Process Evaluation of Ultra Short Film

Software applications

The software application is the editing software that I had used to edit you project on. It is a digital source where it is usually placed on a computer or laptop of where you can get access to it. It is software where you cut and stitch digital video together.

The software applications that I had used for the post productions stage of the ultra-short film was Final cut X  version 10.2.3 it is an advance editing programme that is only found on an apple platform, for example the I-Mac, MacBook pro or air.

The effect that I had when using this application is that it was an advances editing software what this program allowed me to do is more technical edits such as, colour correct, colour grading and sound mixing, these elements had allowed me to editing my ultra-short film to a high film slandered for my audience to view later in the final cut.

Hardware (Non Linear)

Hard ware is the physically elements that you had used to edit your project. What this could count as is a laptop, net book or a computer. It is hardware where you could get easy access to the editing software application.

The hardware that we had used to edit that ultra short film on was the I-Mac. It is an apple product which allowed us to run our software applications without any problems. We had this hardware because it was the only hardware which allowed final cut x to be accessible on it.

The reasoning of why we had used the I-Mac for our hardware was that the editing software that we had was final cut x and only ran on apple computer. We had also used this because it was a fast hardware which ran the interface of the software clearly. The IMac was all in one built which allowed me to access the SD cards ports easily.

High Definition/Stranded definition 

High definition and slandered definition is the quality of what you have filmed and edited you video at. It is also the frame that you have also filmed at that could affect the quality of you video. Film is usually filmed at 25 fps with a 1080p quality.

I had filmed the footage at a high definition frame ate i had filmed the ultra-short film at 1080HD at 25 frames per second, as this is the standard HD film rate that the film should be filmed and edited at. I had made the editing software setting at 1080p at 25fps to match the recorded quality and not to lose out on quality.

The reasoning of why we had filmed and rendered the video at High definitions is that I wanted to get the best quality out of the final video file. I also wanted the audience to watch the ultra-short film at its best viewing quality.

Tapes

Tapes are the storage of where we had recorded the footage on. What this tape could be is tape, film reel, SSD or a SD card. This is where the camera footage is placed a then is placed into the hardware and transferred to.

What I had used as tapes where SD cards as this was the only sources of tapes that were accessible for the camera and also this was easy to upload the takes onto the I Mac because it has a SD cards slot to transfer the footage to the local hard drive.

The reasoning of why we had SD cards to place to footage on was that it was the only tape that was able to be placed into the camera to record the footage on. Why we had used SD cards was it allowed us to place the footage onto a tapes that was easy to access.

Hard disc

The hard disc is where the footage was imported to and where it was stored and placed. It is an internal hard dive that is placed in the hardware that you are using to editing you film project on. It is a drive that could be 250GB to 2TB hard drive.

The hard disc that the footage was placed at the local hard drive on the IMac. It is where we had uploaded the footage from the tapes into the local hard drive. By doing this it allowed us to place the footage on a file that was easy to access when editing the file and this allowed us to place a large amount of footage onto the file 

The reasoning of why we use hard disc is that it allows us to upload the footage into a placed that was easy to access when editing. The effect of uploaded to a hard disc is that it is internal placed on the I Mac which makes it reliable, because the hard drive is internal.

Data Transfer rates

The data transfer rate, is the speed that the tapes transfer all of the recorded footage onto the hard disc on the hardware. It's the rate the video is uploaded at and the duration it takes to upload all of the footage onto the software ware it will be edited at.

In this case the data transfer rates were coming from the SD cards. The rate that the SD cards were transferred at was 80mb/s. What this mean is every 80mb of footage it would take one second to transfer into the I Mac.

The effect that this process has is it allowed the upload of footage to be faster. Before it use to take 1 second for every one second of footage , which meant it would cost a lot of time, but due to the technology development it has allowed us to transfer the footage faster onto the I Macs and has allowed us to spend more time to edit the project.

Exporting Productions

Exporting Productions is the end step that you do when you have complete the final cut of the project. This is where you render the project into one file.

What I had done is that I had rendered the final cut of the ultra-short film to 1080pHD of 25fps. This process took 3min. This was a quick and easy process where it made the file be condensed down into a smaller file for other to load the video up easy without any buffering

The effect that this process is that it is the final step when you have completed the project is a step that allows you to distribute your film that you have complete it is to create one file where you can view on multiple devices.

