Question 7

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

learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Time management For our Preliminary exercise, our time management and overall preparation for the task was

clear and thorough. Similar to this organisation, was that of our film opening. By creating tables, schedules and notes using organisational websites, we formed an overall piece

which I found effective. This time, having filming and editing commence over an amount of days, we decided to keep up with our progress through use of video diaries. Here is one of

these;

This was such an improvement with regards to time management. Here, we were able to keep ourselves updated on what was to be done, what was needing progression and

what was completed. I think this was a beneficial adaption towards our time management skills, it meant we could allocate time out of our schedule to look at what

we’d previously completed.

In addition for Time ManagementAs for grouping up during the creation of the film opening and finding the time to meet at

one another’s houses, we found a lot of the time, this was a problem for us. Because of work and family commitments, we didn’t get much time to physically meet up and

begin the editing. This was not the case for the preliminary task, as this was to be done during school and lesson times. However, on the off chance that one of us

couldn’t form together, we reconvened on Skype to talk about developments and gave one another advice, bouncing ideas from person to person. I found this a tough,

but beneficial solution to the issue. So there wasn’t such an improvement in this area, but there was no regression to this section either. In fact, we ended up utilising

more technology than we thought we intended in first place.

Organisation

To remain organised we used websites such as; Spicynodes, Bubbl.us and RememberMilk. In addition

to this, we used Blogger to collaborate all of our ideas, as individuals and as a group.

Constant updates were made every single day and on a number of occasions, more than once in one day itself. Keeping the blog updated was an enjoyable

task, within both the film opening and the Preliminary task.

I believe that my blogging as an individual for the Preliminary was weak and could have been more thorough. I don’t think I grouped my evidence,

planning and research well enough. Whereas, for the film opening, I thought this area was better. This time I

had covered everything possible. Secondly, the blog updates were so much closer together and

continuously updated. This meant we were individually organised, but also as a group.

Camera Work and Mise en sceneThe camera work itself was massively improved. However, when looking back at the shots used

during the preliminary, I realised there were more shots used throughout that piece, than our film opening. I was disappointed with the outcome of the shots used, although, I do believe the

filming/recording of each clip was vastly improved from the previous task. With both the preliminary task and film opening, for mise en scene, we had really delved into great

depth and looked into previous films of the same genre and how they each had taken into account their surroundings. Afterall, the setting and surroundings really do help create the film

itself.

I feel we took more attention to shots that were used in films of the same genre,

more during our film opening than in the preliminary. I believe this helped our work, as we were able to connect more with the

audience and we then new more about what the target audience wanted from the

film.

Camera Work continued…One case for our filming during the

preliminary task, was our shaky camera. This happened a few times, because of our lack of

experience on knowing how to operate the camera itself. We

ensured we would not go through this issue again, as we had gotten used to the camera’s sensitivity and exactly how the lense reacts

to the light etc.

A similar case to this, was when filming a low angled shot, as the scooter’s action comes into view. We

found because it was such a low angle, that reaching that height and not shaking, was a difficult thing to achieve. However, combining team work and a little bit of brain power, we formed a type of rest, where our hands lifted up the camera slightly, preventing

the shake and unrest. Having the experience from the preliminary, we knew exactly how to rectify this.

Editing

Our editing progression from the preliminary task was a huge step forward. Having only used Premiere Pro CS3 for this, we decided to extend our skills further by using CS6. The CS6 version was on my iMac at home, where we had other softwares available to us, such as; iMovie, Photoshop CS6, After Effects CS6 and finally, Premiere Pro CS6. This made editing so much more advanced, and gave us more of a head start than other groups, as our technology and editing options/templates were much better.

To create our titles for the film opening, we used both iMovie, After Effects and Premiere Pro CS6. Straight away, we had discovered that we’d used so much more

technology/software within our film opening than our preliminary.

The difference between CS3 and CS6 was a giant change. There were more title templates, more effect options, more transition changes and the font types were of a greater amount. I loved using this editing software, as we could do so much within it. Without this software to edit, I believe we would have managed and obviously done

our best with the tools we were given, however, I think with the extra editing software advance, it really benefitted our work, as a whole.

