Evaluation question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In our group, i had the role of editing and the majority of the technical roles as i have a lot of experience with using video editing software, cameras, effects software etc... however i did still learn certain things within our production of the opening sequence task, which have built upon my already present knowledge of technology.

Editing software: Sony Vegas

I have been personally using Sony vegas to edit my own personal videos for the last 2 years, of which i have learnt the basics and some of the advanced features of the software to a point of which i could say i would happily become the groups editor to do the job. Even though i was already confident in my knowledge of vegas, i still managed to learn a few more features, these would include:

 - using the "take snapshot" button within vegas to take remarkably still images of the moving image from a video, to therefore create the effect of motion standing still, or to pro long a shot so the audience has time to look at it properly. This new understanding and knowledge of the feature within vegas i already knew, however i didn't know which settings were best for using it until i played around with it enough to get its best results, which are chosen on the preview settings as - "best" & "full", a screen shot of the still snapshot tool in action pasted below, which was used to ensure a credit was to be full read by the audience before progression onto the next clip occurred:

Effects software: Adobe After effects

I have never used After effects before, and so it was a real challenge for me to create a professional looking company logo introduction for our opening sequence, however after some help from a friend of mine with a vast knowledge of after effects i was able to use its basic functions of over laying layers, grouping layers together, creating a glass smashing effect on not 1 but 2 layers to smash both glass and our company  name, i also learnt how to apply a spotlight effect to get the desired lighting on the glass to give a misted glass effect so the audience aren't able to see our 6 fingered hand logo until it appears to come forward and smash the glass, an effect created by simply enlarging the image of the hand in 2 stages. this is my finished company introduction rendered/exported from after effects:

Not only did i use a friend of mine for learning the after effects tricks, i also watched some YouTube tutorial videos like the one below to really learn how to apply the desired effects in the best way possible.

Camera: Sony HDR - CX250 HANDYCAM

even though i was the editor in our group, i also did some filming with the cameras that our college own, the cameras we used were the Sony HDR - CX250 HANDYCAM's, which i used the following features of:

- taking still images: example shot i took for the location recee

- image stabilization: example i shot for the CCTV scene of our antagonist

video mode: used all the way through the clip: example is our finished product where any moving motion is displayed outside of the company logo animation.




Video Web Hoster: YouTube

Although i already upload videos to YouTube frequently i did not know how to share videos by embedding them, this feature i had to learn quickly in order to publish our desired videos to my blog, these would include my preliminary task, sequence drafts, our final product and my 4th evaluation question. here is where the embed option is on the YouTube video page:

and here is what the embedded video looks like once pasted into the HTML format code within the blogs new post creator:

and heres how an embedded video looks once fully posted to my blog:

as you can see before the production of our opening sequence i already had a good level of knowledge of the software and hardware i was going to use, but throughout our production i have still learnt certain features and methods of inputting, processing and outputs from each of the software programmes and hardware peripherals.