Technical skills I have developed during AS.

During the AS course we learnt many technical skills from filmmaking to editing to sound. We learnt how to use, Livetype. It is a program to create titles using different fonts, special effects on a range of backgrounds and colours. There are 'millions' of different options to choose from so it is not hard to find something which will suit people's needs. LiveFont is one of the program's key features. These are fonts with animated characters. Examples of the LiveFonts shipped with Livetype are animated handwriting, smoke writing, fire, and blinking LED characters. It is also possible to create custom LiveFonts, but the necessity of generating a separate movie file for each letter makes the file sizes very large. Final Cut Pro was the editing program we used to put together all our clips, add fades, dissolves, overlapping effects, shorten clips and finalize our thriller.

Soundtrack pro is a program which allows you to create your own soundtrack. It provides range of much different sound. We can choose them form menu. They are divided into several groups of hundred sound from orchestral, natural sounds from home/work, nature sounds, vocal sounds, like breathing, singing and talking, drums, violins and heavy beats, mysterious, guitar. A new programme which I have learnt to use is Handbrake. This is a programme which converts files into another suitable type of file so that you can upload videos onto the blog. It converts MOV. files into MP4. files.

We got introduced to our cameras which we used to make our thriller openings. The JVC GY-HM100 is the smallest professional format camcorder available at about the size of a lens for a 2/3-inch imager camera. This makes it ideal for applications where a full size camera would be impractical, such as tight spaces and operating in potentially unsafe situations. In order to keep the cameras safe and working, there were rules we had to follow. Always make sure the camera is in a safe place, e.g. in a bag, being held, and not on the floor, or on a bench where it could easily be broken or lost. Treat it like it's your own. Insert the right sim card, the right way. Never touch the viewfinder or the lens as your fingerprints will remain. Return all equipment back to staff when finished at the end time. Don’t leave the camera on when it is not being used, and no filming in rain unless umbrella is over it. We also have tripods to help us achieve our movies, they are necessary when slow-speed exposures are being made, or when telephoto lenses are used, as any camera movement while the shutter is open will produce a blurred image.