Construction Post 29: My Technical Learning Curve

This project has taught me so much from multiple standpoints, from a shooting standpoint, an editing standpoint and an organisational standpoint. I have certainly learnt a lot in this project and have become more technically able in media studies.

Whilst I have shot before, I have never shot a handheld shot and in this way the production phase was a huge learning experience for me. It was challenging as you don't have a spirit level to tell you if the shot is canted or not like you do when using a tripod. Therefore, you have to make a conscious effort to keep the camera straight and it certainly took me multiple attempts before I achieved this.

Above is footage of me shooting a handheld shot. As you can see it was very important for me to stay as still and steady as possible

With regards to shooting, I certainly learnt a lot more technical factors to be aware of when shooting. For example, with every shot we had to consider continuity and make sure we weren't going to break any rules and cause a jump cut for example. This required me to engage even more with the production process and certainly taught me a lot with regards to production in the media industry.

I already had previous experience with our editing software - Adobe Premiere Pro - however I learnt much more this time round and felt like I certainly made much better use of the tools available to me in this programme when compared to previous experiences. For example, I learnt how to zoom in on specific parts of shots in editing using key frames whereas previously I would have simply zoomed in when shooting which would have been much more unprofessional. I also learnt how to effectively use and edit visual FX and I enjoyed this learning process a lot. As a result, I now feel much more confident when editing.


Above is an example of a key-frame zoom. As you can imagine this looked much more professional than it would have if we were to zoom in when shooting.

In terms of skills that aren't necessarily exclusive to media, this project has greatly improved my organisation. This is because in order to consistently work efficiently my organisation always had to be good. This is because there are so many factors that need organising for the project to run smoothly, for example I had to help organise actors, their timings, costumes and locations and frequently remind them. This requires high organisational skills and mine have certainly improved as a result.