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

Throughout our project I have learnt how to use different programmes on the Mac's. One example of a programme I can now competently use is FCE (Final Cut Express). Below is the layout of the programme once our piece was finished. It allowed us to monitor sound, picture, text and music and edit it all until it was in a position that matched our ideas. We were also able to change the background noise of each shot on each layer to suit our intentions and further increase the quality of our piece.

Below is the audio bar. This is what we used in order to add music, and edit the sound so it was in time with the piece and also ensure it was accurately fitted together so it sounded as good as it possibly could. Using music really helped us not only make it easier for the audience to distinguish our piece as a thriller, but also help to build suspense and create tension. Following on from our feedback in our preliminary we used no music and the mood of the film was therefore harder to interpret. We used that constructive criticism as a positive and used it to improve our final piece.

 Below is an example of a Fade transition. We used this in between shots (blue bars) to show a time lapse. It is an effective way to change the scene as it is smoother on the eyes of the audience and not as confusing as some jump cuts may be. We used it after the three protagonists have gone into the shop to show that time has passed and something may well have happened in that time. When the fade comes back up Sam has vanished therefore allowing the audience to presume that the time lapse is the period of time in which he had been taken by the Pursuant.

 Over the course I have also learnt how to edit and upload a video to youtube. This is something that I may use for future preference as I enjoy online gaming. We also learned that for some low funded companies Youtube is a great place to advertise their product. We linked that in to Social Media. We used Survey Monkey for the first time to get audience research through questionnaires. We also used Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter to promote our ideas to a potential target audience where we subsequently released a promotional poster via Photoshop which may also have been placed on such social media. I completed a task on Prezi also. Prezi is a programme online which I had not heard of before starting AS media and it is a programme that I will use rather than Microsoft PowerPoint as it is more attractive and easier to learn from.

I previously had no experience handling a camera. Since completing our final piece I have gained the knowledge of how to record and set up a tripod in order to hold the camera steady. I will take the knowledge I have gained from using Blogger and the other programmes into A2 and the knowledge I have gained this year will enable me to achieve my full potential next year.