Evaluation - Q6&Q7

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What do you feel you have learned in the progression from the preliminary task to the full end product?

As you can see from the clip where the camera is circling around (Me and Thao) it looks very unprofessional- firstly it is hand-held which looks tacky, shaky and ineffective. However, in the original version we edited it to fast forward the action to quicken the speed and hopefully make it seem less professional. We thought this was a good idea because we can establish the shot without necessarily showing the surroundings (which is our college library.) We learned that we could have used a trolley to make it a smoother action, and fast forwarding or even slow-motion edits can change the clip completely. We also learned that using hand-held camera motion does not look effective most of the time too.

In addition, that clip also took extremely long to take, as me and Thao found it very hard to act that scene- due to the fact it was really long so it was hard to keep a straight face. In addition to the second part, we see Dennetta in the background observing- she should have not been there at all. We can learn that we shouldn't allow anything 'out of place' to be seen in the shots or any changes to be moved in the background either.

In the second clip, we see Czarina going through the door- but really slowly as if she was unsure,- from this experience, we should not allow ourselves to slow down our acting as it would look not as fluent as it should be. She should be quick and be as 'normal' as she can. Also, filming that clip was hand-held- we could have used tripod to make it straight to make sure it is professionally done.

In the Four Walls outtakes, we can see the lighting was extremely dark- we learned in the process that it is vital that the use of lighting should be the same- and so should the focus. We used the automatic focusing to make sure that it was at its best quality all the time.

The following clips shows some footage that we did not include- due to the fact that it did not look effective. The use of acting is extremely important- we should not make the actress uncomfortable at all so we could finish up quicker than retaking several times.

Towards the end of the clip, there is a scene in the corridor where the trolley fell over- (in the 'Initial Idea for the Storyboard' post I explained why we chose not to use the idea where we track the corridor- due to the fact it looked shabby with the 'Safe Storage' logo as well as the automatic lighting turning on when there is movement and the trolley was extremely hard to use.

At the very last clip, we see a clip of Thao's eye of the normal footage shot. The shot after is the edited version- with the use of slugs and overlays which made the normal footage much more effective.

In this video clip of the card game sequence, we had to retake this shot several times- due to the fact that the camera panning movement was very stiff and it did not go in the direction we wanted it to go most of the time. We realised this is because we did not loosen the lock of the tripod. If we used hand-held movement, it is important to make it as steady as possible as shaky camera movements look extremely unprofessional.

In this shot, it was extremely out of focused- we did not concentrate on focusing the camera when we was using it at first from our lack of experience. As you can see, it looks extremely unprofessional and we learned that in future we should always keep it in focused- either manually but auto focusing proved to be much more useful especially in dark surroundings- the 'red lines' helped us see whether or not it was in focus or not.

In this clip, (which the whole scene is shown on the 'Match Cut Prelim' post) we can see the poor 'match cut' we used. The scene where Czarina opens the door and a match cut of her closing the door straight after does not look effective. Later on in the Four Walls production, we used a much better match cut where she bangs on the walls with her fist which then jumps into a close up shot of her fist- which you can view on the 'Final Edit' post.

We therefore learned how to make better shots and our knowledge of use of cameras, shots, and ideas had been developed increasingly to the final product. We learned from our mistakes that we made in the beginning, but even after that, we can still easily make mistakes such as being loss of focus or the lack of light in our final production.

- From before our knowledge of the JVC camcorders was very limited- we was newbies using it. From practice, we developed ideas and new knowledge, our insight to how a camera looks on camera and the focusing helped us greatly- we thought about the 180 degree rules, the 1/3 rule and the space above the persons head we all thought about.

Editing on Final Cut Pro, Live Type and Sound Track Pro had been also developed from our developed knowledge and practicing using it helped us to the final product. In the Prelim and the Card Game sequence we did not use Sound Track Pro- Using that software is pretty much straight forward and I believe it requires more creativity rather than knowledge of the software.

However, I believe our Live Type titles could be improved as we spent the least time on that, however overall my knowledge of technologies and knowledge had been developed greatly from the result of experience.