How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Codes and Conventions
I rated myself 4 at the start because at that time I wasn't so sure about what codes and conventions are. I only knew that conventions are things we put in the movies to make meaning out of it but I knew a little about codes. During the time that we were deciding about the plot, I felt like I know more about them since I did a lot of research of what codes and conventions spy movies should have to make it a good spy movie. Codes are systems of signs which create meaning for example, camera work is a technical codes. Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something or something that usually done for example, there will be the spy protagonist with bad guys and they will be given missions. I rated myself up by +3 because in order to make a plot or before I do anything I have to be able to identify what codes and conventions are first. I knew the meaning of it but not fully understand in the practical way that is why I am not giving myself a full score.
Planning and Organisation
In the process of planing and organising, it was Tanya who did all the communication with getting actors and the one who kept reminding me of deadlines. I did the part of organising props and location which I think I did it well because it was my responsibility to ask for a permission before using my condo as a location. After I finished editing my movie, I have learned about being prepared and to plan ahead of how we will be using our time efficiently in our media class to edit the video. All the work needed to be spread out to our members of the group so that way we can be able to finish it in time and that is where everyone was very organised so I am giving myself +2.
Camera Work
When I was doing the story board I know I have to also think about the camera angles therefore I can understand the general idea of how it will affect the meanings. However,I didn't really know what camera angles I should use until when I did a research about how to shoot an action scene (Below is the post that I included what I learned from watching video about how to film an action scene.)I remembered some of the camera angles from what I have seen in the spy movies and I also tried to use the techniques they were talking about in the video to make a punch looks so much more violence. During the shooting,I was having fun experimenting with camera angles which they somehow turn out that they did work. In my opinion, action scene was the easiest scene to shoot because they are mostly POV shots and continuous shot and I think I did it well not to make it too shaky.
Visual effects
I knew very little about visual effects, I only knew what the effects are called and how they are used to convey the messages but not exactly how to recreate that. At first I was interesting in double exposure effect since I saw that they were used in Taylor Swift music video 'Style' and also in the True Detective opening. After that I started watching tutorials in Youtube which to me I think the effects are very advanced. In our spy opening, there are not much of visual effects that needed other programmes to do although the first scene with blood dripping I were actually using real objects to make visual effects. Since I am also an art student, I have some knowledge about how to make blood dripping by using brusho and water. So I am giving myself +3 since I gave it a try even though visual effects I made were hand made.
Editing
I have some editing skills from the previous media coursework so I rated myself 4. Although at that stage my skills were very basic since I know only how to cut them, move them and a little play around with the sound track. Compare to the skills I've got after I finished editing I think I gained a lot of skills such as how to stabilised the shot by using premiere and how to edit shots to get the meaning out of it. Also, I know more about importing fonts that suit with the theme of spy. I also know how to change the duration of the footage along with the inverse footage mode that makes the video plays from where it ends and come back to where it starts.
I have gained so much creative confidence during and after making this film because I think having confidence is crucial. Confidence is what make you get the best outcome, if you have cool ideas but without the creative confidence to express it to your member of the group those ideas will be useless. I came to realise that I should just go for it at first then see what happens and after that we can improve it. For example, since I have Gopro I think it would be a good idea to use that for the under water scene whether it is going to work or not. With Gopro I also used the Gopro app connects to the actual camera through wifi so that whosever that didn't work in the pool knows what is going on and they can help me considering camera angles.
