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

Before starting the preliminary, and even before starting my media course, I hadn't used the technologies we were provided before. I had never used a proper video camera and operated it myself before, and making my preliminary let me get a feel of what it was like to shoot footage, and the process behind it. We made sure that everyone in our group had that same experience, just incase we ever needed to swap roles in shooting. This is very beneficial towards shooting to have backup people at hand, as if the main camera operator is ever ill or for some reason cannot make it to filming, we can have someone else to do it with the same amount of experience. I had also never used an Apple iMac before either. This was not a problem as it was easy to pick up as I had experience with various other computers and operating systems. We used them to edit our footage, and the program was simple enough to get a grasp of how to use it, easily and quickly. It was a simple drag and drop process, and then cutting footage was as simple as highlighting and deleting what you want at the click of a button. All of the necessary functions were learnt during the preliminary, and so when it came to editing the main task it was less of a struggle.
Having a portable camera was beneficial to filming as it meant no matter where we needed to go, it was easy to take with us. Everything needed including the tripod was easily carried. It was also very easy to operate the camera. Having an easy to use editing software also made our task a little bit easier. Although editing still takes a lot of time and effort, it still makes it easier to get on with, having a program that isn't overly complicated. It made adding sounds, music, transitions, fades, and titles really easy to add and remove and change around. Obviously, these technologies do not come without limitations. The camera's microphone was quite good. But at times one would have to shout to be heard on it on say, a long shot. Also this made it difficult to film outside, as the microphone wasnt designed to withstand the effects of weather. Wind and other would be easily picked up on the camera, making it slightly more difficult to find locations, or film outside if it was necessary, as dialogue would be hard to hear. Also using a tripod can sometimes put a limit on mobility, when thinking about complex or moving shots. The only real problem with the editing software was that we could not apply special effects. Due to our genre being fantasy, we could have probably been benefitted by use of some special effects, and definitely would have needed some, had we of been making the whole film. Technologies allowing us to use better effects could have helped us to make our media product more successful. This could have given our film a better look to it. Also better cameras could have helped as sometimes the microphone wasnt picking up dialogue greatly (although this can be fixed during editing) and sometimes shots seemed a little grainy. With these technologies our film could have been made better, but I feel that we did well with the technologies we had.