7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

During the time between the completion of my prelimiary task and the completion of the full product I have learnt much about planning, production and post-production.

Brief for preliminary task

Continuity task involving film and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/ he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Brief for main task

The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

Why did we do  the preliminary task beforehand, and what did it teach me?

The preliminary task provided my group members with recap of using cameras, editing programs, functioning tripods and microphones. For me, it was a project through which I could learn all these things since I was new to the subject and had no experience. It made me to realise how much you actually need to plan before pulling a camera out and filming, which shots to film first, who actually needs to be in the shot, how many takes we might need, what angle to shoot it from. As the brief of the task was to film and edit a continuity task, we had to make sure the sequence made sense from the audience's point of view.

Pre-production

Storyboards: For our preliminary task we did not reference the storyboard as much as we should have but by making this mistake during the preliminary task I understood that the storyboard is extremely important for planning for a continuity sequence as it provides you with the first insight of how the sequence could look like. For our prelimary task we drew storyboards on sheets of paper, but in the main task we drew them on post-it notes, then stuck them onto large pieces of paper. Having post-it notes instead of pieces of paper allowed us to make changes easily. We also colour coded our post-it notes, using different colours for different shot types. During the time between our prelimary task and our main task our drawing skills improved meaning the storyboard was more understanderble.

Storyboarding before and now

Location: For the preliminary task we simply decided to use the school classrooms since our story was set in a school, however for the main task we needed a bedroom, so it a matter of choosing a room. I took a few pictures of my room and we decided to choose it mainly because the landing outside was quite long and we could film into the room from outside. It didn't matter too much that the set was not how we wanted it because we planned to design and dress it on the day of the shoot.

Shot list: We wrote shot lists for both the preliminary and main task as we found that they were a great way of keeping track of what we had done. It also saved time by putting shots in the order to film them in, meaning we didn't have to dicide this within shots.

Permissions: Since the preliminary task was shot in a classroom, we simply had to check that the classroom for available for use at the time we needed it so it was simple enough to get permission to film in it. The main task was shot in a bedroom so I asked my family what they would be doing that day and if a media shoot would get in the way, everyone seemed fine with this.
  

Production

Shot logs: During our preliminary task we did not record our shots on shot logs but for our test and final shoot we started recording what we have shot already. This allowed us to stay organised and therefore save time from looking through the shot list. It also saved time when we were capturing because we could easily type in the time codes we recorded and Adobe Premiere Pro would automatically capture the footage between the two times for us without us having to watch through it.

Camera: I had learnt the basics through doing the preliminary task since I had not used these types of cameras before. There was little extra that I had to learn for the final shoot, apart from the focus adjustment, which was simple to carry out by toggling the button on the side of the camera by the lens.

Sound: Although we did learn about the shotgun mic and boom mic for use in the preliminary task, we did not need to them for most of the main task. Only for the lead hacker did we actually need sound as he was the only one speaking. However for shots with him typing we used a shotgun mic so that we could get some diegetic sound of typing, eating and drinking.

Lighting: Everything I have learnt about lighting was through the main task as we did not require lighting for the preliminary task.

Post-Production

Software: By carrying out the preliminary task our group has recapped on and learnt about how to use software such as Adobe Premiere Pro in preperation for the main task. For titles we used a program on the Apple Mac called Live Type which allowed us to create titles using animated fonts.

Ordering shots: We used basic editing, such as cutting and ordering clips, for our preliminary task as it only required this much to create a continuity sequence. In the main task we used a fade right at the beginning of the sequence to connect the two lava lamp shots.

Grading: This was something I had never used before the main task so I learnt the process of grading during the month before the deadline.

Teamwork

The teams that we were assigned to differed from the preliminary task to the main task. Overall my main task team has been enjoyable to work with and we have managed the work well between us, for example, during the shoot we first had Anna organising and recording shots, Raef working on lights and me filming, then when we would switch roles every so often.

We played to our strengths by choosing what we were good at and focusing on that; Raef with lights, Me with animation, Anna with organisation. The rest of the tasks were split between us depending on who had the time.