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

From the prelim task, I believe I have learnt a lot, mostly through error. However other than learning from my mistakes I have learnt many techniques and tricks that helped to improve the quality of the final product.

There has been a steep learning curve since the preliminary task until now. The prelim taught me the basic technical skill needed in order to create a continuity sequence. These rules of continuity make up the foundations of our opening sequence and without them the sequence would not make sense.

Continuity example use of 180 degree rule.

The study of other films and their openings not only gave inspiration but showed me the direction in which to take in order to succeed with the project. Films such as Paranormal Activity have taught me how to create tension using sound and movement and films like Sin City have shown me a new style of grading that is highly appealing.    

Planning and Production:

In the planning process I found that through previous examples simple ideas are better not only for ease of production under timed conditions but for the audience who are to watch it.

Also despite having knowledge of the technology and equipment we used I learned during planning clever techniques that could be used in production, taught by our technician, in order to create the desired effect. We were taught how to manually change the focus of the camera, do focus pulls and what effect changing different camera setting had on filming. We were also taught how to use of the halogen lights to create different effect which helped us plan the set up we wanted for the shoot.  

We also did a practise shoot which was really helpful in preparation for the real shoot. It showed us problems that could arise and how to deal with them quickly and efficiently such as faulty equipment which we then covered in class. It also showed us how necessary a practice shoot actually was, being able to practise with equipment, learning to work in the environment as a group, work with the location and gave us ideas on which to frame certain shots saving a load of time on the real shoot.

In the real shoot we learnt to take advantage of all the time we had and shoot extra footage so that there were no gaps in the narrative and that if there were mistakes we had something to fall back on. Shooting various master shots of the bedroom scene as well as the ones planned gave us options for the continuity sequence and could be played around with in post production to match the effect we wanted the sequence to have.

Post Production:

Our prelim task helped us in some ways in terms of editing despite having a strict and short time in which to edit together our continuity sequences. The short time scale we had to work with gave us an incite into continuity editing and how it could be done efficiently in a short space of time. However when it came to the real editing, although having a short opening sequence to put together we found it tedious and time consuming

capturing the large amount of footage we had filmed, picking what we thought worked best in terms of continuity and tweaking the edit for the best quality we could.

We did however learn short cuts and get to know the technology we were dealing with in further detail as the edit progressed and we gradually became more efficient. If we were to do this again or in any new filming project an aim would be to try and make the capturing process as efficient as possible using a shot list for example. Also for the next project we are more clued up in terms of the use of the technology/ software. 

Also despite doing a second shoot we still found errors in the footage. This was due to the small screen when watching back on the camcorder, the errors simply weren't noticed, luckily the errors weren't major and hard to notice when watching the opening sequence for example:

  

We knew that to determine the success of the film we would need feedback as winning over the audience is key to a successful film. We therefore firstly screened our film to our media class to receive technical analysis and to find snags with feedback from teachers and fellow students. After correcting these problems we premièred our film after advertising the screening via facebook and posters. This helped us a lot for the evaluation in terms of our specific audience and what people thought of our film.

The Group and Closing Thought: Considering we were pressed for time due to the Geography trip and have had many problems such as technical hick-ups (ie Camera faulty on practise shoot and title not transferring properly) I think that we have worked very efficiently to overcome the problems and tight deadlines. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Michael and Daniel as well as working on the project itself and it has given me more incite into the film industry and all its aspects.