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

For our preliminary task, we needed to film someone walking down a corridor, opening a door, sitting inside a room and exchanging a short amount of dialogue with another person. We did this through three separate stages: Research and Planning, Construction and Evaluation. Before filming, we first had to practise in creating a storyboard of what was to happen in the video, drawing and writing a small description of each scene. We also had to become familiar with using the camera, boom microphone and tripod, which also required us to have knowledge of different camera shots and angles. Different shots and angles we learnt that were included in our preliminary tasks were:

Establishing shot/long shot of corridor Close up when placing hand on door

handle Shot reverse shot during the exchange in dialogue to show

characters faces as they spoke 180° rule- and invisible line between the characters that

should not be crossed (i.e. filming from one person’s left shoulder must mean you film from the other person’s right)

For the dialogue between the characters, we were given a choice of different scripts, so as not to make us write a whole script, which would be required for our finished piece. The script for our piece was:

Person A: Sweet party on Friday right?

Person B: For you maybe

Person A: What!?

Person B: Ah, it doesn’t matter

Although I had no previous experience in planning or creating a short film, these tasks were not particularly difficult, and had quite a large impact on how we produced our main film opening. From the preliminary task, we had gained an idea of how to plan for an actual film opening, i.e. creating a storyboard of the different scenes in the film, the script to keep a note of the dialogue used and a shot list of all the different shot types and movements. However, this did not account for the research we would need for our finished product, as there was no need to look too deep into the research of such a short clip. The construction was fairly simple due to the planning of the storyboard, but also as we had supervision from students who had previously completed this task. This allowed us to gain advice on how to best film the clip, and to help with any uncertainty or questions. After filming, we were given a class demonstration on how to edit our clips into one whole video, which helped us to have a rough idea of how to upload and edit our videos, with opportunity to experiment with different editing techniques, i.e. adding titles over the video.

However, when it came to producing our actual product, it required much more knowledge of different aspects of the three stages and also needed to include much more detail. Our preliminary task was an extremely short clip created to provide some experience; however, this meant our actual film would have to be almost completely independently made. For example, in the Research and Planning section of our preliminary tasks, the script had already been made and the storyboard consisted of a lot less information than would be needed for our main product (e.g. including different camera shots, script, description of scene etc.). This meant that, for our actual product, we needed to create a full script from scratch that would last the allotted time and suit our film opening (e.g. suspenseful dialogue, humour, dark etc.), and make the storyboard, thinking of each individual scene and the shots taking place within them (shot list). The research area was also something that was not conducted during producing our preliminary tasks, and so required a degree of independence in learning what we needed to know about our genre, they’re conventions, who our target audience is etc.

Although, because of filming our preliminary tasks, this influenced how we would construct our actual products. As mentioned before, the task required helped us gain knowledge on different camera angles and movements, which we would later apply to our actual film openings, i.e. long/establishing shot, shot reverse shot etc. However, when coming to creating the storyboard, shot list and filming, we needed to be aware of many more different types of shots and movements. In addition, when editing, there was a lot more we needed to edit and add in, meaning we had to become more familiar with Sony Vegas, and the tools within it. In the preliminary task, we filmed all the time we needed, whereas filming for our actual product totalled to roughly 15 minutes, which then needed to be shortened to just 5 minutes. There was also the matter of adding in effects, both visually and audio, and foley sounds, which were not taught during the preliminary task, though we were given the opportunity to ask for assistance.

The evaluation for our media product necessarily required much more detail than was given after filming the preliminary task. This consisted of one A4 sheet, asking us on the positives, negatives and possible improvements of our short clips. However, after completing our film openings, we were given 7 questions that meant for us to look through our piece, and look at all the differently aspects of our film that were covered during the previous stages (i.e. evaluating our target audience, conventions of our genre etc.).