Evaluation Of My Short Film

Evaluation

Going into this mini assignment I had not had much experience with Final Cut Pro or any form of media studies before, leaving me at a slight disadvantage to the other students who took GCSE media studies and encountered Final Cut Pro several times during the course last year. However, I have used a programme in ICT in year 9 which is called Serif Movie Plus.  This is similar in the sense that you have to attach and bind different clips together to make one running film. Because of my experience with this programme I understood the basics of how to work Final Cut Pro.

The first thing we had to do was create a story board of our mini film. This involved describing each scene in detail so when we took to go and film the scenes we would know exactly what was going on and be able to set up and film in no time at all. It was over the two lessons it took to film the clips that we would be using in our mini film that I began to understand the importance of storyboarding. All throughout the filming process we referred to the storyboard because it was essentially the guidelines to making a successful film, for example as part of the storyboard we had to write the duration of the clip and when we filmed we looked at the sheet and knew how long to record for leaving extra time for when we come to edit. The camera instructions part of the storyboard sheet was also a big help when it came to recording because we noted down what camera angles we thought best suited the situation (for example, a wide angle shot to show the extremity of the man’s situation.) We easily followed these camera instructions off the sheet which made it a lot easier than if we have had no indication of what type of shot to do or what position to stand in.

After creating a story board that we could follow easily we took to the school grounds to film our clips. We had general ideas of where about we would be filming the clips because we thought about it and discussed it while creating the story board which meant we didn’t spend much time on choosing the best location for each scene. Our filming equipment involved an iPad, a tripod and also my iPhone for one of the times where we were having technical difficulties with the iPad. The camera on the iPad was easy to use and it produced quite a good picture, moreover the tripod helped a lot with the filming because it helped to keep a still and steady shot while we recorded. Simply filming with the iPad in our hand would have made the clip picture shaky and unprofessional. On the down side we found it quite difficult to include some of the camera shots we said we would use in our story board. This is mainly down the lack of professional equipment that we had; although the iPads were easy to use and produced good quality picture, we weren’t able to film from some of the camera angles that we would have liked to. Furthermore, the area we had to film our clips was limited. We found that on some occasions we could not film a wide angle shot because our filming area was not suitable as there was several eyesores around our filming area which made the shot look unattractive.  On the whole I think filming was a success as we got all the clips we wanted to which included a range of shot types and decent camera angles (for our location). Not only was it a success but I found the filming to be quite fun and I can honestly say I am looking forward to filming in other projects that we are set over the AS course.

As I mentioned before I’ve had experience with movie maker programmes such as Serif and this meant that I had an understanding about some of the simpler skills when coming to edit on Final Cut Pro X. Importing media was a basic task which I managed to grasp fairly quickly despite it being slightly different from something I’d come across in the Past, but I reckon that by the end of the year something like importing media and inserting clips on the timeline will come about like clockwork. When we filmed we left the camera rolling a few seconds after the scene ended so we could trim and fade the clips in and out of one another to make it look more professional.  I discovered that you can trim a clip by selecting the Blade tool from the pop-up menu in the toolbar and then move the skimmer to the frame in the clip where you want to cut. This was a really important skill that I picked up because it means I can control the lengths of different clips to delete any unwanted footage. Another key skill I picked up from editing the clips is how to apply transitions to the film which can be done by choosing the “Insert with Transition” option in tool bar when you edit a clip into your sequence. Adding audio was simple enough for everyone to find which was done by clicking the music and sound button in the toolbar; from there we could choose from a big range of songs and sound effects. It was at this point we struggled to find a song that we wanted in our film; we searched iTunes and were successful in finding it however we couldn’t use it in our project because it was copyrighted.

Generally I found using Final Cut Pro X very helpful as I now know how to use most of the features within the programme and I am confident I can apply them in my coursework. I was really pleased with the end product of the film because it was funny and entertaining which was our goal right from the beginning when we made our plan. One of the biggest problems with the film was the clip not filling the whole of the screen which is a negative of using an iPad to record; however, there isn’t much we can do about that when there is limited recording technology at our expense. In the future I would like to develop my fading clips technique so that the film will look more real and professional when it is finished. Never the less I am happy with how the project turned out and am looking forward to the portfolio coursework now that I am more confident with using Final Cut Pro X.