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

The preliminary task had many similarities to our final film opening. The brief contained simplistic and shorter versions of the skills we would need to use in the final project.

Our preliminary task had a huge effect on the way in which we went about filming our final opening sequence, as well as helping us secure some of the ideas and techniques that we learnt must be included in a sequence as well as what can be included and used to make it better.

In terms of the film skills, we learnt some vital techniques that would help the our opening sequence to make sense and appear professional.

180 degree rule - this means that the camera is always on one side of the action so the characters are always going in the same direction (unless of course they turn around). This means the audience can always follow exactly where the characters are going and where they have come from. This is one thing I was constantly aware of throughout the production process. Since I did most of the filming I was responsible for a lot of the framing. For this reason I constantly had this rule in my mind.
Match on action -  This means that as the shot changes the movement and actions of characters are exactly the same, leading to seamless transitions which make the scene appear more real for the audience. This leads to continuity. In order to create this effect, on set, we followed through on all of the action and captured more than we needed, so that we could easily cut the action at the correct point to make it look as good as possible.

Over the shoulder shots - This is where a face to face conversation is shot from behind the characters. This allows the audience to see and focus on the character speaking, as well as making the conversation appear natural.

We also learnt a number of practicalities that would have to be taken into account for the opening sequence and this, along with our test shoot helped us to ensure we followed some rules that would mean we got the best quality footage that we could.


In our test shoot our shoot board was unclear since some of the images and their descriptions were rushed and not of top quality. For this reason we wasted a lot of time testing and setting up shots since we did not know exactly how we wanted them set up. For this reason, in our final shoot we ensured that, before we started our shoot board was clear and concise and we knew exactly how each shot was set up. This minimised the time we wasted and allowed us to work much more quickly and smoothly.

In order to maximise our shooting time through the day we ensured we all arrived at the location punctually at 8am. This meant that we could set up early and begin shooting at a time when the sun had just come up. Since we had to rely on natural sunlight to light our footage, every second of the day was precious so we had to start and finish as early as possible and waste as little time as possible.

Another problem we encountered in our test shoot is that we simply did not have enough shots for the chase, making the sequence appear slow and boring. For this reason, when it came to our real shoot we made sure we shot every chase scene shot from a number of different angles and distances. This allowed us to cut quickly between the shots to make the chase appear faster and more entertaining.

Overall we worked well as a team. Each member was able to listen and give their own ideas and we were able to bounce ideas off of each other. Also, we all had individual strengths, so we were able to take on separate tasks and help each other through the whole process.

I am happy with the outcome of the project, despite, for practicality reasons, being unable to include some of the ideas we initially wanted to include. A number of problems came up along the way, however we overcame most of these, sometimes having to make compromises. Despite all of this, we managed to produce a film opening that everyone in the group was happy with.

Problems:

For one of our shoots, we did not check our kit properly and were almost left without a vital part of the Henchman's costume. We, eventually managed to get it but were put under a lot of stress and pressure while we did not have it. For this reason, if I was to redo the project I would ensure all of the kit is checked and correct before we leave.

We also had some technical difficulty with editing one of shots where the mask appears. This was because the camera had moved slightly so the Henchman was not in the same position. In future I would insure the camera remained exactly stationary so this affect would be possible, since we had to compromise our sequence in order to fix this problem. This taught me that it is not always possible to create the effect that you want from a project and sometimes must make compromises for practicality reasons.