File types, eg mov, avi, flv:

File type is the file that the final video project was rendered. And what the platform the videos could be viewed at. Some of the file type example includes mov, avi, flv and mp4. It is the file of where the project will be compressed at and the file would be labelled at.

The file type that I had rendered the video at was MOV. The reasoning for this was that the hardware that I was working on was an I Mac and the default video file type is MOV on quick time, which made the video easy to view on the I-Mac.

The effect that I have on choosing this file type is that it may be harder to view on other platforms for example a window computer may not support the MOV file which may lead to downloading a different video viewer. Some of the other file type may be expensive to view such as the flv file as you will need Adobe flash software which needs to be purchased.

Compression

Compression is a process of where the file that you have been working on in the editing software is condensed down into a small file. The stage that this process is done at is at the final stage of rendering the file project into one file.

I had compressed the file twice; the first stage was at the rendering stage where I had compressed the 20GB file into a 350MB mov file. Then it was compressed at the stage of the uploading the video at the process stage, where it made the video size smaller size.

How this process my effect my video is by compressing the size of the video, it will lead to losing out quality of the video when rendering the video and by the compression process on YouTube this will also reduce the quality of sound and video. This is a good effect where it is quicker to load up the video because it has a smaller file to load.

Preparing footage for editing

Ultra Short Film

Rushes Log

Production Reflection

What were the main strengths of your production phase?

The strength that we had during the production phase was the technical skills as we as a team had our equipment when we need it at the right time. What this had done is that it allowed us to film as many takes as possible without wasing anytime. the equmnetss was placed in the right place at the right time, you will see in the contnet that the sound recodes are placed correctly by the team , as techncally we had a 

Another strength that we had in the production was that all of crew member that was in charge of sound, camera, script (Directing) showed up on time at 7:00am, as we were intended todo.Which had really helped us on time managment and to get the right look aesthtics of the shoot.We were able to shoot 80% of the film in one day, i am proud of this due to the lake of light and the amount of shots we had on our shooting script.

What challenges did you face during the production phase and how did you overcome them?

The challenges that we faced during the production phase was that we did not have enough sunlight time when filming, as we had started the production at 7:00 am but did not have enough time of day to complete all the shots.How we had overcome this problem is that we had to spread out the filming on to do day to get the fullest of the daylight, the effect that this created is that it allowed us to release pressure from the crew and cast of not cramming all of the filming in one day.

What other challenges that we faced during the production phase is that the microphone that we were using died out, because the batteries had run out, we had realised this after we had record the performance that the microphone had died, which had impacted us to a really going performance that we had filmed on screen. how we had resolve this is that we had replaced the batteries in the microphone, what effect this created is this had cost us some time because we did not have the correct ones and had to go to the local shop.

What changes did you make from your planning? Why did you change these things?What was the impact of the changes?

The changes that we had made to the scrip when filming is that the montage section was location was changed from the Park bench to the living room at Ben house. why we had changed the location is that it would make the scene look more believable this has also allowed the to indicate more of the genera of the film of British realism. What was the impact of this change is that we had control of the environment that we filmed at, at this allowed the use to create a locations that match the characters conditions and the genre.
We had made a change of the duration we were going to film on set of the production, as we had released that there was not enough sunlight left in the day and also that one of our actors did not show up when we had needed them, what we had is add another day to the production, to allow us to spread out our film schedule. what effect that this had is this made it easier for the actors and the crew because it allowed them to spread there time out instead of filming all in one day which could have drained the actors and effect there performance.

What improvements would you make to your production Process if you were to do it again?

What improvement that I would have made if i had done the production again is that I would have, picked out more reliable actors that would show up on time, and that would be committed to working with us on the project. As one of the actors that we has waited to film an outdoor scene did not show up, why this was an effect to our production is that we had limited amount of sunlight left to film outside.

Another improvement that i would include when doing the production process again is that i would have filming the indoor location with more light. as we can see this in the encounter part of the filming we had done, as the lighting in the door was to dark, which lost out of detail in the shot, the effect of this is that it had made the  footage look non-professional, due to the grains shown in the shot from the low light condition.