The document discusses the learning process of creating short films for class assignments. It describes creating a preliminary sequence about a man discovering his girlfriend's pregnancy. For their coursework, the student group created an opening action film sequence with various shots and angles. They received feedback on the preliminary sequence but did not conduct formal audience research. The student learned about shooting different angles, proper dialogue techniques, and organizing group work to improve their skills and sequences.

2. Preliminary sequence
In small groups we had to create a short film
about anything showing loads of different angles
and containing some dialogue.
With my group for preliminary sequence we
chose to a simple scene with a guy walking
down to a room to talk to his girlfriend. That’s
when he finds out that she’s pregnant and
panics walking out of the room.

3. Opening sequence
For our coursework task we had to create an opening
sequence in small groups focusing on a specific
genre chosen by ourselves. Taking to consideration
the codes and conventions of in our case an action
film, the setting, lighting, mise-en-scene etc.
Our opening scene mostly consists of a chasing
scene so we had to use loads of different angles to
show our filming skills and continuity.

4. Audience research/feedback
Because we didn’t do an audience research for our
preliminary sequence we didn’t really look at the audience
needs. We have done a showcase in a lesson so we have
got some feedback from our media classmates on how to
improve in the future.
But because we haven’t held any actual focus groups or
questionnaires we didn’t really get any practice on how to
do those. However we did manage to get feedback from
our audience when doing our opening sequence and that
gave us something to improve on as we had more time
between the audience research and the final deadline.

5. What have I learnt?
Doing the preliminary sequence before we
started planning our opening sequence has
helped me to understand how to film different
shots from different angles.
I have learnt that when we are doing a dialogue
the character shouldn’t look in the camera
because it makes it seem as if the person knows
she or he is being filmed which doesn’t make the
film seem realistic.

6. Conversation
As I was starring in our preliminary sequence I know that I
would have to improve on the clarity of my speech.
I know now that if you’re filming the conversation, it has to be
over the shoulder so it looks as if the people in it are actually
just talking to each other and not like if they are being filmed.
The eye lines has to match each other so that it looks like
they’re talking to each other rather just randomly talking.
Even though we didn’t do a dialogue in our opening scene it
is very good to know that because if this wasn’t a school
project we would in fact be doing a whole film which would
contain a dialogue.

7. Filming shots
I have learnt that there are loads of different
angles that a film could be shot from. Now I can
proudly say that I can easily film from different
angles using a wide range of shots such as
close-ups, mid- shots, long- shots, tracking,
panning etc.

8. Progression
For our preliminary task we only had 2 or 3
lessons to film everything and then couple of
lessons to edit. This meant that we had to
produce our prelim quickly so we didn’t have
time to think about what it’s going to be about,
we just had to quickly brainstorm ideas and then
straight away go filming.

9. Organization
I think that even though we had more time for
our opening sequence we had been more
organized when we did our prelim. This might be
because our actors where our group members
(me and Akim) and for our opening sequence we
we used our friends who didn’t do media and
had their own lessons so we had to organize
time to film on weekends as it got dark quickly.

10. …
Other than organization we were more prepared
for our opening sequence than the prelim so we
were able to make it better. However the making
of the prelim has prepared us for the opening
sequence and this is how we managed to make it
even better. We had made progress in the
editing, so we created continuity in our opening
to tell the story we wanted to tell.

11. Working as a team
From doing the prelim I have learnt to be a part
of a team and work together as well as
individually. When doing the prelim we all had
the same roles as everyone had to try at least
once to film and edit. I have learnt how to divide
the roles between our group members and
working towards our own deadlines as well as
the actual deadline, set by our teacher.

13. Shooting process
I learnt from the prelim how much there need to be in
one shot and how to put it all together afterwards to
create the whole film/scene.
I learnt how to add effects such as dissolve or fade to
create a concept edit. We used this edit when we
made The hair fade into the boy’s hair at the
beginning of our prelim. In our opening sequence we
used that when we showed the next day when the the
boy laying on the floor opens his eyes suggesting he
has something’s happened.