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

Prelim task brief (summary): Film and edit a video that included continuity, of a character walking into a room and dialogue occurring between them and a second character

Main task brief (summary): Create the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate, with the exception of music/effects from a copyright-free source.

The prelim brief was much easier to adhere to as:

• There was no time-limit
• We did not have to spend much time on research and planning

The main brief was far more challenging and fun because:

• There was a time limit for our sequence
• We had to vigorously research and plan our film opening, which developed our film idea and characters to be 3 dimensional and conventional
• We were able to be creative with our ideas, and create our own story as film-makers
• We had to source our own copyright-free music, which took time
• We had a lot more time to shoot, which meant we became more accustomed and efficient in using the equipment

Having worked with Audrey on the preliminary task made me want her as a team member, as I knew that she was competent with the equipment, that we wanted to create the same genre of film and that her work ethic was trustworthy to ensure success for our film opening.
                                                                                                                                                 
In progression from the preliminary task, I feel I have utilised many of the skills and techniques that we learnt during the task, and applied them more vigorously during pre-production, i.e. using a storyboard to visualise where we would need match-on-actions.

Above: Our Preliminary task
Below: Our Final Product

What we learnt in the preliminary task that was used in the full product:

• Teamwork and communication are essential: For the prelim, there was a lot of time wastage with not knowing what to do, so we ensured that for this project, we worked together and communicated so that we knew what needed to be done.
• Match On Actions: We learnt how to create a match-on-action with the preliminary task. This helped us to realise how important it is in maintaining the audience's suspension of disbelief, so during pre-production and during the shoot, we were very keen to ensure that we would have near perfect match-on-actions. Sometimes we were not able to do this as there were slight movements that were different in each shot, but we aimed to get the match as clean as possible.

Match-On-Action for our final product

Match-On-Action from our prelim task

• OTS shots for conversations: We were shown how OTS shots can make a conversation seem much more fluid and natural. We were taught how to use these in shot-reverse shots, which we heavily relied on during the final conversation

OTS used in the conversation (shot-reverse-shot) in the Final Product

OTS (shot-reverse-shot) in prelim conversation

• Pre-production: From the prelim, we were taught that organisation was key if we wanted to get the required shots within the time we had. Because of this, we took completing the storyboard and shoot board much more seriously, as it helped us to ensure that we knew how long each shot should take, and kept us on track for finishing all of our shots, as well as ensuring all of the shots were accounted for.

  

  Our Prelim 'storyboard': very basic, created difficulties with framing decisions during filming

  

  Real Shoots: Our shot by shot storyboard helped us to understand our shot-type variety and where we required match-on-action and 180 degree rule monitoring

• The prelim also taught us that we needed to be aware of space, as during the prelim we wasted time adjusting furniture for the camera to be placed. This led to us making floor plans and doing location research, so that we knew where we were going to be filming, when, and what space we'd have to do it in. 

  

  Floor plan of the bedroom: Helped us to understand where we would be filming and what set-ups we would be using

• Post-production: Post production for the prelim taught us the basics of capturing, and creating a sequence, which helped with the main task, which was much more complicated. 

A comparison of the activities during post-production

Further things learnt from the test shoot:

• Always take more takes than you need. After the first good take, do one more, just to be safe.
  This was something which we did for most of the shots during the test shoot, and proved useful, as in deciding which take was best, it sometimes wasn't actually the one we thought was best on the day.
• Be ready to adapt: We were kicked off of our original Southbank setting, so we had to find somewhere that we would be able to film the rest of the test shoot. We were ahead of schedule, so managed to look around and find an empty park area, with a fountain in the middle, so we settled for that location rather than wasting more time searching, as it was still a nice setting despite not being our ideal.

  

  After being told we weren't allowed to film on Southbank by security, we improvised the test shoot setting for the conversation.
  Knowing our storyboard helped us, as we knew that the sequence would use elliptical editing up until the conversation, helping to ease the pressure of maintaining location continuity.

• Pay attention to the 180 degree rule: During our test shoot conversation, we broke the 180 degree rule without realising it. After explanation from Mr Bayliss, we realised how we could avoid this, creating a line between the two characters, and deciding which side of the line we wanted to shoot from. This helped dramatically increase the continuity of our final product, so was invaluable.

Test shoot: Broken 180 degree rule, makes the interaction seem very odd and unnatural

Final Product: Adherence to 180 degree rule, makes the interaction seem  much more natural

What went well? What would I do differently?

I think that the overall product was quite good, admittedly there are parts which could have been improved upon.

Audience feedback showed that our film opening was, overall, successful in appealing to the audience, but there were constant comments on improving sound quality both of the voice-over and conversation.

If I was to do this project again, I would:

• Use a more noise-proof microphone to prevent wind affecting the shot (if one is available) and also ensure that there is no diagetic music in the shot - this was the main thing that led to us being unable to improve the sound quality
• Also, I would get some feedback from a few of our target audience before officially finishing the product -they can offer an outsider's perspective, while giving information that would help us to appeal to them.

These types of comments from the audience would have been useful before having finished the opening, as it would have meant we could try to resolve any issues and improve the sequence for the audience

• I would also get actors from outside of our group so that I could have a chance to direct and film, as I was not able to do this much due to being the actor of the main character.
• Use something like Wix or Dash to create a blog instead of using Blogger, as then gimped HTML would not have taken up so much time trying to deal with, continuously affecting blogging efforts

I feel that I have progressed as a film maker because of this project, as it has shown me the level of time and effort that is required to make short clips, let alone entire films. It has taught me how to improvise on set, adapting shots so that they fit into a sequence/story, but are more achievable than those already planned, as well as teaching me how much storyboarding during pre-production helps to increase efficiency during shoots. It has inspired me to improve my film skills even further, so that I can produce high quality clips, and hopefully move on to create high quality feature films.