AS Media Studies

1. 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?
JESSICA UNDERWOOD

2.  Working as a group with Molly, Lucy and Georgie, we decided to produce two
separate preliminary films; one would conform to the requirements asked of us
when given the brief to complete our preliminary task – to include a
conversation between two characters, to demonstrate our understanding of the
180 degree rule and to use a range of different camera shots and angles,
including match on action and shot reverse shot. The other that we produced
explored conventions of a thriller film, although we found that we had broken
the 180 degree rule.
 For our final task, we were asked to produce a film opening sequence lasting
between two and two and a half minutes in length. We were required to include
conventions of the thriller genre with a sub-genre of our own choice.

3. CALL SHEETS
 The call sheets produced before filming our final film allowed us to plan the
number of shoots taken on each day as well as notifying the crew and cast
members to know what time they were required to be at the film location and
what props and equipment were needed on that particular day of filming.
 We were unable to produce any call sheets when creating our preliminary tasks as
our first preliminary was filmed on the day that we had received the brief in order
to complete our task. This gave us little time to plan and film our preliminary
film. The production of our second film was due to a spur of the moment decision
and was also planned and filmed in a limited time frame.
 Using call sheets when filming our final production made filming days run a lot
smoother as we were able to achieve a lot more in the amount of time we had.

4. PLOT
 In our first preliminary film we used a simple plot of two friends meeting in a
school detention and being told off by their teacher for talking in order to convey
our understanding of the given requirements.
 Our second preliminary film explored the conventions of a thriller genre and we
therefore followed a plot of two girls being chased by a hooded figure.
 The plot of our final production was more genre specific as we had used
conventions of the horror/thriller genre. The young girl was awoken by a sinister
sound during the night and therefore went to find the source of the noise.
However, we included a plot twist of the antagonistic figure in fact being the same
character as the protagonist, creating a sense of enigma built up within the
audience.

5. PLANNING
 A short amount of time given to complete our preliminary films meant that we
were not able to plan our tasks in detail; we spent an hour discussing our ideas
and ways in which we could shoot our film before the production process. Filming
itself was therefore difficult as we had only a rough idea of what we would film.
 For the final production of our opening sequence we produced a storyboard and a
script prior to filming in order to know what we aimed to create. We planned after
researching genre conventions of thriller films with a sub-genre of horror as well
as target audience suitability in order to produce a successful outcome.

6. CAMERA
 We used an iPad to film our first preliminary production. This was not ideal as we
were unable to produce a high enough quality of film than what we had initially
expected. We could not film (extreme) close up shots in focus due to the footage
looking pixelated and blurry.
 For both our second preliminary and our final film, we were enabled to create a
product of a higher standard with a built in microphone which was more reliable
at picking up sound. We borrowed both the iPad and the film camera from school,
hence why both cameras were not as high a quality as we had wanted when
producing our films. However, we had no other source of getting a better quality
camera to use when filming either of our films.

7. PROPS
 Both preliminary films were shot at school and this meant that we had a limited
amount of props to use, hence why the props we did use did not provide much
realism or visual impact. We avoided this difficulty when filming the final
production by including a wider range of props suitable to our genre and plot.
 The costume worn in both preliminaries were not planned as we filmed them on
the same day as when we were given the task to complete. However, the costume
worn by the protagonist in our final production was a set of pyjamas due to the
character having been in bed prior to her disturbance. The colouring of the
pyjamas was planned as the white trousers we used connoted the innocence of the
main character.

8. GROUP
 In both preliminary tasks, I worked as a group of four with Molly Braggins, Lucy
Scanlon and Georgie Whitehouse. We each had a role when producing our
preliminary films which was less stressful as we would be assigned to separate
tasks and would therefore each have a more manageable workload. However,
when making our preliminary films we found that it was difficult to include
everyone's ideas although they were very similar.
 Rather than working as a group of four in order to make the final product as I did
in the preliminary task, I worked as a pair with Molly Braggins. Although we
enjoyed working with Georgie and Lucy, we learnt that working as a pair meant
that we could work more efficiently. We would be doing each task as a team and
would therefore be reassured that the amount of work we were doing was an
equal contribution to the production of our overall product. For example, we both
participated in the research, pre-production planning and post-production editing
processes of our film, and had different roles during the main production when
filming.
 Molly and I planned before filming in order to have a full understanding of what
we wished to achieve during the production of our film. Having less people in our
group meant that we could express our ideas clearly and execute them all in our
film.

9. TIMING
 We found that although our preliminary task lasted only for 29 seconds and that
we only filmed during one afternoon at school, we spent a few weeks prior
researching and planning what we were going to do for our preliminary, as well as
around a week afterwards editing our film. From this we learnt that that it takes
time, effort and teamwork in order to produce a successful final product,
otherwise we would experience problems during this production period.
Consequently, we spent as much time as possible to research, plan and therefore
complete our final film opening sequence which lasted 2 minutes 28 seconds
overall. We were prepared to put as much time and effort into our film to make it
the best that it could possibly be.

10. EDITING SOFTWARE
 During the editing process of our final production we used iMovie which was the
same software used when editing both preliminary films. Having the software
installed on the iMacs at school meant that iMovie was accessible, as well as of a
much higher quality than Windows Movie Maker installed on other computers in
school.
 iMovie was easy to use when editing our final production as we had had experience
using it throughout the post production process of our preliminary films. We had
no major difficulties when using it to edit either one of all three films.
 Our basic editing skills (such as colour saturation and cuts) were learnt during the
production of our preliminary tasks which made the editing procedure of our final
film a lot easier. However, we adapted our skills to produce more complex editing
by researching other ways in which we could edit our film, such as by adding in
titles and credits.

11. TITLES AND CREDITS
 We included no titles or credits in our preliminary films, although we needed to
include this (as well as a film opening ident) in our final production.
 Due to this we had had no previous experience of creating them when making our
opening titles and credits for our final film.
 iMovie was therefore our chosen software to create them as we were familiar with
using it when editing the rest of our films content. We used the same typography
as the credits for the title of our film throughout. However, we used different
colouring for the text of the opening titles in comparison to the credits. The white
credits were present throughout the majority of the film, connoting the innocence
and purity of the protagonist. On the other hand, the black and red titles follow
the introduction to the identity of the antagonist, foreshadowing that danger is to
come.

12. CONCLUSION
 Overall this final production was successful in comparison to the making of our
preliminary task; we had a prolonged amount of time in order to complete our
horror/thriller film opening sequence and could therefore research and plan our
ideas before filming. By doing this we were able to create a final film which was
suitable for our primary target audience.
 Our film making and editing skills had improved significantly from the production
of our preliminary film to that of the final film, and I feel as though our film is a
clear representation of our initial ideas.
 If we were to repeat this process, we would spend more time filming the ending
scene in which the antagonist is revealed. During editing, we decided that our film
wasn't sinister enough due to the fact that the revelation of the antagonist wasn't
as intimidating as we had initially planned. We only one had piece of footage
which revealed the antagonists identity which we had already used in our film.
Hence we had to reshoot the antagonists reveal in school which was clearly not
the setting of our film, and had to use dark lighting in order to disguise this, which
wasn't in fitting with the lighting of our film.