AS Media evaluation question 6

1. Technology

2. Overview
Overall, my understanding and ability to use media
technologies has improved. Mainly my efficiency in using
Adobe Premiere Pro has gotten better and I'm editing
videos faster. I also have a better understanding of Cameras
and Microphones and their use on the field since the
beginning of the course.

3. Hardware
In terms of hardware, my ability to use each piece effectively greatly
increased throughout the project as I had little to no knowledge on
how to correctly use each piece before hand.
For filming we used a Canon 600d with a stock lens. This wasn’t too
bad and a quick youtube tutorial taught be all I needed to know to
film with it. What I found difficult about using this piece of hardware
was its lack of flexibility when shooting film. The DSLR camera was
primarily designed for still images and this was evident by it’s clunky
focus adjustments and limited options for filming.
The use of a good mic provided by RODE was necessary for filming at
the location as it was in the middle of a windy area, I also used a wind
sock to reduce the noise of the wind further which produced no
peaking or wind noises in our final piece. However, the use of mics
could have been improved through the use of a boom stick or close
proximity mics for each of my actors, I mention this as behind our
camera/mic was a stream which was very loud and was picked up
during filming.
Finally to keep our camera steady we used a standard tripod. It
wasn’t very hard to use but as for improvements, if we were to have
a Steadicam available I would have felt a lot more comfortable with
moving shots and not losing overall quality due to a shaky camera
movement.

4. Software
The editing software I used was Adobe’s Premiere Pro
CC version 6.0 and 7.0. For the most part I knew how to
use the software rather well but what did improve was
my ability in using the software to spot mistakes and
correct them more quickly while working resulting in
faster editing times.
I used premiere pro to colour balance all my shots as
well as control the peaking of the mic through gain
control and obviously cut together all my shots and add
audio tracks and sound effects. I also turned slightly into
the use of Audacity, a freeware audio editing
application in order to try and ‘fix’ some imperfections
in my audio track.

5. Audio
As previously mentioned I used the RODE mic for on location
audio and then the limited effects in Premiere Pro to tweak it,
also tried implementing Audacity edited clips into my final
piece with little success. I also used audio effects and music
sourced from the internet. From previous involvement in
creating videos for the online streaming service ‘Youtube’ I
was familiar with the music I was able to use for my final piece
locating my music and audio from copyright free, royalty free
and creative commons enabled libraries. The main one I used
was Youtube’s very own music library as I knew I could use all
of the sounds effects and music tracks their without infringing
on any copyright laws. I was even able to educate my class on
what they could and couldn’t use from this library and how to
use it correctly (metioning composers and original authors if it
was required under the creative commons agreement.)
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6. Conclusion
In conclusion I had to use almost every piece of technology
available to effectively create my final piece and each bit was
vitally important to my final construction. Together with the
use of the more modern technology (DLSR Cameras/RODE
mics/Premeire Pro 7) and the use of other more traditional
media (storyboarding and scheduling sheets) the final piece
came together better than expected considering it was the
first ever live action construction I had created.

7. Conclusion
In conclusion I had to use almost every piece of technology
available to effectively create my final piece and each bit was
vitally important to my final construction. Together with the
use of the more modern technology (DLSR Cameras/RODE
mics/Premeire Pro 7) and the use of other more traditional
media (storyboarding and scheduling sheets) the final piece
came together better than expected considering it was the
first ever live action construction I had created.