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

Blogger has been a huge help in the production of my film. I learnt how to use Blogger to record my research into the Thriller genre and how the directors utilise generic forms and conventions, using my findings to strengthen my ideas for my own thriller. I also learnt how to upload digital photos for a story board and annotated them, stating camera angles and lighting so that when I came to shoot my film, I knew exactly what to do and when. I have also used YouTube to strengthen my research and planning, taking clips from various thriller films and embedding them onto my blog. Blogger also has a ‘comments’ box which allows teachers and fellow students to comment on our work, allowing us to develop our ideas with further help. I have learnt that using websites such as Blogger are essential for people showing off their work and becoming known with the public. For example, people who wish to make an independent film, can use a website like Blogger to show their previous work, their views on other films and what they wish to do in the future. Millions of people have a blog, and millions more than this regularly read blogs. An example of this is this very blog. I only use it for my media Alevel, and have a grand total of 3 followers, yet looking at my 'stats' on the home page, in just over a year I have had 3,103 page views, with 345 views last month alone which is a huge amount considering I don't advertise my blog in any way. Therefore this shows that anyone who has a blog will get their work seen by thousands of other people.
    I have also uploaded ‘Intruder’ to YouTube, giving audiences the ability to view my opening for free and on demand, without the use of a CD. This allows as many people as possible to view my film, creating ‘word of mouth’ so that if I wanted to develop my film, Independent film companies may want to distribute it. YouTube also helped me to research other films so that I could easily access the clips needed, helping me to create intertextual references and find out what kind of soundtrack would be suitable for ‘Intruder’. I learnt that by using YouTube makes someone's video accessible to everyone who has internet access. YouTube therefore gives people who may not have the facilities otherwise, to create, upload and share their videos. This is essential for people creating independent films to get their work well known. Nearly 8 years of content are uploaded to YouTube every day which are available to Millions of users. Nearly 3 billions videos are viewed daily.
    In the research and planning, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) was essential in gathering information about directors, character names and the year the film was made. IMDb also offers reviews and user ratings on every single film on the database. It was essential knowing other people’s other opinions on the thriller films researched because I found out what they did not like about the film, therefore, I know to avoid this when creating my own thriller film. IMDb includes for each film a graph which tells you which demographic enjoyed the film the most, for example, ‘males under 18’. I used this graph in order to find out which demographic would most enjoy my thriller by finding out which demographic enjoys films or television series similar to my own.
    I also used my social network site, Facebook to ask people to contribute to ideas, planning dates with Evie when to film and afterwards, what people thought of my film. I learnt that social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter are essential for 'word of mouth'. For example, in class when we were asked where we found out about top new films coming out at the cinema, about 75% said they found out from people talking about it on websites such as Facebook. Therefore for someone making an independent film, such social network mediums are essential in getting their film 'out there'.
    I used digital cameras during the planning in order to create a story board and experiment with lighting and camera angles, this allowed me to perfect my ideas early on rather than turning up on the day of the shoot and finding out that it didn’t work. For the actual shoot, I used a camcorder which was light, practical and easy to use with the aid of a tripod and ‘Dolly’ to allow for easy movements in the scene where the camera is following Jo and the Intruder down the corridor. With the camcorder, I was able to review raw footage as soon as it was taken to see if I needed to shoot that scene again, and to ensure that the lighting was correct and not too dark or too light.
   Finally, I used Adobe Premier to edit my film. I found this extremely easy to use and very helpful in selecting and deleting the unwanted shots leaving the ones I needed for my final cut. I would chose an ‘input’ and ‘output’ second and drag the clip onto the timeline allowing the transactions to flow effectively. I was also able to uploaded a soundtrack onto Premier which could run alongside my diagetic sound building up tension where needed in the clip. I used the ‘Cross Dissolve’ and ‘Dip to Black’ transactions so that the two cuts run over each other which once again helped the different cuts to run smoothly. Premier also allowed me to add titles to my film which gives the audience essential information such as the director and actors.

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