AS- A2 Skills Development

1 skills development

a) With a digital video camera I can record high quality video images from a variety of different angles, movements and in a number of different places and lights.

b) We use external directional microphones as well as boom microphones in order to achieve better sound quality

c) we developed our editing skills- we learnt to edit together video and sound as well as bring in external sounds on which we learnt how to change the volume. We learnt how to add text and add non diegetic sound.

d) no but it would be a nice idea

e) we were not fans of the mac operating system- and forgot once or twice to turn the microphone on or off.

2 creativity

a) at AS we were as creative as possible, our narrative was very creative and original but our frames were relatively conventional. The lighting we used was exciting, but our location wasn’t particularly original.
b) Although our film was conventional for the genre, it was a relatively original film.

3 research and planning

a)our primary research involved taking inspiration from many films, as we were tapping into a popular genre. We used the internet to gather information on film genres as well as certain audiences.

c) I would improve my research levels into audience figures as well as to study a larger number of films with similar genres.
d) We used the Internet for research, as well as ideas, also on the internet there was blogger, a program used for displaying ones information in a personal form on the internet. Our YouTube channel was used to display our practice and then final piece. We would improve this by taking more footage of practice runs then upload it, as well as documenting everything we did on the blog. Keeping the blog up to date was something with which we struggled, so increased focus on blog uploads would be paramount.

4. post production
a) we organised out editing by using a program called ‘final cut pro’ for mac. Each pair at AS had a mac assigned to themselves, on which it was possible to save all our work. We tried to come as regularly as was possible to the media suite to work on our project. The editing was done in stages; importing from external devices i.e. camera, then onto the general cutting to put together the basic story, and then the final stage was the ‘fine tuning’ which included putting in extra sound effects e.g. keys dropping onto a plate, and doorbells.

b) we used sound effects widely, but never so that they would sound out of place. We used a creak of a door for when the main character was opening a cupboard, we used a doorbell to signify when someone was at the door, and as a result of a user error, we had no sound on one of the takes that we used, so we had to find a sound effect for keys ‘jangling.’ We used music found on a copyright-free website to give us the atmosphere we desired, and we also achieved this by using effective fades in and out.

Using conventions from real media texts

a) we followed the conventions of a thriller film, and we created meaning for the audience by really trying to let them get involved with the characters and their lives. We see the main character’s emotions in the taxi, and get a feel for her current demeanour. Through our excellent editing, we had the audience on tenterhooks, as our narrative would lead them to believe that the woman was going to come home to find her partner lying dead on the floor but in reality she comes home and the house is in pristine condition. It is examples like this that would have meant that audiences would have been glued to the screen for the whole length of the feature film.

JT