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

Since our preliminary task, I have gained a great deal of knowledge in the areas of pre-production, production and post-production.

The brief of our preliminary task was to film and edit a continuity sequence with a character entering and crossing a room, sitting down opposite another character, and exchanging a few lines of dialogue.
The brief for the main task was: 'The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.'

When filming and editing this task, there were several things we had to keep in mind, that we would later find very useful when producing our opening sequence. Here is a summary:

Jeng checking our storyboard

Pre-production: Variation of shots, scheduling, storyboarding, assigning tasks to each group member, narrative flow, lighting and setting.

Production: Framing, acting, time management and leaving run-on time to edit.

Post-production: Continuity, narrative flow, match-on action and audio volume.

Pre-production:

Our prelim storyboard

Planning for the preliminary task definitely taught me the importance of organisation. I learnt that having a clear shot list and storyboard is essential for conducting a seamless and productive shoot. To plan our prelim, we drew up a storyboard onto sheets of A4 paper. Though very organised, this method was very static. When it came to doing the equivalent for the opening sequence, we drew each shot on a colour coded post-it note, photographed each one, and created an ‘animatic’. This allowed us to plan out the timing of each shot and notice any continuity issues in advance of the test shoot. I personally found this approach much more visual, creative and inspiring.

Production:

Set design was a very important part of our project. When shooting the preliminary task, we used our provided setting to our advantage and shot a sequence set in a classroom. In this case there was no dressing of the set needed, and I found the setting to be a little dull and uncaptivating. To remedy this, when it came to dressing the hacker’s bedroom, we put a lot of time into it. We turned a typical teenage girl’s bedroom into one that looked as though it could belong to a nerdy teenage boy. I’ve found that the atmosphere can really help to build a particular genre or mood in a piece of film because of this.

The Prelim Setting

Our Set Before Design

Final Setting

Looking back at the preliminary task, I think that the match-on action (the grab of the pen) worked well, a technique that we repeated in our opening sequence when the protagonist takes a CD out of a case. We also found that cutting away to the master shot to make the setting and space clear is essential. We managed to stick to the 30 degree and 180 degree rules and used cross-cutting and shot-reverse-shot.The practise of these continuity techniques assured me that I am able to use them in the production of my sequence. Because of this, I have been able to use all of the previous techniques listed in the finished sequence.

Match on action in prelim

When filming the preliminary task, we should have paid more attention to the volume of the audio that we were recording, as when it came to editing, it was tricky to match up. With this in mind, we made sure that the person filming was always wearing a set of headphones so that we would not repeat this error. I also discovered from the previous task that we have to make sure that each run through of the sequence is acted as similarly as the ones before in order to make it easier to retain narrative flow and continuity when it comes to post-production.

Post-production:

The editing of the prelim taught me the importance that good continuity editing plays in creating narrative flow. A seamless narrative is essential to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief and get lost in the story. I noticed this when watching my edited prelim piece. The unpolished editing looks slightly choppy, attracting my eye when I should be just following the narrative, not noticing the cuts. This stressed to me the importance of spot on editing when it came to the editing of our group’s opening sequence