1. Evaluation Q4: Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?
Kim, Chanise, Lady Pearl & Shazna
2. 2
Pre production
During the pre production of our preliminary, we learnt about the
different camera shots and angles such as; low and high angled shots,
long shots, close ups, extreme close ups etc. We also learnt about the
180 degree rule which is guideline regarding the on screen relationship
between a character and another character or object within a scene. We
then had to plan and come up with a story. Coming up with the story was
not easy, as the subject was broad and it had to be within the college so
there was not much to work with. We then came up with a story set in a
classroom with a suspicious student that carried a gun (prop) in her bag,
who was then caught by her teacher and other students. After we came
up with the idea, we then put this into a storyboard. This was helpful as it
was a step by step guide for our prelim so it made the whole process
overall much simpler. We allocated the drawing of the storyboard to the
best drawer in our group so that the drawings were nicely drawn and
clear. Then, we proceeded to writing a brief description of each shot so
that we understood what was happening.
When getting on to producing our preliminary, we had very little skills and had a lack of knowledge of what
producing a film included. We had no idea of the different types of camera shots we had to film or certain
rules we had to follow.
3. 3
Production
During the production of our film, we tried to follow our storyboard accordingly, however, we were not
so successful in doing this throughout filming as we made various changes that weren't in the storyboard.
We had very little camera skills but we tried to work with what we had already been taught. We decided
to film in our media classroom as it was convenient and most people had gone to film in other places in
the college so it wasn’t disturbing. No specific costumes were worn. This would have made our film more
effective as it would have depicted each of the characters identities. However, what did make our prelim
more effective was the key prop, which was the gun. This was what the film revolved around so it was
important we had it in our film.
4. 4
Post production
When it was time to edit, we were fairly new to the software Final
Cut Pro, so we knew our editing wasn’t going to be the best, but the
process wasn't difficult. We put all the shots we wanted to use in the
timeline on final cut, and put them in order. This made the editing
process easier and faster as we just had to cut down shots that were
too long or had mistakes in and ensure that everything was clear. We
wanted to focus on match cutting, which is cutting from one scene to
a different one, but has objects in the two scenes "matched," so that
they occupy the same place in the shot's frame. We also
remembered the 180 degree rule, so our film was not confusing.
To distribute our film we used popular social networking sites such
as Twitter and Facebook as this is used amongst people our age so
it would give our film more recognition.
5. We think that our film was filmed well as we used the
tripod and the fig rig to perfect our camera shots. for
example:
As you can see our prelim is not in focus
properly and the camera shot is not presented
in a professional way. If this was our film the
audience would not want to see this, as it has a
very bad camera shot.
The camera shots from our film is
more sophisticated as it is a straight
and still shot as there in not that
much space above the head and we
have used a tripod to present this
shot.
6. Editing
• The first time we filmed our film the shots were very bad as we didn't
follow the storyboard properly showing that it was not planned out
and filmed very well. The second time we filmed, we learned from
our mistakes form the prelim and we made sure that we followed the
storyboard properly so that we were fully prepare of what each
scene would be about.
• Unfortunately we did not use garage band or motion in the
editing of our prelim as our prelim was about experimenting the
different types of camera shots that we would usually see in films.
However in our film we did use motion to create effects to the titles
as in films we would expect to see titles of the key productions. We
wanted to make the titles look more appealing to the audience so
that they would want to watch our film. Instead of using garage band
we use sound cloud to find a effective soundtrack.
7. We think that we worked well as a team as we
discussed what works best in our film, but in the
prelim we didn't really discuss what shots
worked best. We think that we were all in
control of our film because we all had our own
ideas and discussed it with the rest of the group.
We have developed our skills by watching the
mistakes we have done in the prelim and have
created better shots for our film. We have also
learnt that by planning what our shots would be
using storyboard we can follow each scene step
by step.
Overall we were successful in film.