Evaluation Activity 6

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

Filming Equipment

The uses of different technologies during production and post-production were one of our strongest aspects, and helped make our movie opening seem a real and immersive as possible. The image above is of our equipment we used we used during production. The camera we used was a Canon 70D with a Canon EF-S Zoom, 18-135mm, and lens. This DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera is capable of shooting 1920x1080p Full HD footage at 20, 25 and 30 frames per second. The Full HD resolution along with 30fps and a high bit rate allowed us to capture footage with very high fidelity. The Canon EF-S Zoom lens also allowed us to have a sharper and clearer image, and its 18-135mm range allowed us to capture a wider field of view compared to convention camera lenses with 50mm lenses. Another reason why we chose to use the Canon 70D is because of its amazing auto tracking focus and high ISO range. This meant that we could keep focus on the subject / character even when the camera moves around a lot.

Our microphone that we used was the K&F Concept Cardioid Microphone. We chose this cardioids microphone rather that an omnidirectional directional mic because cardioids mics pick up noise from in front of them and cancel out noise coming from behind, whereas an omnidirectional microphone picks up noise from everywhere. We could have an omnidirectional mic to capture more ambient sound but since we could drop in sound effects in post-production, there was no need to do so.

From the image above, you can see that we used a Glide-Cam Stabilizer. This used this stabilizer as it allowed us to capture more action shots rather than using a tripod and having a still shot. We could have used a tripod the whole time while filming and added camera shake in editing but we chose not to as it doesn’t give the same effect and feel as is we physically added camera shake when filming. Our film did contain a few still shots so that requires a tripod, but for the majority if the time, we used the FOTOWELT Glide-Cam Stabilizer.

We also used my Samsung Galaxy S6 to help produce our film. Although none of the film footage was captured with the S6, we did use it to record our film diaries and capture some images and footages for our research and planning. The great feature of the Samsung Galaxy S6 is that it is able to shoot at a verity of different resolutions and frame rated such Ultra HD 4K (3840x2160) at 30fps, Quad HD (2560x1440) at 30fps and Full HD (1920x1080) at 60 and 30fps.

Technology Program

The 4 main programmes we used during post production and editing is Sony Vegas Pro 13, Adobe After Effects CS6, Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Cinema 4D. Although some of these programmes may be similar, we used each programme for a specific thing.

Sony Vegas Pro was our video editing programme of choice because is contains a substantial amount of features to make a professional opening film and is quite easy and intuitive to use. I also personally knew how to use Sony Vegas quite well because of past experience. We also had a choice of using Adobe Premiere Elements 10 to edit our film in however we decided not to use it due to its lack of features.

We used Adobe After Effects, Photoshop and Cinema 4D to create the visual effects and animations in our film. We used Photoshop to create our film title and our institution logo, and then we exported it into After Effects where we then animated and render it. All of these are done on my personal computer because the PC’s at school didn’t have the correct software and they were much slower meaning that it would have taken substantially longer to complete the work. Adobe After Effects is a professional programme, also used by big companies, and it allowed us to ass many different visual elements into our film. This includes the muzzle flashes on guns and the blood hit marks.

The sniper scene in our film was the chip that took the longest to edit. It requires all four of the programmes. We first 3D motion tracked the camera in After Effects. We then modelled a sniper in Cinema 4D and textures it with Photoshop. This lengthy process took us a couple of weeks on and off. After having rendered the sniper rifle in C4D, it was brought into After Effects and Sony Vegas where we changed the colour scheme and added it the film. When adding Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) to our next project, we can do this whole process, or something similar, in a shorter time as we know what to do.

These two images are of our editing in Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe After Effects (SVP on the left, AE on the right). The screen shot of our editing in Sony Vegas Pro only shows off a small section of timeline. The screen shot of After Effects shows us editing our sniper scene. At that point, we had just finished rendering our sniper in Cinema 4D and it was brought in to AE where we integrated into the shot to make it fit into the hands of the antagonist.