7. Looking back at our preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I learnt a lot during the 3 month stage between our prelim and main task. Considering the different tasks, the prelim task asked us to film someone walking through a door and engaging in convocation with someone else. Compare that to making a 2 minute opening sequence and you can tell there is a huge step. With the prelim task, we were told to what to do and didn’t have to plan much of a story as we already had a baseline, where as with the main task. We had to do in depth research and planning, which I have learnt to do more thorough during these 3 months. For example, we started talking about how we wanted to use the theme of loss, so we researched films that include aspects of loss, where as in the prelim task, it was slightly harder to research a theme as there wasn’t really one. When I first did a storyboard for my prelim, I didn’t think doing a photo storyboard would be necessary. But doing the main task, I realised how vital it is, it shows us directly how our shots need to be, it’s a lot more useful than just a storyboard on its own full of pictures that may have been drawn inaccurately. In our prelim task we had a mere hour or two to record the whole thing, so we rushed some shots, whereas in the main task we could actually spread our time out fairly because we had around 10 hours to finish it. Even though that’s still not a lot of time to record everything, it was a lot more compared to our prelim, so spreading our time out was necessary and i believe it helped my time management skills progress. We had a few problems in the space of our prelim and main task, the biggest problem was one of our group members dropping out the group, so it was only me and Karis in the end. This helped develop our skills of improvisation and working together as a group which is a must in media. Working to our elected roles is also something i have learnt in the prelim, were we wasn’t given strict role, whereas in the main task we had a role each. Karis was the director and I was the Camera man. This helped me develop my skills further into camera. This also helped me progress in the skills of testing rule of thirds and 180% rule. Also, in my prelim, I could use a friend to be my actor. Whereas I couldn’t now due to it being 2 days off timetable, so I had to go into a year 9 class and ask if I could use some a student, then get permission from the head teacher to see if they could have the time off school. This also meant I had to become the responsible adult and take our actors age into consideration. Because we were filming outside during our main task, we had to take the weather into consideration, whereas the prelim task was filmed inside so we didn’t have to worry about the weather.
When it comes to the aspects of editing, it only took an hour or two to digitize and edit our piece in the prelim, where as it took over 10 hours to edit. Using the cut tool and putting excess shots in the bin was learnt in the prelim, but over the course of the main task, i learnt how to do this more effectively. During the prelim task we didn’t use any effects, so I learnt how to use effects efficiently, for example making our whole blue or black and white, to make it look like he was in a dream like state. We also used ghosting, which made it look more abstract, we learned that ghosting was quite familiar in these films due to the research we did in between the prelim and the main task. I believe if we didn’t learn the skills from the prelim task, we wouldn’t of been able to complete the main task to the degree we have now. Also without the research and planning, I believe I have learnt a lot of skills which could take me into further media life just by recording this task. For example, I had never noticed the rule of thirds, but now a days I can see it in nearly every shot in every film. I had previous knowledge of continuity due to GCSE it was just working it into every piece, for example. When Ashley looked through the window of the door, we had to make sure it looked right when you saw him from the other side. We also recorded many safety shots and even used them in our film, for example other close ups of Ashley’s face and him walking down the road, this was because if we made a mistake we could replace it with one these shots.
I learnt a lot during the 3 month stage between our prelim and main task. Considering the different tasks, the prelim task asked us to film someone walking through a door and engaging in convocation with someone else. Compare that to making a 2 minute opening sequence and you can tell there is a huge step. With the prelim task, we were told to what to do and didn’t have to plan much of a story as we already had a baseline, where as with the main task. We had to do in depth research and planning, which I have learnt to do more thorough during these 3 months. For example, we started talking about how we wanted to use the theme of loss, so we researched films that include aspects of loss, where as in the prelim task, it was slightly harder to research a theme as there wasn’t really one. When I first did a storyboard for my prelim, I didn’t think doing a photo storyboard would be necessary. But doing the main task, I realised how vital it is, it shows us directly how our shots need to be, it’s a lot more useful than just a storyboard on its own full of pictures that may have been drawn inaccurately. In our prelim task we had a mere hour or two to record the whole thing, so we rushed some shots, whereas in the main task we could actually spread our time out fairly because we had around 10 hours to finish it. Even though that’s still not a lot of time to record everything, it was a lot more compared to our prelim, so spreading our time out was necessary and i believe it helped my time management skills progress. We had a few problems in the space of our prelim and main task, the biggest problem was one of our group members dropping out the group, so it was only me and Karis in the end. This helped develop our skills of improvisation and working together as a group which is a must in media. Working to our elected roles is also something i have learnt in the prelim, were we wasn’t given strict role, whereas in the main task we had a role each. Karis was the director and I was the Camera man. This helped me develop my skills further into camera. This also helped me progress in the skills of testing rule of thirds and 180% rule. Also, in my prelim, I could use a friend to be my actor. Whereas I couldn’t now due to it being 2 days off timetable, so I had to go into a year 9 class and ask if I could use some a student, then get permission from the head teacher to see if they could have the time off school. This also meant I had to become the responsible adult and take our actors age into consideration. Because we were filming outside during our main task, we had to take the weather into consideration, whereas the prelim task was filmed inside so we didn’t have to worry about the weather.
When it comes to the aspects of editing, it only took an hour or two to digitize and edit our piece in the prelim, where as it took over 10 hours to edit. Using the cut tool and putting excess shots in the bin was learnt in the prelim, but over the course of the main task, i learnt how to do this more effectively. During the prelim task we didn’t use any effects, so I learnt how to use effects efficiently, for example making our whole blue or black and white, to make it look like he was in a dream like state. We also used ghosting, which made it look more abstract, we learned that ghosting was quite familiar in these films due to the research we did in between the prelim and the main task. I believe if we didn’t learn the skills from the prelim task, we wouldn’t of been able to complete the main task to the degree we have now. Also without the research and planning, I believe I have learnt a lot of skills which could take me into further media life just by recording this task. For example, I had never noticed the rule of thirds, but now a days I can see it in nearly every shot in every film. I had previous knowledge of continuity due to GCSE it was just working it into every piece, for example. When Ashley looked through the window of the door, we had to make sure it looked right when you saw him from the other side. We also recorded many safety shots and even used them in our film, for example other close ups of Ashley’s face and him walking down the road, this was because if we made a mistake we could replace it with one these shots.
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