The preliminary task was to make a short sequence which would focus primarily on continuity of the task, involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down into a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she would then exchange a couple of lines of dialogue. The main aim of this exercise was to demonstrate the continuity rules used in filming and editing like match on action, shot-reverse shot and the 180 degree rule, and become accustomed to hardware and software used in filming.
The brief of the main task was to create the opening to a new fiction film which would be 2 minutes in length and would included titles with original audio and video material, with the exception of music or audio effects which could be taken from a copyright-free source.
Technical
The learning in the preliminary task was all but brief but covered a large number of areas and was mainly just to get familiar with the different processes involved in creating a film. I learnt to use the camera and all the equipment, getting familiar with the different modes on the camera, setting up and using the tripod. It was my introduction to using Adobe Premier Pro and so the basics of non-linear editing were quite easy to grasp once I had hands on experience.
However, in the creation of the opening sequence to the film all of these skills were greatly improved, using the camera for a lot longer than in the prelim task I got to grips with the handling of it, the more technical sides to it like charging the battery, replacing tapes etc.. The biggest change was however with the editing of the sequence in which I learnt a lot more about the effects applicable to clips, and all in all the putting together of different shots; it helped my understanding of what shots were needed in the more tense parts of the sequence, and where to place shots with more expression as opposed to those more distant to the character.
Planning
The planning for the filming had to be much more planned and organised than that needed in the preliminary task as there were many more factors to it. The prelim was limited to school time and in-school location for the filming, and the actors and story were mostly sorted before we even started the planning.
In the filming of the opening we realised we needed to plan our location before we could think of filming so a top priority was to take pictures of a suitable location that would be permitted for our filming. The actors changed during our production when we dawned upon the idea that Patricia may be better for the role than Bianca in the practise shoot, but our planning and research on the character we had imagined meant that it was very easy for Patricia to replace Bianca effectively. Our storyboarding and initial ideas had to be a lot more thorough, and so it took us longer but with the experience of doing it before we were much quicker and turned ideas in images.
Research
We had to do a lot more research for the main product as the idea was a lot more complex; the prelim task required very little research, it was a simple idea in a classroom so very little research actually took place. There was no fixed genre to the clip unlike the film opening and the same was with the audience, meaning that research was the part of the prelim with the least work on.
The main task however required a lot more intensive research to create an opening for the right genre type and to appeal to our target audience. The genre of the film was researched to see what typical horror movies included in the openings, looking at the characters, mise-en-scene, lighting issues, location, audio tracks, titles etc. We researched the look of the character we needed and the mise-en-scene of the house so that it would create the right atmosphere.
Production
- Running a shoot outside of school and that too at night, was a lot more complicated as the forms to take equipment home had to be signed, the camera and tripod cases had to be taken and brought back by people and so all of this had to be decided beforehand.
- The prelim didn’t have a test shoot which meant that there wasn’t a chance to look at our sequence and change any aspects of it for the main shoot. This was really helpful as I could see what did and didn’t work in the shoot, and gave us a chance to think up any ideas to change the film sequence.
- The process of shot logging in the prelim helped when we had to do it for our main shoots, as it made it a lot easier to check the shots and meant that our editing went a lot smoother. It also helped in keeping track of what shots were being done so we’d know it any had been missed or forgotten about.
- The shots used in the prelim were fairly simple but helped as a starting point for the storyboarding of the sequence, and made me think of more creative shots that would be different to those started with.
Overall - I think the preliminary task was really helpful as it gave me things to look out for in the final film sequence, and gave me insight on problems that could occur such as the lighting not being sufficient to see the sequence properly as with the prelim; it has helped a lot and I have learnt from some mistakes made earlier on to create a great sequence. The teamwork in the film opening was a lot more evident as we spent a lot more time together, and this just made the whole experience better and more interesting!
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