Construction Post 9: My technical learning curve

The project enabled me to expand on
various technical skills, both when
editing and shooting.

Throughout the project, I made sure that I picked up on various processes and tools in order to develop my technical skills. In all 3 stages of pre-production, production and post-production, I felt that I honed these skills well, and that I was able to use the project as an opportunity to gain useful experience and knowledge.

Although previous projects and media assignments at GCSE and preliminary level had introduced me to the basics of shooting and editing, there were of course other skills which I was able to learn during the course of the project. For instance, during editing I hadn't previously used tools such as the pen tool, in order to adjust a section of a shot's audio to eliminate background noise. Another example of a previously-unused tool was the use of keyframes to edit the position of a shot on-screen (such as the sliding shots in the opening scene).

In terms of shooting, I learnt the significance of lighting when taking shots. Not only did our group have to pay close attention to the weather and lighting when shooting in order to get the aesthetic and conditions which we wanted, but also during the shoot, as one of the shots lost focus mid-way through recording and needed to be re-shot.

I believe that, having taken these processes and tools into account, I learned a great deal of new technical skills as well as recapping other areas of production and editing.