Evaluation: Question 7

Media Evaluation

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

Looking back on my productions I felt that I have learnt a lot in the progression from the preliminary task (prelim task) to the main task. For example in preproduction one of the first steps involved creating a storyboard that displayed the narrative in terms of the different camera shots that were to be used. However, during the prelim task when my group drew the storyboards we didn’t design or draw the images properly so when it came to the production stages we were all confused as to what shot we really wanted because the drawing didn’t reflect the camera angles in our written storyboard. Therefore when it came to drawing a storyboard for our main task I made sure to bear in mind that it is supposed to be an accurate representation of the camera shots and angles that we need to film. This allowed us to be able to accurately distinguish between similar shots and film according to our storyboards as opposed to improvising and creating non-existent shots.

During preproduction for the prelim task also decided to create a photographic storyboard in a similar location to our actual location of the camera angles and shots that we drew. This was done so that we get a collective idea as a group of what we want our scene to look like because we would each interpret the storyboard in a slightly different way. Once we took the photos we realised that some of them were taken from the wrong angles and they were not in concordance with our storyboard drawings. Therefore, when the time came to create a photographic storyboard for our main task we used the knowledge, experience and lessons that we learnt from doing the first one to ensure we capture as much detail as possible in each shot. Similar to the storyboard drawings this enabled us to have a united vision on what the shots taken during production will look like.

For our prelim task we didn’t conduct a pitch because it wasn’t needed as the brief specified the narrative for the scene. However, it would have been beneficial to conduct a pitch to find out what our audience would like to see in terms of which camera angels and shots would work best together to depict the story in the scene. This why in our main task we conducted a pitch because we had more freedom with the narrative in our opening and we knew it would be important to find out what our audience would more  likely want to see. Therefore we brainstormed about six different movie openings, presented them to the class who then voted on the idea that they though would be more successful and that was the idea that we chose to film.

During production one of the areas in which I encountered a problem was with the timing. This was because during our prelim task we found it very hard to try and finish filming before the deadline. This was probably due to poor planning and not following our shooting schedule.

Therefore from this I learnt that it is important to stick to the shooting schedule as this will save time both during production and editing as I we would save time looking through unorganised footage. So from this I decided it was best to stick to the shooting schedule as it means that we spent less time redoing the same shots in an unorganised manner and inevitably saved time filming, we even managed to finish early.

For our prelim task we were given a location so we didn't have to spend much time looking for locations that suited our scene we just had to make it work. However for our main task we had more freedom as we have to choose our own locations based in the narrative of our opening. We had a slight problem as our film was to be set in a young boys room however no one in my group had a room that was similar to what we pictured. Therefore we settled on one of our group members houses and decided to bring lots of different props to dress the location as close to our idea as possible.  From out prelim task I learnt how to manipulate our location to allow it to help get across the narrative of our scene and I used this skill to my advantage during the main task.

Another problem that I encountered when filming for the prelim task was the way our cut away shots were filmed. During pre-production we decided to film our cut away shots from a variety of angles but when we came to filming we didn’t vary the angles as much as we hoped to so when it came to post production we were forced to work with what we’ve got. However when it came to filming cut away shots for our main task I learnt from our mistake and decided to film from a variety of angles. This benefited us later as we could then use them in a combination to also depict continuity editing and match on action in post-production.

For our prelim task during editing we obtained some feedback from our creative and technical directors. For example one of the pieces of feedback was to do with our camera angles and the way we frames the shots. He talked about the fact that there was too much head space in one of our over the shoulder shots so next time I made sure to bear this in mind during the main tasks and this helped me to make a better thriller opening. Another way in which we used feedback was during the pitch that we conducted in class for the main task as we asked our classmates to help us decide on a narrative which they think would the most entertaining.