1. To approach this, I looked
at my preliminary task and
all the posts I had made on
my blog from then till now. I
made a list of everything I
had learnt and progressed
in. I have put these into
different subheadings and I
will expand on each one
individually.
Technical Skills
It’s important to keep the
camera still while filming
and minimise movement.
To prevent this, the use of a
tripod is critical, this allows
you to rest the camera and
take steady shots, and
creates smooth pans and
tilts. Also taking the shot
more than once allows us to
pick the best possible one,
as we found out when
filming our media product,
when we looked back at our
takes for each shot and did
an edit decision list we had
much more choice,
compared to when I need
my preliminary task I only
had one or two takes of
each shot therefore made it
difficult.
A mistake I was making
when filming, was that I
lefttoo much room at the
top or sides of a shot, this
took the focus away from
what I was shooting as
there was so much visible
background.
So I improved on the
framing of shots. I also
learnt about the rule of
thirds, when the frame is
divided into nine sections,
this is to try and avoid
filming the subject of the
shot in the middle of the
camera framing. This adds
to the quality and makes
the product more realistic
and believable. This also
helps with the composition
of the media product so the
audience get the best
possible viewing.
When it came to the editing
process we noticed a few
continuity errors, which we
tried to avoid during filming
by keeping sure the make-
up, hair, costumes and
background made sense
with the story. When
filming my preliminary task,
lots of my shots did not
match and did not flow well
with each other, when
filming our media product,
we made sure the shots
ofthe characters opening
the gate was continuous.
Continuity errors take away
from the realism of the
media product and can
make it look unprofessional
and also can create
confusion for the audience
if it doesn’t flow properly.
I learnt how to edit shots
with lighting and various
effects such as transitions,
also how to cut clips to fit in
the film, which helps give a
professional look. I learnt
how to do this when
practicing a lockdown shot,
which is when parts of the
shot is cut out.
Software
Since my preliminary
task I have learnt how
to use LiveType, as
we needed this to
make our group
production logo. It
was interesting to use
this program as we
was able to give a
professional look,
that we couldn’t
achieve on other
programs we had
access to.
When we did our
preliminary task, we used
IMovie to put our clips
together. From them we
changed this to Premiere
Pro as there is more tools to
give us more advanced
access and create an overall
better media product. We
could do things such as
changing the volume of
sound, and have more than
one sound running at a
time, so for our film we had
the re-recorded sound of
our characters dialogue and
then the sound track. After
YouTube tutorials, we felt
confident using the
program.
General
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression fromit to the full product?
May 1, 2014

2. Overall I have learnt that in
order to make a good film,
you have to plan carefully.
This helps each stage of
making a film so much
easier to carry out, as you
know what you are doing
and what to do in order to
get the best possible
product. In comparison to
doing the preliminary task,
where I didn’t do any
planning at all, you can see
the improvement from our
final film, Scarlett, where
we all put a lot of time into
planning a preparing what
we were going to do.
Another strong learning
point is to re shoot, as many
things can go wrong with a
shot such as the angling,
framing and lighting. When
doing the preliminary task I
hardly did any takes of
shots, compared to the final
film when we did the same
shot many times in different
angles to give us the best
possible shot and quality to
our film. From doing this we
had a more professional
and easier time when
editing in terms of having a
lot of choice of different
shots.