Evaluation Question 7

Question 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 preliminary task I learned a lot of new things and used technologies that I

had never used before. One of the things we had to learn was how the camera works,

and how to position it. I found this difficult in the preliminary task as I had never used a

camera or tripod before. We also had to learn where to position the camera in order

for it to flow well, this included shot reverse shot, match on action and the 180o rule.

After we filmed the preliminary task we also learnt how to edit the footage. We did this

on the editing software called Movie Studio Platinum. Movie Studio Platinum was very

complex however was simple to use once I got the hang of it. All of this helped prepare

us for making our own film opening.

180o rule:

Shot Reverse Shot:

Match on Action:

By doing the preliminary task it helped a lot when making our film opening, it ensured

we knew how to use the camera and editing software as we had past experience with

using them both and therefore was good practice. I t also made sure our film opening

flowed and looked better and made sure that all of our footage was of high quality

and was less time consuming. During the preliminary task I found the editing the easiest

part. I caught onto it quickly and could make the preliminary task look good and have

continuity, this then helped me a lot in editing my film opening as I knew how to edit to

a good standard and could use my skills from the preliminary task in my actual film

opening. However I found using the camera and tripod very difficult, this was because I

had never done it before and the camera was very confusing to use, it had lots of

different buttons and I couldn’t set it up very well. After a bit of practice I got better at

using the camera but had to keep asking for help, however when making our film

opening I ended up having to do the camera set up and filming and by the end of

filming I found the camera easy to use and could do it speedily.

A lot changed from our preliminary task to making the film opening in all 3 stages of

production (Research and planning, Construction and Evaluation):

RESEARCH AND PLANNING-

I think that this was the biggest development from the preliminary task to filming our film

opening. During our preliminary task we got told what to do so the concept and idea

of the filming was limited. The idea was spoon fed to us and it was very basic and short

and had no creativity to it. However In the film opening we could be as creative as we

wanted and we could come up with any ideas we wanted, the whole concept of the

film opening was much more complex compared to in the preliminary task. We did

story boards and a script in both the preliminary task and film opening however the

preliminary task story boards and script were simple and only about 1 page long

whereas when we planned our film opening we did several drafts of the story board

and script and they were in a lot of detail and were both over 3 pages long.

Draft Story Board-

Final Story Board-

When planning our film opening we did intensive research into our idea to ensure it was

a good idea. The planning took several weeks of research before we were happy with

our final idea. This is completely opposite in the preliminary task as we did no research

and decided the idea on the day and didn’t change it at all. Before we could film

anything in our preliminary task we had to have a tutorial on how the camera worked

whereas when we filmed our film opening we knew how to use the camera so a tutorial

wasn’t needed.

CONSTRUCTION-

When filming our preliminary task we used simple camera shots ( Close up and long

shot) whereas in the film opening we had a range of different camera shots, this made

the film opening look a lot better and of a higher status .

Preliminary task –

Extreme close up

Film opening-

Close up

Preliminary task –

Long Shot

During the preliminary task we only learnt about match on action, shot reverse shot and

the 180o rule. We used these in our film opening but we did more technical camera

movements for example tilts and pans. We also did handheld cameras to connote fear

and worry.

When editing the preliminary task it was very short and simple to do and we could do it

in about an hour. The only thing we added in was some text at the start with our name

on. This then developed a lot in our film opening as it was nearly 2 minutes of editing to

do and took about a month to edit! We also made the editing more complex as we

added filters, transitions and lots of text. We also used Photoshop to add in overlays on

our film opening whereas in the preliminary task we didn’t use Photoshop.

Film opening-

Long Shot

Film opening-

Mid Shot

Film opening-

Mid Shot

handheld camera

Film opening-

Close up panning

shot

Another thing that developed from making the preliminary task to making the film

opening was Mise-en-scene. During the preliminary task the costumes weren’t planned

and people wore whatever they were wearing that day, the lighting was exactly the

same all the way throughout (high key), there was limited actors who weren’t

comfortable acting, no makeup or props were used and the setting was simple and

limited to the school corridor and classroom. Whereas during our film opening we

looked into the mise-en-scene and planned it carefully and had set costumes, different

lighting depending on the mood, high quality actors, lots of makeup, props such as

knives and guns and different settings. I think that because we did the mise-en-scene in

the film opening in more detail it added to helping make the film opening successful

and look good and realistic compared to the preliminary task that looked tacky and

fake.

Preliminary Task-

Film Opening-

Magic Bullet

quick look

filter

selection

Magic Bullet

quick look

filter- what it

looks like in

my film

High Key

Lighting,

normal

school

clothes, no

props, low

quality actor

Low Key &

High key

lighting, high

quality

actors,

props, set

costumes

and makeup

The preliminary task only had about 10 seconds worth of diegetic sound whereas when

we made the film opening we were flexible and added in sound effects, non-diegetic

sound and lots of diegetic sound.

EVALUATION-

Non Diagetic

Music Non Diagetic

Sound Effects

After we filmed our preliminary task we did no evaluation at all whereas after filming our

film opening we did lots of evaluation. We did this on various technologies such as prezi,

powtoon, Microsoft word and PowerPoint and then uploaded them to blogger using

slide share.

Overall I think that I benefited from doing the preliminary task as it meant we had

practice in using the editing software and camera and we could develop our skills we

learnt when making our film opening such as storyboarding, editing, camera shots,

sound, mise-en-scene etc. I t also meant we could plan/research, construct and

evaluate our film opening quickly and effectively and making it as good as it could be.