This document summarizes a student's reflections from their 6-week film production rotation. During the first few weeks, students learned camera and editing skills by filming walking sequences. They also began planning their own 60-90 second films through storyboarding, research, and audience surveys. In weeks 3-4, students focused on pre-production tasks like shot lists and risk assessments before filming. They then edited their films, adding sound effects. In the final weeks, students completed their films, gathered feedback, and evaluated their work and production process. Overall, the rotation provided hands-on experience with planning, filming, and creating short narrative films.

1. I N D I A - R A I N H A R R I S O N
STAGE 5
PRODUCTION REFLECTIONS

2. WEEK 1 – 09.01.2018
For the first week of production we talked about
what we would be doing for this rotation, which is
creating a 60 – 90 second film. To practise using
the camera equipment we would be using, we
were sent off into groups with a camera an tripod
to film someone walking upstairs and into a room
and us as filmmakers had to decide what dramatic
sequence to include at the end of our films. Once
we had finished filming, we went back and edited
our sequences together to make the story flow
well. As for editing in sounds for a movie
sequence, we were given a short 30 second clip
that we had to include sound into ourselves that we
either converted from YouTube or recorded
ourselves using a sound recorder. We also did a bit
of paperwork, such as drew storyboards, ad filled
out an initial plans PowerPoint and began research
on what and how to crate our own short movies.

3. WEEK 2 – 16.01.2018
During the second week of our rotation, we
continued on with planning and wrote down a few
concepts for stories that we would want to create.
We finished our research and decided which of
our 2 concepts we were going to chose to create
into a mini movie. We filled out a story
development document and proposal, helping us
adapt out story further, giving us chance to explain
in detail how our story is supposed to be
portrayed and how the audience could interpret it.
Due to us only being in college for two days this
week, we weren’t able to complete as much work
as we would usually. We also created surveys that
helped us with primary audience research, I had
27 responses for my own, each helping me decide
on what genre of film I was going to create and
how I should film it. We also had to complete a
secondary audience research where we fund
movies that fit the same genre a our own and look
at similarities between three popular movies.

4. WEEK 3 – 23.01.2018
Our third week of production we started our
pre-production PowerPoint, where we broke
down our story into sections and created
storyboards as a visual for what we wanted
the story to look like. We also created a shot
list, which helped us develop how our shots
were going to look by explaining what angle
we were going to film at and why. We also
filled out charts on what cast we used and
why we chose to have them in our movie
over anyone else. We did the same with
location, we explained what location we
were using and why we chose to use that
location when filming and how it helped the
aesthetic of our films. We also had to say
how long each of our shots would potentially
be. As well as describing what angle we
would like the camera to be at when filming
each shot of our film.

5. WEEK 4 – 30.01.2018
Week four, we carried on with our pre-production
PowerPoint, completing other documents such as
Risk Assessments, Call Sheet an Contingency Form.
After all of our paperwork was completed, we started
filming our movies. For my film I used an
underground tunnel close to college and the college
green screen studio. It only took one day to film all
the sequences, the remainder of the week was
editing the shots together, cutting out where
necessary. We also recorded sounds, again with a
sound recorder, that we uploaded to the computers
and inserted into our movies where necessary,
making sure the timing of all of our diegetic sound
matched up with the picture of our movies. For the
risk assessment we had to read potential risks for
when we go out and say whether it was a risk that
will happen or one that wont, we then had to
calculate the risk factor for each thing, explaining
why it was / wasn’t a potential risk.

6. WEEK 5 – 06.02.2018
This week was our final week of production for our short
film rotation. We completed our final film projects, some re-
filming areas of their films as shots weren’t quite right or
added parts into their films to show an exact location of
where the film took place. We started on our evaluations for
the entire rotation, explaining how we completed our
research, the sounds we used ad how we incorporated
them into our films. We also discussed how we managed
our time between planning, filming, editing, paperwork, etc.
We also received audience feedback by asking a minimum
of 3 people what they thought of our films, for example,
what they liked and disliked, what they would do to change
it, why the liked certain elements, what thy would do
different etc. We then had to summaries our feedback and
justify what we would change in our films based on the
feedback we received. All work we completed throughout
the 5 weeks was uploaded onto our blogs upon completion.
As well as updating our vlogs, we also completed this
PowerPoint with brief explanations as to what we did each
week.
https://youtu.be/hXDELGf3Fck

7. WEEK 6 – 13.02.2018
This week we mainly focused on our evaluation, analysing
our work, discussing good and bad points within our work.
We also showed our work to three different people,
gathering their opinions on what they felt was good about
our work and what they didn’t like about our work, where I
discussed what I agreed with from said feedback and what
I didn’t, then I continued on to explaining what changes I’d
make to my product if I were to create it again and what I
personally felt was good within my product. We also
discussed what research methods we used, how we
appealed to our target audience and how we didn’t, plus
how we went about planning for our product, discussing the
mood boards we had previously created and going over the
three stories we had written about before choosing the one
we stuck with and created for our final product. We also
discussed how we managed our time and the technical
qualities with production, this included audio, the camera
and editing process.