What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We filmed within Lauren’s house and the area outside where we filmed was very close to her house, therefore we met up at her house each time we filmed and kept all the filming equipment at her house during the periods of not filming. Due to the fact that we thought we were going to film at night we had some lighting equipment to use when filming, however it was a lot more effective and easier to use natural lighting during the day. It took us two days to film the two different sections; the first part was within the house until the ‘Leading to Bell View’ sign. The second day we filmed the rest of the outside shots and used our second actor played by Daniel Wolff.
I filmed some low angle shots and some close ups within the first scene in the house where the detective is gathering some evidence. I wanted to get many angles of our character to show the different aspects of what was happening within the scene and so that in editing we could easily piece our shots together so that our film could flow thoroughly and easily. The close-ups meant the audience could see the detectives facial expressions and hopefully read off his face that he was nervous, however determined. It is important the audience can read these facial expressions so they can relate to what the character is thinking and understand the situation, therefore the camera shots I incorporated are very important. There were some other shots that I filmed that when it came to editing we realised we did not need and therefore are not shown in our finalised film. I shot the over-the-shoulder shots when the detective and Letch are having a conversation. This was partly due to the fact that I am tall and can therefore easily capture the shots, also I was good at holding the camera steady and capturing the characters from the correct angles. When editing we each put our views forward towards each part and pieced the film together in parts, all taking it in turns. I first started to edit the basic outline of what we had which made it easier to pick out the correct shots which we all later edited together and finalised. I chose where we should place the titles within the opening scene and I became good at finalising the music and placing it in the correct spots so that it corresponded with the film.
The digital technology was very helpful as it enabled us to capture the different shots in high quality and in the way we pictured and wanted it. For instance the zooming in and out feature was very useful and we used this quite a lot such as in our first establishing shot when we zoomed into the house. We also used this feature for close ups so that we could capture the perfect shot on the characters face. However some problems with the technology that we encountered was the focus. At some points in our film such as the first scene in the house the camera goes slightly out of focus whilst filming and this was hard to control. The sound was also hard to monitor whilst filming as we could not quite tell what sound we had captured and at one point the sound recorder on the camera broke and did not capture any background sounds.
The internet was a very useful technology when researching ideas and clips for our film. Websites such as ‘YouTube’ were very helpful as we could pick out specific points in a film or a sequence and try and compare it to our ideas and our film. I watched DVD’s as well to gain ideas when researching what different types of characters and genres we could use in our film.