7) Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

For the preliminary exercise, we were set this brief:
Continuity task involving filming 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° rule.

In our opening, we used a number of skills practised in the preliminary task, such as:

• Pre-Production - Planning - we were much more meticulous in our planning for the opening, as we faced some continuity issues when editing the prelim. We avoided this with our main shoot by being more detailed when making the shoot board.
  
  

  

  We described what was happening in each shot, as well as having an image of the storyboarded shot

  We also had to pitch our ideas in order to find and fix any problems with our ideas; we made handouts for both pitches, as shown below. Research for these pitches included character inspiration, institutions, similar films and film openings, as well as making decisions on characters, costumes, locations, actors, our core and secondary audiences, the style of the film, the film plot and the narrative of the film opening.
  
  
                     
We also produced a storyboard, drawing out each shot on colour coded post-its, which we arranged and refined on sugar paper. From this we produced the shoot board (pictured above).



• Pre-Production and Production - Location Choice - whilst we found that filming inside was practical, we decided as a group that we wanted to film outside for our film opening, meaning we faced more obstacles such as getting the equipment to the location, as well as weather issues (for example the mud from the rain shown below). However, it paid off as we are all happy with our final outcome, which would not have worked as well if we hadn't have used a forest for the chase scene.





This is an example of some of the mud we had to walk through to get to one location - the hill for the skyline shots.



• Production - Match On Action - this ensures that the movement of characters appears seamless between shots, which maintains continuity. For example, in our preliminary task, we had a character walk through a door:
  
  
  
     
  
  In our film opening, we had the Henchman stumble back as Leora punched him, which helped to make the punch seem more realistic: 

• Production - Over-The-Shoulder Shots - this helps to make the conversation between characters appear more natural, as well as showing our use of shot-reverse-shot. We learnt how to frame these types of shots from the prelim:
  
       
• Production - 180° Rule - we ensured that the camera only moved within 180° of one spot, remaining on one side of the characters (for example, Leora's right). This is to ensure that the sequence has continuity, and the audience are not disoriented.
• Production - Master Shots - we made sure to have a master shot of each scene, so that we could refer back to it whilst editing, and to make sure the setting is established for the audience.
• Post-Production - Organising the sequence in Premiere Pro - we found editing much smoother and easier when we named each individual shot for our prelim, so we did the same thing for our opening, meaning we could easily find which shot and take we wanted.

We also learnt from the test shoot:

• Pre-Production - Be more detailed on the shoot board - again, we added more detail after the test shoot, as there were shots where we didn't quite understand our story board drawings, which meant we wasted time on the shoot trying to remember what it meant. On the actual shoot we worked  much quicker and more smoothly as we knew exactly what was needed for each shot.
• Production - Take shots from more than one angle and distance - this is useful when editing, because it gives a larger choice of shot - if one angle doesn't work, another can be used. It also helped when filming the chase scenes, as it made the characters appear and the pace of the film itself faster.

  

  For example, we moved from a high angle shot to bird's eye view in order to make the character appear faster, as well as making it more interesting for the audience.

• Post-Production - Be prepared to remove or change shots - when we got to our location, we found that some shots were not possible in the way that we had planned them, but we compromised in order to ensure we got all the shots we needed for the final product. We compromised when editing too, deciding that if a shot didn't fit we wouldn't use it, even if it was one we all liked and wanted to use.

As a group, we each decided which member would do what for each stage of our production; for example, we organised which film each member would research in pre-production, then who had what role during production, and what was needed to be done after ever editing session in post-production.

Overall, we worked well as a group, and managed to overcome any problems we faced together, as well as working closely with one another to produce an opening to a standard we were all happy with.

In Hindsight

If I could redo the project, I would: 

• make sure to plan more thoroughly so problems could be avoided during the shoot, such as when we almost didn't have an essential part of a costume
• I would have liked to have filmed rather than acted on the shoot, so I would get better actors to be in our production so I could have a chance to film and direct
• I would ensure that all the shots are to the standard we needed for special effects, as we wasted huge amounts of time trying to fix problems due to certain shots not being exactly how we needed them - for example, the mask shots, as the camera moved meaning we couldn't do the effect we wanted

Overall

I really enjoyed working on this project, as whilst our idea was challenging to carry out, it was also fun and informative, and we ended up making an opening we were all proud of! 

I learnt a number of useful skills for editing, especially using After Effects as I had never used it before this project. Although I personally didn't learn much about filming as I wasn't able to film, I did learn some things from other group members, such as reducing shakiness in shots by using the tripod as a counter balance.

I also found that I am capable of leading and organising a group in order to finish to deadlines, which I think will be useful in future projects, whether in Media or other subjects.

In future projects I would like to film more to improve my cinematography skills, and learn more editing skills, such as using After Effects more in order to improve my knowledge of the programme.