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

The preliminary task• At the beginning of the AS course, we had to create

a preliminary task that allowed us to use the equipment and software that we would use for our final film. We had to use multiple shots such as establishing, long shot, close up, and different angles and editing techniques. There was no set narrative or plot, so we based ours on a student being late for an exam and her journey to getting into the exam hall; by having this narrative it allowed us to use a number of shots and angles that we could practice before using them in our final film.

Planning• When planning our preliminary task, we didn’t create any

story boards as we hadn’t had any experience with creating them and so we wanted to focus on gaining experience with the filming and editing side of the production. Although we did ensure that before storyboarding our final film we understood the concept and layout of them so that it would be professional.

• Following this, we made a basic 6 shot story board outlining the overall narrative of our film, and we then made a 20 shot story board that detailed the type of shot we wanted, the edit we wanted on it, and the type of sound we were going to use. They also had the length of the shot that we roughly waned to stay in.

Planning•We didn’t use any props in our

preliminary film as we didn’t have a lot of planning time and we were mainly experimenting with shots as we hadn’t done any filming before. However with our final film, we used quite a few props in order to make our narrative more convincing to the audience, as well as to create tension and suspense.

Equipment• For the preliminary task, we used a combination of a flip

camera and a Panasonic camcorder as this is what was available at time. It is clear that two different cameras were used because the quality of the footage varies throughout as well as the sound quality. We were unable to change this as it is what we were given, however for main task, prior to filming, we filled out a booking form and chose the Panasonic HDC – SD700 and the Velbon CX 888 tripod.

By booking the equipment out, we were able to choose which ones we wanted that had the best quality possible out of the options we were given. The camcorder records in HD so we were able to ensure that we were recording good quality shots.

Software and editing• We used the same base editing software for both

our preliminary task and the final film, which was iMovie, as this was the program that was most readily available. For the preliminary task, neither of us had ever used iMovie, so we had to learn the basics while editing the footage for the prelim task, and although for the final film we had some basic skills with the software, we still had to learn the more complex aspects of the editing process, though we had a head start from the prelim.

Titles• In our preliminary task, we didn’t add any titles because we wanted

to focus on the editing process and the camera work for the shots, as we were only working on a basic film with a simple narrative.

• For the creation of our titles in the final film we used LiveType to make the credits and titles, and having not put titles on the preliminary material, we had no prior experience with this software. This was a slight issue as it took us a while to work out how to use it, but by the end of it we understood what to do and could use it with ease. The style of our titles and credits were linked with the genre of our film so that it would appeal to the audience. Having not created a name for our preliminary film, we struggled to find a suitable title, however eventually we decided on one that related to the genre of the film and made it sound professional and as if it could be released into the film industry.

Sound• In the preliminary task, we only used only one non diegetic

sound track and the speech/ other diegetic sound as we hadn’t got any other experience for finding the tracks and sound effects. However for the final film, we used a multitude of different tracks mixed together, and we added various effects and non diegetic sound into the film. We found the soundtracks on royalty free websites so we weren’t being copyright – something that we didn’t do in our prelim task.

• We also created some of our own sound effects as we couldn’t find any that were suitable for what we wanted; these included a stick snapping and the echoed laughter of the two girls. These helped to create a tense atmosphere and conform to the genre conventions.

Editing• In our preliminary film, we didn’t have much experience in editing and

what we had to do so we put a basic sequence of clip together in the right order to get a linear narrative and didn’t do much editing. The aim was to get a continuous flow in the prelim task.

• Despite succeeding in this, we needed to do a lot more editing in our main film in order to make it more exciting for the audience and to make the film look more professional. Having better editing would also allow us to fit the sound better with the clips so that it was in sync.

• For the main film we ensured that we had cut the clips to the best place possible and put them in an order that would reflect the narrative we wanted – a mixture of past and present clips. We used jump cuts to create the tension in the film, and used a variety of effects to make the flashbacks as convincing as possible.

Improvements• If we had the opportunity to film our film opening again, there are

some changes that we would make, for example we would include shots from different angles and perspectives in order to build the suspense and add more technical detail to the film.

• We would also add to the amount of time that we spent filming – this is because we filmed the entire film in one day, so if we had more time it would have allowed us to possibly refilm some of the shots to improve them.

• A further improvement that we could make would be the quality of the diegetic sound within the clips. The microphone on the camcorder we were using wasn’t good enough for us to use in the film, so we had to remove it all. By having a better microphone we could have kept the sound and it would have helped to locate the audience better.

Conclusion• In general, our main film was an extreme improvement on

what we created for our preliminary, as we learnt a vast amount about the editing process as well as the practical element to the filming. All of this allowed us to create a successful production that met the criteria we were set.

• The creation of our film taught us to work well within a group and be time efficient when it comes to a tight filming schedule. We learnt that splitting work between us helped us to keep to a deadline.