What have I Learned during the making of the Preliminary Task?

I feel I have achieved a lot from the preliminary task. Before we started, I had no clue on how to attach cameras to tripods or even how to turn on a camera. I can now confidently attach a camera to a tripod securely and turn it on, start recording and then stop/pause the camera. Something I feel I need to value more is the time we have as a group to create the video, we used all our lesson time effectively. However, we could have used some time out of lessons to touch up on certain parts of the footage to ensure that everything was perfect and not just ‘okay’.We worked well as a group, giving advice to each other when we felt something could be changed or improved whilst filming the preliminary task.

What have I Learned during the making of the Preliminary Task?

We referred to our storyboard throughout the whole of our task, we changed parts of it which we felt were necessary to fit our task. Using a storyboard was useful because it would help us plan our scenes instead of just improvising on the day of filming. We had to film our footage several times due to different reasons:Continuity, changing of ideas etc.This was inconvenient because we wasted a lesson which could have been used for editing purely on re-filming. This is something that I feel let our group down. However, at the end we detected little continuity errors, which was good.

Areas of success.

I feel that as a group we worked well together and we were confident discussing different ideas with each other to develop further onto our plan.We bounced off each others ideas which was useful because this ensured that no one was too dominant over the group ideas and decisions and enabled us to connect throughout the task without there being disruption or disturbance between the group.We got on with the task quickly, giving ourselves enough time to adjust things and to double check on which equipment we needed and how to set up the equipment without taking too long. We finished the task a few lessons before the deadline date, this gave us enough time to check the editing was done appropriately to match each scene.We used a range of different shots throughout our task.

We used a leading line shot to make the audience follow and notify where Rachael was walking to, making them focus on the door and Rachael at the same time. I feel this worked well during our task.

We used shot-reverse shot within our preliminary task, we did this to show how the conversation was flowing and who the other person was talking to. We also did this to ensure that continuity was correct during the conversation.

Areas for development.

When we got to the editing stage, we watched all our clips together to assure that our storyline followed well. We noticed on one of the scenes as the door opened you can see our reflection in the mirror

A way we can prevent this from happening again, would be to watch our footage before moving on to the next scene to double check whether we need to alter anything or not.

Something else that slowed the filming process down was the location we chose to film our task in. There was always people walking past and up and down the stairs which made it difficult to have a flowing lesson of filming, it did delay us slightly. A way to avoid this would be to plan a place to film where it isn’t very busy so we can film without any interruptions.

How well did you meet the brief?In our short film we included a range of shots, but we were asked to include three specific shots:180 degree rule.Shot/reverse shot.Match on actionAs I have previously shown we did do shot/reverse shot during our preliminary task. We also used match on action to assure that our scene’s flowed appropriately.

Here we showed Rachael entering the room from the outside and then her walking in to the inside.

We did not include 180 degree rule. This is a fault on our behalf because we needed to include these three shots and we failed to do that. This is something we need to work on in the future.

Feedback from others.Brandon Hoult watched our preliminary task and he gave me three good and bad things within our video. The three good things were:-The wind sound effect at the beginning was effective for the audience to identify the atmosphere of the scene.-The positioning of the angles were good throughout the whole video.-The zooming in was effective at the end to show how evil the character was and the emotion behind the person talking. The three bad things were:

-The length of each shot whilst we were talking was too long, it got slightly boring in the middle.-Our reflection was seen in the window which broke the reality of the video.-The length of the walk at the beginning was too long and could have been cut down.

Evaluate your group contribution to the group’s work.

We worked well together as a group to film/edit and finish our preliminary task before the deadline. We all gave ideas which we used, tested and changed throughout the task, this made it easier for us to work together because everyone had a fair chance with their ideas.I feel I wasn’t as flexible as I should have been within the task, this let my group down slightly on my behalf, this is something I need to improve for when it comes down to my real task.I gained many skills from this task, including how to attach a camera to a tripod, how to film and edit using different software's. I know where everything is in the classrooms so I can get straight on with my work, for the next project we do.Overall I feel we worked well together as a group and produced a fairly average video. I am pleased at this fact and at the fact we all got on well and used all our ideas to finish off our preliminary task.