Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The main thing I learnt about technology surrounding film was the use of the editing software programme iMovie. Before the undertaking of this project I knew roughly how to crop clips and put them in order, but that was really the limit of my knowledge. Through using it to edit my movie I have gone on to learn about using it's inbuilt features such as shot transitions, shot effects/filters, it's typing software, and most importantly it's soundtrack devices. I used many examples of audio layers over each other at different volumes to create effect. Another piece of software I was used was Garageband to create some soundclips involving orchestral scores, I found this very helpful as this avoided the problem of copyright with soundtracks. Both of these pieces of software come with iMac's which I had not used before, and after a period when I started using them where I was unsure of them due to my predominant use of PC's, I now feel no problem using them.

In terms of the recording technologies, I used a DV camera to film which I had not used before. I found this camera very helpful because of it's ability to film in seperate clips which meant they could then be re-arranged easily in the editing process. This was especially relevant to me as during filming it was more effective to film some shots such as conversations at the same time even if they may not appear in that order in the finished product. However these cameras are far from perfect as the effects of lighting, however subtle, were very prominent in effecting the quality of footage and I also noticed that they picked up a lot of background noise that it converted to a noticeable buzzing in the shots.



I have also learnt that technology is not perfect, such as battery running out unexpectadly or computers crashing, and therefore I have learnt it is important to be prepared for these things. I did this through filming in a location close to where I could easily recharge my battery for the camera if needed, and also making sure my work was saved or atleast imported into more than one place.