Software and Hardware

For the production of my movie I will be using Final Cut Express 4.0 as it is a much more complex and advanced editing program than imovie which is the program I used last year for my AS coursework. Final cut can enable you to produce a much more higher quality film as it has a wider range of tools and application than imovie. Final cut is film industry standard.

What I found on Final cut is that it was much eaiser to cut into the middle of clips, you could just delete the section you did not want and your wanted clips would just move together. It was also easy to upload and trim the sound, you could cut the audio in the same way you cut the video or you could cut them both together by pressing the link together button. Transitions were also fairly simple to use, they had alot more options than imovie but for my film I only used the fade to black transition as my film was not a fast-paced film and did not need as many.
As I got more familiar with final cut I got more confident with usinf different tools such as experimenting with effects.

I filmed all my shots on a DV camcorder, a Canon digital video camcorder MD101 which we used I used for my AS coursework. These camcorder are very easy to use, as I had already used it before but it's settings are not so advanced so it is easy to film with. It has some good  features such as

•  Auto White Balance
•  Manual Brightness/Contrast Setting
•  Multiple features to change lighting and focus such as Daylight and Nighttime
•  Built in microphone and Stereo audio output
•  800x Digital zoom and a 25x optical zoom.

What I did do when filming is place a piece of white paper infront of the camera so that it adjusting the white balance. I used the zoom control effectively, you have to use it very softly and slowly to achieve the maxium affect. I also used a tripod for most of my shots so that the shots were not shaky. I did nto use a tripod however for the alleyway scene as I wanted the shots to be shaky, in the style of a social realism film.

I also used a portable audio recorder to record my voice over. I only used this once, but it was quite simple how to use it, all you had to do was plug it in and press the record button once to check you were capturing the voice levels and then record again record the voice.
I also used the boom mic for the scene where Lauren is trying to communicate with her sister, The Boom mic allows you to cut out background noise and all you have to do is connect it to your camera.