Mise en sceneThe teenagers bedroom at the start of the film opening, was a middle class, typical teenage girl’s

hide-out. We created the girl’s bedroom to look relatable. This way our audience would have felt a connection to the character’s portrayed. The room was filled with boy-band posters, perfume

bottles and fluffy pillows. Although we took into account the mise en scene etc during the preliminary task, I believe we put more thought into creating this and it became really beneficial

to specifically attracting our target audience. The amount we thought about mise en scene, with regards to costumes throughout the film opening

and preliminary task, was great. I believe we really took into account social backgrounds and what the target audience would find attractive and appealing. However, when thinking about this, I do believe we could have delved slightly deeper into thinking about social backgrounds and the

target audience with our prelim task. The extent of the research completed

The two characters presented here both adhere to their social background. For example the

costumes worn by both, represent their profession. One particular thing we focussed on, was the female’s costume- We wanted it to attract the male

side of our target audience, yet still keep her professionalism

and formal exterior.

With this costume, we wanted to attract our

target audience. In particular, the males, as after countless surveys and polls, we found this

was the predominant gender likely to watch our film opening. We

wanted to keep it traditionally British,

something that didn’t stand out too much and typical to the modern

era, yet something slightly vintage that

would be likely to stand the test of time.

ConventionOverall, during the Preliminary task we didn’t even look at conventions or anything to do

with audience reception. This made us think about how the audience would look upon our clip. We challenged, developed and subverted conventions so that our genre would be more obvious to the audience. Some of the conventions we challenged

were amongst-

• The opening of the film itself (no action straight away, for the film’s entrance)• The obvious powers of the superhero

• The female protagonist, instead of a male lead• We chose not to incorporate a suit/mask/logo/trademark, like Iron Man, Captain

America and Thor, typical Superhero films.

I found that researching conventions really aided our film opening and also made it easier to subtly drop ‘hints’

throughout the film opening, about the protagonist’s powers, without revealing too much information about the

plot/narrative like the stereotypical Superhero films we see today.

PlanningI believe our planning stages were excellent for both the prelim

task and the film opening. We were extremely thorough within creating plans for each and I was happy with going

into the filming and editing process, knowing that all of our work was prepared and ready to go!

For planning, during the prelim, I thought we did more than expected of us providing we only had to come up with a

base idea, plan our filming and complete the editing, which was only done to a basic level. This set us up really well in

preparation for our film opening… the real thing!Planning for the film opening itself went really well and played to

our strengths as a group and as individuals. We all found it interesting and fun to complete, which is why our planning

turned out so effective and thorough. We used the same software in both the prelim task and the film

opening , which aided our planning as we immediately knew how to operate Blogger and all of the organisational websites

available to us.

Creating the storyboard as a group during the lesson. Here we gathered up all of our previous research on conventions, social backgrounds and general ideas

we had from previous nights work.

Storyboard Doing the storyboard, for our preliminary proved a challenged for us as a group. The

reason for this, was because we were almost describing, using words, what was going to happen during every clip. Obviously the point in having a storyboard, was to keep it short and effective. Having done it like this, it slowed our filming process up

slightly. We really learnt from this mistake through our film opening task, and implemented the efficient work ethic throughout all of our planning. We ensured our storyboard was quick and thorough. In addition to this, making it quicker we used an

animatic on Premiere Pro CS3, to create an even more efficient version of the storyboard, avoiding any slow downs like the one around our preliminary task.

The animatic

Use of titles The use of titles during our preliminary, was non existent. We were told not to use titles

for this, as the main point of the task itself, was to just get to grip with using the camera and editing software. However, despite not knowing how to create titles, we ventured to YouTube and discovered how to create them. After discussing with peers in the lessons about title improvements, we were told they needed to look slightly “more professional”. To do this, we turned to iMovie. Here were the titles we had

created.

Our production

company name.

Our introductory

title.

Another title.

For the rest of the titles, using iMovie, to incorporate the comic book idea, we decided to use a comic book template.

Titles continued…We decided to go with conventions here.. Meaning, the use of the videos during film

opening of Iron Man for example, was where a video then turned into a still image, which almost morphed into a cartoon icon. Here is our version. Our version, was using a comic book template from iMovie. We then imported these titles over to

Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. Even with regards to the titles, we found that we used so much more advanced software than during our preliminary.

We took inspiration from this comic book effect during the end titles of Iron Man.

A final note..

When looking back, I can clearly see there has been some vast improvements, with regards to software usage, editing, footage quality, camera work and operational use has improved, team

work and organisational skills. I also do believe time management has remained the same, if not slightly better, as we were working

to alternative demands and under different circumstances. I thoroughly enjoyed creating both pieces of work and I will take

into account all things learnt and improved upon, from both tasks.