Question 7

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

From the last project of the Preliminary task to this task of creating a full product we changed the way our group went about doing things because we already had the experience and went through the things that could go wrong, this time planning it better and making sure that we controlled what we were doing.

One of the main things that our group progressed in is actually getting down to film the shots that we needed and doing it fairly quickly. I think the reason we managed to get this done was because we planned extensively to guarantee getting the right shots, making sure to organize dates and times with the actors, booking out the camera and filming scenes through a few times to give us back-up shots in case something went wrong. We also produced it quicker because we all had experience with the camera and how to put together shots, basically just more knowledge of how to create a film.

Blogging/Research also helped us to be better prepared as we had a better idea of the type of thing we had to produce and a rough guide to what we were aiming our film to be like, by looking at existing film openings and analysing what was good about them gave us a better image of what audiences look for and interest them. It also made us see what shots and music go together well to get the best reaction from the audience which in the long run helped us a lot during filming. It was important for us to research other films so that our final product looks realistic and fits to our chosen genre, it was also important for us to understand what components make a film and how we could include and stick to what a real film opening looks like. All of the research helped us make the film but also helped us to manage our time and control how we wanted the actors to behave and be seen on screen.

One of the obvious things that I’ve learnt from the preliminary task to creating the project now is how to edit on Adobe Premier Pro, it was hard the first time round as most of our group had never used any sort of editing software before so we didn’t really know what we were doing but because we all had a go in the last task it gave us a better say in this film opening task because we all knew what we had to look for and how we could edit it to make the best version of the shots and sequences that we could. Now that we have completed the film opening I feel more confident with the software and understand how to make the material we film flow and play how we want it to look, right down to the smallest details.

Overall I think that the this second task has worked better because the group has worked better together, even though at times we each went off and did separate things when it came down to putting together the final cut we all had a say and made everything from planning and filming come together. I think that we’ve all gained different skills from the first task as we’ve all learnt what it means to make a film, we’re a lot more confident in getting the shots and directing the actors to do what we imagine the outcome to be, we’ve also gained skills in putting the film together as in the first task we made a few mistakes in not getting enough film to work with but having more shots gave us the chance to experiment and create exactly what we first planned out in our storyboards. I think the group was a lot happier the second time round bringing it all down to having the experience, skills and research to back up what your doing.