Question 6:

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We have used a variety of techniques to make our blogs more versatile and more modern, this shows our understanding of modern technology and our ability to adapt it to suit our needs. Doing the research stage I used a combination of moovly, Scribd and Youtube, as well as the Blogger documents provided by the site.


Using moovly was a completely new technology to me, I had never put together a video like that before and I found the technology really easy to use which made the creation fun. It is, put simply, a series of animations strung together to deliver information to the viewer. I used moovly to present what I had learnt about sound and my ability to identify conventions of sound in an opening scene of a thriller. I found that the use of moovly made the presentation more entertaining for the viewer to watch and therefore held their attention for longer, I avoided dragging out cuts for too long so that the viewer doesn't get bored watching one part of information for an extended period of time that is unnecessary.

Scribd was very helpful converting my Word documents or PowerPoints into a file that can be easily placed onto my blog, particularly if those documents included images. However, I found that some of the images came out distorted or partially covering the text as a result. It was very easy to use but the waiting time for a document to be processed could occasionally drag out for too long.

This video was filmed as a vox pop on an iPhone, vox pops allow insight to the target audience's ideals and what they look for in an opening scene of a thriller. We filmed these videos on an iPhone as it is
easily transportable and produces a good quality image for it's size, however YouTube policies restricted us to 720p in video quality, having to pay if we wanted a higher quality.
A handy website that was frequently used as a thriller opening reference was artofthetitle.com, it had a database composed of thousands of films to pick from and was easy to navigate. It helped the process of selecting and finding a thriller opening to annotate or discuss in our research.
IMDB (Internet Movie Database) is a website dedicated to film ratings and reviews. It is home to most known films and the website provides with information such as genre, film summaries, age ratings, star ratings and much more. This was particularly proven useful when researching films where we weren't positive on their genre.
In the production of our opening sequence we used two separate tools to film on, tools such as a camera recorder and an iPhone, each tool had its pro's for filming with the iPhone producing a considerably high quality image and the camera recorder had the ability to film with ease and made the camera movement fluid. With this in mind we decided to use the camera recorder for long-distance shots and the iPhone for the more up close and personal shots that will be needed to be seen in more detail. I was chosen as the cameraman as I could keep my hands steady when filming to create a more professional finish to our production. I made sure to use different techniques and a range of camera-angles such as birds-eye-view shot and tilt shots to create different effects and to make the opening more interesting. To make sure that our opening sequence was as clear as possible we made sure to film in the correct conditions by looking at the weather forecast before finalising a filming date, on the day of filming the weather was slightly overcast which created an even wash of light but wasn't too dark to restrict the light and make the picture grainy. When we were filming on the camera recorder we used a tripod, a piece of equipment that led to ease of movement and prevented the shaky hand-held look that can be obtained form using a camera without a tripod. We used a range of different shot-types, including close-ups, tracking shot, birds-eye-view shot, over the shoulder shot, and a mid-shot. We darkened the lighting in the shots taken bin the woodland area to make it look more eerie, we did this by using a filter provided on iMovie, another filter found on iMovie created the effect of an old camera recorder which we felt was an effective, rustic touch that created a sinister effect.

This is a tilt shot, we decided on using this particular shot-type as we felt that it gave the ability to show in enough detail what is happening as the cigarette is lit but then also allows us to control the camera so that the face does not appear on-screen. This is a shot where the image has been darkened to create the more eerie effect in the woods and to also reduce the saturation and brighter colours of the original video making it more toned down and masculine.

We use a tracking shot here, this is due to the fact that we wanted to show the subject entering the room but in a more exciting way than a static mid-shot of the subject appearing and entering. This also kept to the feeling of anonymity to create the enigma of just who these characters are.

A birds-eye-view shot was taken here as we found it effective to show the environment the spy is working in, the subject of the shot is the spy's hands and shows that he is gripping on to the rock for balance which signifies the uneven terrain he is clambering across as he needs support to hold himself up. It also uses focus effectively with the foreground completely in focus and the background slightly out of focus, pulling the attention to the front.

This over the shoulder shot shows the action of the subject without giving away any distinguishable features, still keeping the identity anonymous. It shows the subject reading from an up-to-date newspaper which is a common stereotype in middle to upper class men. This shot follows the golden mean with the golden mean crossing over the subjects head and the newspaper.

We used a mid-shot here to show most of the subject on screen to show their posture and action whilst still facing away to keep his identity enigmatic. This is another example of the darkened filter used to
create an eerie atmosphere. The main focal point is the killer in position at the far right, the attention is then drawn from the killer down the gun to the centre.

A close-up was used here to show the gun in detail and to emphasise the action of the finger on the trigger, ready to fire. This introduces an imminent sense of danger as the audience recognise the gun and the way it is held symbolising that something is about to end with a gunshot. The rule of thirds is being used here with the main focal points being the hands on the gun.

This is a close-up of the back of the killer, it has been slowed down from its original speed to make it seem more natural as the original movement of the shoulders used to connote a deep breath was too dramatic and exaggerated to be seen as normal. It adds to the suspension as it denotes the killer getting ready to take the shot, bringing the end of a life one-step closer. The rule of thirds has been used here with the shoulders and back being the main focal points.

This is a close-up of the tools and props laid out on the killers table. The use of a close-up shows the props in detail, particularly focusing on the lethality of them. A filter has been paced over the image so as to create a camera recorder effect ad therefore a more sinister atmosphere as though the killer took the video himself to show off his extensive collection of weapons and information about his target.