I have learnt a lot about technology in the process of creating my film opening. When I started my project I had no experience with DSLR's, filming, editing or composing music; the whole experience was entirely new. Therefore I have had to learn everything required for me to make my film opening from scratch.
The very first thing we did was to set up our blogs.
I had never used 'Blogger' before so this was all new. We chose templates, designs, colours and fonts to personalise each of our blogs individually before moving on to use them for writing posts.
I also had to learn how to add pictures and embed videos into my blog. I had never had to do this before in any computer programme so I had to learn how to get videos from 'YouTube' actually into my blog without using a link.
I then learnt how to create link lists to organise my blog so my posts where easy to find and in the right order.
I also had to learn how to set up a 'YouTube' account. Although I had used 'YouTube' in the past, I'd never had my own account so didn't know how to upload videos, or edit them by changing titles and thumbnails. I had to pick this up quickly as we got all our footage onto our blogs by first uploading it to our channel and embedding it from there.
I also had to learn how to create a presentation and pitch with it effectively in order to sell my film idea to enable me to continue making it through the course. I was very nervous before it but I managed to get through it successfully to achieve the best pitch I could've.
I began with learning about the cameras. I had never used one for photography or filming before so I had to become familiar with how they worked before I began my project. I did this in our prelim task. I had to learn about how lighting effects the footage and where to position the camera for the best quality shot. Then I had to understand how to adjust the ISO on the camera depending on the level of light and how this effected the quality of the picture.
Next I learnt about the white balance on the camera, of all the things this is the one that stuck in my mind as the most important. Before I filmed anything for my opening I held a piece of white paper up in front of the camera to ensure the colouring was correct and nothing was too orange or too blue. This meant that my footage was all correctly exposed and coloured.
I also learnt how to use manual focus to vary the footage and create different moods and bring the audience's attention to areas which I wanted them to focus on in the composition of the shot.
Once I'd done this, the next thing I had to focus on was my ident. I filmed my dog, Connie, yawning against a green screen using as much natural light as possible.
Once I had the footage I uploaded it to 'Final Cut' for my first bit of work editing on my opening.
I learnt how to change the green screen to different backgrounds by first layering Connie up in front of colour bars. Next I had to learn how to use 'Photoshop' to create a background as similar as I could to that of the MGM logo with the addition of my own 'Schnauzer Studios' twist.
I had to cut the middle out of the MGM logo on photoshop to leave room for Connie to take centre stage instead of the lion.
Then I had to learn how to use 'Illustrator' to create the text using a font as similar to the one used in the MGM logo as possible. Once the background had been created I had to put the new layer on top of the one of Connie in 'Final Cut' to create my ident.
I used similar skills to this when creating the news report. This was also filmed on a green screen and then layered over a background of a newsroom to make it look like a real report. Then the non-diegetic sound of a news room could also be layered over the clip to create an overall very convincing report.
Then I learnt that the sound recorded by the DSLR's wasn't good enough quality to be used in my film, therefore, for my scenes with dialogue, I decided use a microphone plugged into the camera and held as close to the actor as possible.
The first time I filmed my opening scene I didn't use a microphone and the difference is definitely noticeable.
My first take (without microphone):
My second take (with microphone):
This meant the dialogue in my film was as clear as possible to make it professional and easy for the audience to hear. You can hear this in the beginning of my film opening where Alannah is speaking and in the news report in flashback two.
I had also never edited any footage before, especially not using something like 'Final Cut Pro'. I had a practice using it when I created my prelim so I had a head start with learning the ropes when it came to my actual film opening. First I started by learning how to actually import the footage and chose which section of the clips I wanted to use in my film to drag these onto my timeline. With the actual footage in place I then learnt how to add transitions, filters, sound effects and credits in layers on top of the footage to make it as interesting as possible for the audience as well as making the plot easy to understand.
Within this process I learnt how to chop and change the sound to get it to match parts of the footage e.g. when I had to use the blade tool to 'cut out' the beeps from my heart rate monitor sound effect to ensure they lined up with the visual animation the audience could see.
I also learnt how to detach the audio from the footage in order to control what sound the audience can hear and create sound bridges between scenes to pull the whole thing together in a more fast paced, cohesive structure. I did this specifically with the sound from the news report. The actual report was a scene in its own right which I then played on my TV and recorded with a DSLR to create the tracking shot when Lucy enters the room. However, the sound from this was not very clear and didn't fit with the quality of the sound in the rest of my film. To rectify this I imported the original footage and detached the audio. Then I muted the audio on the clip of Lucy walking into the room and layered the original sound over the top instead.
You can see the difference in my two rough cuts.
Rough Cut 5 (without the sound bridge and original sound):
Final Cut (with the sound bridge and original sound):
This is much better and clearer than before and something I never would have known how to do before I began this process
When it came to creating the soundtrack I was more than a little bit scared. I have never had any experience with music whether it be playing, composing or creating it. I made the underscore I did using the app 'Garage Band' to layer different instruments up to build tension through different parts of my opening. I decided to set the key to minor because I wanted the music to have a somber tone. From there I selected different instruments, trying different ones out on top of each other until I created the effect I'd imagined. I even learnt how to play the musical instruments on a computer keyboard. I think this composition is one of the things I am most proud of in this whole process because its definitely the one I had the most fear about and I'm so so happy with the resulting soundtrack I've created.
Final Sound Cut:
I had a clear idea of how I wanted my titles to look however, I didn't know how to use the programmes needed to create this. Therefore I had to learn how to use both 'Illustrator' and 'After Effects' to make the animated text I'd imagined at the end of my opening.
First I learnt how to use 'Illustrator' to create the actual text more specific to my film opening in a font that wasn't available on 'Final Cut'. I had to learn how to change the colour of the text, adding effects such as the 'inner glow' one we put on the letters to give them more depth and a slightly sinister light. I also learnt how to outline each of the letters and put them on individual layers so they could be manipulated individually.
Next I moved onto learning how to use 'Aftereffects' to animate the letters so they came in from different areas of the screen to form the words using keyframes. I learnt how to put different effects on this too using things such as 'easy ease' to change the movements of the letters to be slower and more sinister.
Finally, I learnt how to use a camera layer on after effects and turn the letters of my titles 3D and into vectors to the camera could move up to and around them.
All these skills combined were used to make the final product which I love and think works really well in rounding up my opening.
Overall almost everything I've done in the process of making this opening has been learnt from scratch from filming the footage, to editing, to sound. I am so happy with all the new skills I've learnt and how the final product has turned out. I think a clear vision and grit determination had the biggest roles to play here and I'm very pleased to say that I think it paid off.
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