Introduction to Camera and Editing

In my media lesson we got to use cameras. I have never done any type of filming for media before so this was my first chance to learn everything. I was excited to have the opportunity to use the camera. In the lesson I learned how to:

• place the battery into the camera and take it out
• put the memory cards into the camera
• place the camera on the tripod and how to take it off
• film

I was also told they safety precautions for the camera. I like the tripod because it lets us pan and tilt, but I had some difficulty putting the camera onto the tripod and taking it off.

My group were give the story of a 'Bag Swap'. We had many ideas, but we all agreed on the same one; a confronted bag swap. We decided that we will not see the main characters face and both characters were spies. This was how we made it interesting.

The next lesson we were able to film. I was excited but really scared too. We had our storyboard and our ideas ready. We also knew we had to get an extreme close up, a close up, an over the shoulder shot and a point of view shot. We ended up of too many shots, that were not long enough. If we had more time I think the movie could have been longer and the outcome would have been better than the one we have now.

Our movie was filmed in the hall of the college. We made it a public area because we wanted the bag swap to stand out to everything around it. We made sure that both characters had bags that looked similar or we used the same bag. We used the tripod for most shots, but some were hand-held such as the point of view shot.

Once we finished we went back to the class and uploaded the clips onto the macs and used Final Cut Pro to edit the clips. Some clips fitted well together whereas others needed more time or an extra clip to look good. I enjoyed using Final Cut Pro because it was the first time i had ever used it and i learned a lot that I could do to the clips. This helped us work as a group and I got to know everyone in my group better. We were also able to be very creative.

3 things we did well:

• Our point of view shot looked really realistic.
• We used a variety of shots.
• Our panning.

Three things we could improve on:

• Less head space above the actors.
• Manage the time we have better.
• Work on the editing.