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

Research and planning: The internet when researching thriller texts (and other genre media texts) already in existence, so as to draw inspiration from them when planning our own, the internet proved the best way to quickly expand my knowledge. I also used the web to research the locations we planned on using, such as Weybourne beach and, although our thriller does not take place there, Baconsthorpe Castle. Whilst researching such things as sunrise times and the distance from Norwich to Weybourne, I also discovered that a dead body was washed up on the beach in 1990. This information would not have been available to me should I not have utilised the internet during the research stage of our thriller. Mobile phone cameras and digital cameras both of these technologies helped the planning process of Beach Comber. Taking pictures saw us better able to remember and then picture filming our thriller at the beach as well as train us in mastering generic camera angles. Shooting and editing: Camcorders as I did not feature in our final narrative, myself and Sin did a lot of the filming. We rarely used a tripod or any other camcorder aid, so I really learnt how to man the Nikon D90 DSLR we shot with. In particular, I recall experimenting with the deep and shallow focuses. Despite neither making prominent features in our final cut, I now know how to effectively change the focus depending upon the subject and its distance from the lens. Octocopter we fortunately were able to utilise an octocopter having planned to be the first year 12 Media Studies students from CNS to include aerial footage in their coursework. The footage collected using this new technology is very aesthetically pleasing. We controlled the octocopter with two remotes, steering the framework of the equipment with one and the camera itself with the other. The camera sent a live feed to a por table screen, so we could check to see we were obtaining the desired footage. Adobe Premier Pro CS5 this platform was accessed throughout the editing process of both our preliminary tasks and our thrillers. I was lucky enough to have prior knowledge of the programme having used it for projects during GCSE Media Studies. The razor tool, crossbar dissolves, and dips to black were rather familiar means of editing to me, but I built upon each in order to edit our thriller and make it appear a text of the thriller genre. I remember learning how to texturise a moving image without actually adding a filter to it; by colour correcting and adjusting the brightness and contrast and making all three darker, we achieved a gritty feel to our two minute opening in the absence of any obvious and overdone gritty filters. Recording these processes on your blog: PowerPoint I created an account on Scribd so as to allow me to present my evaluative responses in a more creative and engaging way. Aerial shot commentary I created a voiceover video with another member of my group. We recorded ourselves using a voice recorder lent to us via the school Media department before uploading our audio commentary onto Premier Pro (the same editor we used to edit our thriller opening) and editing the visual aerial footage so that it would match what we were saying, or be in sync with our voices. Through this process, I felt more confident when approaching Premier Pro to edit our thriller final cut. Communicating and collaborating: YouTube this website was used to share ideas and inspiration by circulating videos within our group. I emailed a YouTube link to Silent Things, a White Lantern Film, to my group members during the planning stage of our thriller. We later referred to the short film when concluding upon employing a ghostly, isolated beach setting in our opening. Twitter, Facebook and mobile phones we kept in constant contact, both on days of shooting and throughout the course, via social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. I remember, when making sure we captured the correct action in our aerial footage, calling each other over and over again from the beach to the top of the cliff, which is where the octocopter was being operated from. Without giving each other cues via mobile phone calls so as to say when to fly the octocopter over the cliff edge, we would have struggled to film at the right time, as Sam and Ian walked below.