Construction 9: My Technical Learning Curve (Production and Post-Production)

I learnt how to use a jib for
the first time.

During production, I learnt things mainly relating to the setup of the scene. This had to do mainly with managing the different lights, as I hadn't done this before. I learnt that we could fine tune the lighting to make it as light or dark as we needed for each shot. This allowed us to achieve the best lighting for each shot we used, even if we only fully grasped how to use this effectively by our last shoot. Another thing I learnt during the production of our sequence was how to set up and use a camera jib, although we decided to not do a jib shot in the later shoots as we were limited with time, I think it was very useful learning how to use a jib as this knowledge could come in handy in future. I mostly knew how to use the camera from my experience in media GCSE; although I did learn how to do a focus pull and I practiced the panning movement of the camera.

I think I learnt the most during the post-production phase. This learning had to do with using the editing software Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects. I did have some experience with Premier Pro from before, but I learnt that careful cutting was important to keeping continuity. I also learnt a lot to do with grading, and how the consistent grading left a similar look throughout the opening, making it look a lot better. I also learnt how to use Adobe After Effects and how to place special effects into a shot. Another technique I learnt to use in After Effects is masking, which let me change the lighting of shots; we used this for the flash of the gun and for shots where the lighting was off.

Learning how to use after effects was hard, but useful