots we could take, this meant that I had to hold the camera and film by hand trying to create a tripod with my arms kept close to my body to try and limit the shaking. 

   

      

      LED Spotlight and filter  was used in all the shots in the house to create tension, in the door shot the light is used as a back light to make the audience only see his silhouette. 

      Also the light was used to create side lighting that we used to make the character look more demented and psychotic.  We learnt how to use this in our 3 point lighting, and we got a chance to implement them in our media product. The use of the orange filter was to break up the artificial light, we believed that this would create more tension and suspense. 

      

       Final cut pro was used to edit the production,  I learnt how to speed the time up of the shots, as we thought the indoor shot was too long and we wanted to shorten it but we couldn’t cut it at any point. We also learnt that we could use fast cuts to cause confusion at the end of the opening using cuts between shot and a blank white image to create “flashes”.

Using editing tools to cut the footage and create "flashes" 

       We also used different tools to edit the music to make it sound old and vintage at first and then distorted and reversed during the “flashes” I learnt that I can use different transition and filters also help create atmosphere.