7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have

learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

After reviewing my media product, I went back to view the preliminary task we had to create at the start of the course. It is obvious which is of a higher standard, as when the preliminary task was handled I (and we as a class) didn’t have much experience with a filming camera, however when creating the media product we had more experience with the equipment we were using. I feel that as we had a significant increase in the amount of time given to fulfill the media product it allowed more planning time, setting out each stage and marking off when it had been done, this enabled us to have a refined piece that was of a much higher standard.

Alexandra Fyfe’s presentation

This time round analyzing our preliminary task we had the opportunity to point out what when wrong and we stated how we would improve if we were ever to recreate it. I found that the sound was something that desired to be improved on, the preliminary task had a lot of ambient sound, a rather loud background, if I were to reshoot I would chose a location with little of no background noise. I thought that editing could have been cleaner, however the match-on-action shot was successful, the fact we hadn’t used iMovie’s before to edit factored in on the level of quality. A major factor the group collectively found was that the actors used were constantly looking directly into the camera when filming, this unfortunately makes the piece seem unprofessional. For the final media product we used different actors to resolve this problem. Another point that I in particular have a problem with is that you can see the reflection of the camera in the door at the end of the clip, positioning of the camera wasn’t best in the location of filming, to improve this I would have moved the camera to a level or position that wouldn’t have been picked up on in a reflection.

Alexandra Fyfe’s presentation

A major factor I that I found important, due to the preliminary task, was the amount of planning that was needed to create a high standard piece. It’s clear that in our preliminary task (or continuity task) planning wasn’t really set; this affected the quality of film that was produced – in our final product we had much longer to plan every detail. We spent a good amount of time thinking of an idea worthy of filming; the storyboard was well thought out – each shot carefully decided, both characters were described down to the fine details – their costumes, make-up, hair, body language/positioning when filming, a shooting schedule was created (which we managed to stick to), actors were organized and camera time was booked. The detail that went into each of these areas helped to create the final product. We didn’t put this much planning into our preliminary task, primarily as we didn’t have the same amount of time, but also because the task was much simpler – a character enters a room, talks for a while, passes something, then leaves. This is considerably more easy compared to the task of creating a thriller opening. When thinking of the thriller opening we had to consider the entire film, we had to think as though we were creating a complete thriller film.

Alexandra Fyfe’s presentation

Alexandra Fyfe’s presentation

For our media product we also had time to research, in depth, around the film genre, who our audience would be, where it would be distributed etc. We didn’t have a specific audience for our preliminary task, only that we created the piece for the mass audience that would view in on YouTube. However, by researching around the thriller genre we were able to identify typical conventions that are associated with the genre, e.g. suspense, enigma, McGuffin, red herring. We were able to incorporate these into our thriller opening, thus improving the quality of the film.

Alexandra Fyfe’s presentation

I feel that since the preliminary task, my filming skills have improved; I now know how to pan with a camera on a tripod smoothly, without it appearing jerky or shaky. My editing skills have become sharper, the time lapse between each clip can hardly been seen in some shots, a tremendous improvement from the preliminary task where the editing is unsmooth and incredible delayed. Inserting the right type of transaction to make the sense run smoothly is also something else I have picked up on. I have found that by doing the preliminary task first, it has aided me in creating a final product that is more refined, less prone to obvious mistakes, and generally of a better quality, these factors would not have been possible without the trial and error of the first task.