Question 7 AQA Media AS Evaluation

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

2. Communications with Group Members
Looking back at the process from firstly creating my preliminary task, to producing an
opening scene to my film, I experienced many learning curves. The preliminary task was a
key element to the process as it was the first time working with others from my group and
the first piece of work produced as a group. This caused challenges as I feel as a group, we
did not communicate with each other as effectively as possible. For example when a
member of our group was absent, they were not caught up with the work fully as we relied
on lessons to have group discussions, however this meant deadlines were missed because
we had to wait until the following lesson to explain the work they needed to catch up on, by
which time work was due. However, experiencing this made me consider alternative ways
of communication for my group in producing our opening scene. Our group used a group
chat on imessage to keep in touch with each other and it was much more effective as we
were able to communicate at all times, receiving fast responses which helped deadlines to
be met on time.

3. Effective time Management and Casting skills
Another aspect we did not consider carefully enough in our preliminary task was the
importance of casting. We under – estimated the time it would take to cast not only
appropriate actors, but to also find actors who were available on our shooting days and so
ended up using two of our group members as actors in the film, myself and Louis which
made the filmlook less professional and not reach its full potential. However this helped us
fully prepare for our final production as we decided to seek more professional actors for the
final cut, using ‘Casting Call Pro’ and allowing more time to find suitable actors. Although we
did not end up using actors from ‘Casting Call Pro’, this was not an issue because we had
allowed time for issues, such as unavailable actors, to occur.

4. Research and Planning
Research and planning also played a much more significant role in our final film as we
understood through the lack of research and planning we did for our preliminary task, how
much of an impact poor research and planning can have on a production. In our preliminary
task we had not researched the typical conventions to an opening of a film, nor had we
considered the conventions of our genre. Instead we were focused on just reaching the
requirements of a match on action, shot reverse shot and obeying the 180 degree rule
needed to pass the task which was shown as the preliminary task appears to have little
common conventions and little sense of who it is being targeting at. Therefore for our final
production, we spent much more time researching into the genre and opening scene
conventions through deconstructing filmopenings and putting a lot more efforts into
planning the shots needed to portray these conventions such as actually including opening
credits and using establishing shots which were not considered in our preliminary task.

5. Using Social Media Effectively
I also feel I have learnt how to use social media effectively in our research stage as in our
preliminary task, we were unaware of how best to reach our audience via social media. At
the start we only used ‘twitter’ and did not retrieve many responses, however we learnt to
engage our audiences more, we would need to make our social media’s more interacting
and use a variety of platforms. For our final production we also used our personal social
media pages to share information about our film, encouraging those we know to interact
more and engage with our film. In addition, we lacked audience feedback in our preliminary
task and so learnt how effective having focus groups and being able to communicate with
your potential audience is.

6. Mise-en-scene Improvement
In addition, I feel the mise-en-scene was improved dramatically from our preliminary task to
our final cut. Our use of Props and Locations were considered much more, firstly in our
preliminary task we used our school location as it was convenient, however this limited our
opportunities and made our filmlook like a student film as the narrative would have been
fitted much more on an off-school site. For our final cut we used two location’s to set our
film in the main protagonist’s house and then the churchyard. These locations suited our
narrative much more as well as our sub genre of tragedy as the churchyard connotes
sadness, grief and loss and so suggest the element of tragedy, but also foreshadow the
themes within our film. Our use of props was also planned for much more in advance as we
organised to hire the wheelchair from a family relative, whereas in our preliminary task we
tried to find a bat from the school PE equipment, on the day of filming which we were very
lucky to have been able to gain so last minute. Therefore we learnt to organise props prior
to the filming date to allow time for any possible issues. In addition, our Props conveyed
Propp’s character types much more effectively in our final cut as the use of a wheelchair
suggested our female was weak and almost a damsel in distress, wheras Props in our
preliminary task, such as a phone, did not give the audience an insight into the type of
characters nor did it portray the narrative to the same effect as we learnt to do in our final
cut.

7. Editing Skills
Our editing skills were also improved throughout the task. Prior to this process I had not
appreciated the impact and importance of lighting and colour to a film. I feel our use of
black and white colour on the flashback scenes were much more effective than maintaining
the original colour because it not only signified the change in time, highlighting it was a
memory from the pass but also colour usually conveys a particular era and so using black
and white generated a sense of un-certainty, foreshadowing the theme of uncertainty
within our narrative. Using black and white also created shadows and darker shades,
suggesting the darkness and heartbreak within our narrative caused by the car accident. The
casted shadows also further support the idea of it being an event from the past as they
resemble time casting over events and creating a memory of the past. I also learnt how
colour can enforce your narrative as having the car crash scene the only scene in black and
white, focuses the audience’s attention on this particular moment, therefore highlighting
the importance of this scene and moment within our narrative, ensuring the audience do
not miss a key part to the film.

8. During our prelimtaskwe used‘Movie Plus’, this was a basic use of software which we continuedto have issues withsuch
as our footage rendering. Therefore our transitions were lessfocusedon as the renderingmade it almost impossible to
edit our transitions smoothly. For our final cut, we used‘imovie’ and ‘FinalCut Pro’ andsohigher qualitysoftware was
used. Inediting our finalcut we alsotriedto conveyour filmgenre of romance through slow transitions, anelement of
editing we didnot consider in our prelimtasknor would it have been possible due to the rendering andsoftware usedand
so prepared us to consider the software andour film genre conventions to a higher level. Another area of editingthat
improveddramaticallywas our use ofsound. Previous to our productionprocess I had not thought ofsoundeffects in
addition to music. For our final cut I editedthe diegetic soundof doors opening, footsteps ect which not onlymakes the
film more realistic but ofbetter qualityas keysoundeffects were not lost. Inadditionto this, using‘Movie Pluss’ for our
preliminarytask, soundbridges were limitedandyou could not alter the volume of one soundas manytimes nor as varied.
However, through usingother software, this was possible and I was ableto graduallyincrease the volume ofmusic
graduallyto make it look like it wasincreasing onthe radio, alsoediting the sound to treble boost to make the soundseem
more naturalistic andas thoughbeing playedout from the radioas well as i ncreasingtensionas this causes the distraction
for the car accident in our final film. Therefore learningto use sound bridgeswere much more effective thanmaintaining
the same volume level inour final cut.

9. Therefore in conclusion, there were many new skills I learnt during the process from my
preliminary task to my final cut, many of which I learnt from experiencing issues in my
preliminary task and having to overcome them, gaining a better knowledge on how to
approach similar tasks for my final cut to avoid similar issues, making my final cut more
successful than it would have been without learning important aspects along the way.