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.

Update 09/03/12

There been a few issues with the resolution of the graphics as I made them slightly too small and now they're pixelated, but its been sorted. That means that we've finished our project and been signed off!

Now its time to draft my evaluation before I'm off to Swanage. When I get back I'll have one week till the evaluation deadline and two weeks till the collective project deadline. It'll be a bit busy during that time but it all should get done in time.

Update 08/03/12

In the media department at school right now and we've just moved on to grading. Its difficult to grade because you need a good eye and be able to match colours confidently. If we all take turns grading then we can reach a general agreement in the end.

The opening sequence looks great so far, I've seen the clip so many times that I've learnt the script. I've been given the task of the creating the graphics on the screen which I've been animating for the whole week during every lesson and free period I've had. The program I'm using is Adobe After Effects which I've only used once before now so theres been a bit to learn, although there are a lot of repeated techniques and effects in the graphics. Generally, animating graphics has been simple but time comsuming. Raef and Anna have been working hard on getting the clips in order, sorting out any music and dialouge problems and a lot more.

At the moment Anna is grading and Raef is in another lesson. I'll be working on evaluation draft now as I'll lose a week due to a Geography field trip to Swanage and an Art exam.

Update 27/02/12

Day after our shoot and I just have a few things to report.

• Overran by a hour so we worked from 8:00am till 6:00pm.
• Set design was finished quickly, although we added a few extra items that were not in the test shoot.
• We've scheduled to film the main hacker shots during thursday lunch time with Robbie Lardi, using the bookcase in one of the class rooms as the background.
• The remaining two hackers  will be filmed during friday lunch time with Natasha Jalonen and Francis Gillen.

Update 25/02/12

Its the day before our real shoot and I'm hoping it'll all go according to plan. We've allocated 9 hours, 8:00am till 5:00pm, an hour longer than our test shoot since we ran out of time. The first two hours will be dedicated to setting up, then after Nico and Francis arrive we'll start filming. There should be plenty of time since most of the room has already been set up. Our lead hacker shots and some of the other hacker shots will be taken at another time.
Posters, whiteboard, curtains, bin bags, bed covers have all been left the same as from last time. This time we'll have more lighting since we noticed that the footage we shot was grainy. Another option we could've taken to solve this problem would've been to use the Sony V1Es that the school had available, but it would take some time to learn how to use the video cameras, so we chose to use more lighting. There will be three lights in total, all with blue filters.

Update 23/02/12

The test shoot has now been edited, although the shots of the computer screen where graphics are supposed to be have been left blank.


Some of things that have noticed and/or changed from the original animatic:

• Two focus pulls of the phone might be waste of time so we removed the first one, that way we can use that time for more varied shots rather than repeats.
• Changed the first typing shot to a still isntead of a pan that we took just in case. We decided to do that because we wanted the action to build up, instead of jumping straight into it.
• We noticed that at the end we had two shots that were from a similar to one another in terms of angle and framing, this was a bit disconcerting to viewers so we got rid of the frame where he looks shocked and simply kept the shot of the hacker taking off the headphones. This made the sequence flow easier.
• I edited and matched the speech of the main hacker to the footage as it was not long enough, we'll have to extend the script in order to fill the time, at the moment there are some gaps in the rough cut where the main hacker is not speaking at all.

Update 07/02/12

After school on Friday, Anna and Raef both helped dress the set ready for the shoot on Saturday. We stuck posters up and chose items we thought suitable for a teenage boy's bedroom. Afterwards I changed the curtains and bed covers to something less feminine.

The next day we put the final touches onto our set; placing mugs, moving tables into place, arranging objects, setting out a plate with biscuits and chocolate, writing code onto the whiteboard, hanging wires from the computer and more. I covered the windows with black bin bags so that unwanted light would not get in the way. Raef brought lighting and we experimented with the filters, trying red, green and yellow before choosing blue which helped with creating the atmosphere for the room. For some of the shots we used an honeycomb grid which focused the light on one point, this was really useful for when we wanted the viewer to focus on something in particular during a shot, for example, the hacker's hands.
 

Soon after we finished setting up and experimenting with lighting, our actors/assistants (Nico and Francis) arrived. After choosing an outfit for Nico and gelling his hair, we were ready to start filming. The shots were equally managed between us, roles such as keeping track of shots, filming, lighting were rotated among us so that everyone had a chance to do a bit of everything.

The shot was successful as we managed to get all our shots taken in the allocated time, despite having to rush slightly at the end. One of the problems I noticed is that if anything needs to be shot again we'll have to retake all the shots as the set design is so unique that attempting to recreate it would almost certainly result in continuity errors.

Update 04/02/12

So we finished our animatic on the Friday before our test shoot. Raef chose some music suitable for opening sequence and we added some titles, using a font we all agreed on, though we might decide to change it later. Anna matched the shots to the beats in the music so that footage and music generates a stronger impact. Movement was added to the frames, something we could not have done with a storyboard.

Creating an animatic has helped us get a gerneral idea of which shots work best and what changes need to be made, for example, we originally wanted a central shot of the hacker's back but after creating the animatic it seemed appriate to change it to a over shoulder shot, focusing more on the screens infront of him. It'll also be easier to edit when we have our test shots captured as we can then match the shots to the animatic frames, then if we notice anything that doesn't work we can change it.

The animatic will be uploaded onto the group blog in a while.