Prelim task

During our filming lesson, we were divided into groups of 4, where we were given a scenario where someone walks through a door, says some dialogue to the person in the room and then walks out again.
This is the scenario we were given:

In my group there was Holly, Honey, Miran and I, but for our filming, we asked 2 people to act for us.
Before we could start filming, we had to set up the tripod and the camera. To do this we:

• Adjusted the tripod to the right height
• Bubbling the tripod to make it level
• Attatched the camera to the tripod
• Open the shutter on the camera and turn it on
• White balance the camera by facing it towards a white surface
• Adjust the shutter speed
• Focus the camera

This is the camera we used: Sony HDV HD HVR-V1

We had to do a variety of different shots in the short filming sequence:

• Wide shot

• Over the shoulder shot

• Close up

We also had to make sure that we didn't break the 180 degree rule:

Photoshop

During the past few weeks of using photoshop, I have explored a number of different tools:

• Lasso Tool (Cut)
• Blur Tool
• Spot healing brush Tool
• Blur Tool
• Text tool

I have then used different ways of adjusting the image such as:

• Hue/Saturation
• Match Colour
• Shadow/Highlight
• Transforming the image
• Scale
• Rotate

I found it quite hard to adjust the colour to make the images fit together smoothly. However, with more practise I think I'll find this easier with time.
I then looked into various ways of layering the pictures on top of one another. I found that the 'hard mix' layering technique worked the best, as I felt is blended the images together and made the image as a whole look much more professional.

At first, photoshop looked as though it was going to be difficult, however after spending a bit of time using it, I found that I was more familiar with the different tools and ways of manipulating the image. I definately think that using Photoshop is crucial to creating a Media Product, because it creates professional-looking posters and DVD covers in a small amount of time.

Thriller poster

Last week, we were divided into groups, where we went outside with the cameras and took some 'thriller' pictures. My group borrowed some tools from the drama department to emphasise the horror and thriller of our pictures. We then uploaded these pictures onto the computer, where we chose the ones which we wanted to use for our thriller poster.

For my poster, I chose to go for a more subtle approach to a thriller, and so I chose the picture of me walking with my back to the camera, with a hammer in my hand as I thought this picture looked innocent on the surface, but there was also something very mysterious about it. I uploaded this picture onto photoshop where I then cut out the outline of my body from the picture. I then uploaded an image of a subway from google which I imported into photoshop.

After altering the colour levels, hue and saturation, and contrast and brightness levels, I was able to capture the right look that I wanted for my Thriller poster. I then added a title, and some other text to make the poster look more like a poster as opposed to just an image.

Camera shots and Camera movement

Here are links to some OCR videos which show the different camera shots and camera movements that we have learnt:

Camera shots

Camera Movement

'Doctor Who?' Trailer

During our lesson, we worked on putting together different video clips, sound effects and music to make a 'Doctor Who?' Trailer. It was quite hard to smoothly link the clips in the trailer because there were no transitions that I could use to cross-fade different clips, however I do think I was successful with the available resources.

This is my trailer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/trailermaker/view/7iaqh7