Final Piece - "Hotel Road"

How have I used technology in my coursework?

Throughout the whole production of the making of our film opening 'Hotel Road' technology and technology based equiptment has been incredibly important to create successful and professional advances within our coursework. All members of our group used each piece of technology effectively so we all understood and learnt a basis in making the film opening, to which our knowledge has been extended.

The video camera has been the most important use of the filming process and also helped us create different effects within our thriller film, such as the shakiness of the camera and close up shots which we have researched to be used in other similar films such as Saw and Donnie Darko. This also helped us create media based shots such as Over the Shoulder Shots and Match On Action which we used within our film within the house. By being able to create different shots such as these it improved the effectiveness of the filming within the film by creating well known and more professional types of camerawork.

After we had filmed the basis of our film opening, we used a program called 'Pinnacle' which would be used to edit and compose our opening once we had uploaded it onto this software. By using 'Pinnacle' we were able to add titles and also music over the dialogue which would create more thriller based conventions in our coursework, thus creating a more professional feel to the movie opening itself.


The computer and laptops themselves also played the most important roles in the making of 'Hotel Road.' As using them to edit and create our movie itself, we also used it to research and watch other thriller films so we could analyse the conventions used within these movies and then discuss the base of the conventions that we would then use within our film itself. This again helped us gain a more professional feel to our film opening.
Technology used for our Directors Commentary

When we came to the stage of recording a Directors Commentary to put with our film opening containing information on the conventions used, success and problems, we used a piece of equipment called the 'Edirol' to which we could easily record the commentary and then upload it over our film opening itself.

Audience Feedback.

After the majority of our film opening 'Hotel Road' was finished, we presented this to the rest of our classmates and asked others outside the classroom to watch our production and analyse to give feedback afterwards. To create an effective way to show feedback, we created a questionnaire that would encourage the viewers to use the terminology needed to see how successful our film opening had become, and whether some improvements could have been made. The questionnaire included questions such as 'What atmosphere does the music create?' and 'How have we used mise en scene effectively within the film?' By receiving feedback from many viewers, we analysed all the answers carefully and made an overall outlook to how the audience had portrayed our film.
Everyone were fully aware about the plot of our film and what was happening within each scene which was found successful. The viewers were able to spot the mise en scene, such as the make-up and mirrors used which then relates to the characters of young teenage girls and the viewers spotted the vulnerability of the characters throughout the opening. Al viewers thought the music we used 'suited the film perfectly' as they believe it created much tension and a basis of a mysterious background.
Yet, to improve our film, many people who watched our opening believed it was much too dark and that the lighting could have been improved more, which we could have took much more care of before filming. Overall, I believe the feedback we got from others proves a very successful outlook on how our film is portrayed to different audiences.