The document compares the learning process between a preliminary task and final film production. For the preliminary task, the focus was on gaining experience with equipment and basic shots/editing in iMovie with no storyboarding. For the final film, extensive planning included storyboards and booking equipment for quality. More editing techniques were used along with props, titles, and sound mixing. Overall the final film showed significant improvements in skills and quality from lessons learned through the preliminary task experience.

1. Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?

2. The preliminary task
• At the beginning of the AS course, we had to create a
preliminary task that allowed us to use the
equipment and software that we would use for our
final film. We had to use multiple shots such as
establishing, long shot, close up, and different
angles and editing techniques. There was no set
narrative or plot, so we based ours on a student
being late for an exam and her journey to getting
into the exam hall; by having this narrative it
allowed us to use a number of shots and angles that
we could practice before using them in our final
film.

3. Planning
• When planning our preliminary task, we didn’t create any story boards
as we hadn’t had any experience with creating them and so we wanted
to focus on gaining experience with the filming and editing side of the
production. Although we did ensure that before storyboarding our
final film we understood the concept and layout of them so that it
would be professional.
• Following this, we made a basic 6 shot story board outlining the
overall narrative of our film, and we then made a 20 shot story board
that detailed the type of shot we wanted, the edit we wanted on it, and
the type of sound we were going to use. They also had the length of the
shot that we roughly waned to stay in.

4. Planning
• We didn’t use any props in our preliminary film
as we didn’t have a lot of planning time and we
were mainly experimenting with shots as we
hadn’t done any filming before. However with
our final film, we used quite a few props in order
to make our narrative more convincing to the
audience, as well as to create tension and
suspense.

5. Equipment
• For the preliminary task, we used a combination of a flip
camera and a Panasonic camcorder as this is what was
available at time. It is clear that two different cameras were
used because the quality of the footage varies throughout
as well as the sound quality. We were unable to change this
as it is what we were given, however for main task, prior to
filming, we filled out a booking form and chose the
Panasonic HDC – SD700 and the Velbon CX 888 tripod.
By booking the equipment out, we were able to choose which
ones we wanted that had the best quality possible out of
the options we were given. The camcorder records in HD
so we were able to ensure that we were recording good
quality shots.

6. Software and editing
• We used the same base editing software for both our
preliminary task and the final film, which was iMovie, as
this was the program that was most readily available. For
the preliminary task, neither of us had ever used iMovie,
so we had to learn the basics while editing the footage for
the prelim task, and although for the final film we had
some basic skills with the software, we still had to learn
the more complex aspects of the editing process, though
we had a head start from the prelim.

7. Titles
• In our preliminary task, we didn’t add any titles because we wanted
to focus on the editing process and the camera work for the shots, as
we were only working on a basic film with a simple narrative.
• For the creation of our titles in the final film we used LiveType to
make the credits and titles, and having not put titles on the
preliminary material, we had no prior experience with this software.
This was a slight issue as it took us a while to work out how to use it,
but by the end of it we understood what to do and could use it with
ease. The style of our titles and credits were linked with the genre of
our film so that it would appeal to the audience. Having not created
a name for our preliminary film, we struggled to find a suitable title,
however eventually we decided on one that related to the genre of
the film and made it sound professional and as if it could be
released into the film industry.

8. Sound
• In the preliminary task, we only used only one non diegetic
sound track and the speech/ other diegetic sound as we hadn’t
got any other experience for finding the tracks and sound
effects. However for the final film, we used a multitude of
different tracks mixed together, and we added various effects
and non diegetic sound into the film. We found the
soundtracks on royalty free websites so we weren’t being
copyright – something that we didn’t do in our prelim task.
• We also created some of our own sound effects as we couldn’t
find any that were suitable for what we wanted; these
included a stick snapping and the echoed laughter of the two
girls. These helped to create a tense atmosphere and conform
to the genre conventions.

9. Editing
• In our preliminary film, we didn’t have much experience in editing
and what we had to do so we put a basic sequence of clip together in
the right order to get a linear narrative and didn’t do much editing.
The aim was to get a continuous flow in the prelim task.
• Despite succeeding in this, we needed to do a lot more editing in our
main film in order to make it more exciting for the audience and to
make the film look more professional. Having better editing would
also allow us to fit the sound better with the clips so that it was in
sync.
• For the main film we ensured that we had cut the clips to the best
place possible and put them in an order that would reflect the
narrative we wanted – a mixture of past and present clips. We used
jump cuts to create the tension in the film, and used a variety of
effects to make the flashbacks as convincing as possible.

10. Improvements
• If we had the opportunity to film our film opening again, there are
some changes that we would make, for example we would include
shots from different angles and perspectives in order to build the
suspense and add more technical detail to the film.
• We would also add to the amount of time that we spent filming –
this is because we filmed the entire film in one day, so if we had
more time it would have allowed us to possibly refilm some of the
shots to improve them.
• A further improvement that we could make would be the quality of
the diegetic sound within the clips. The microphone on the
camcorder we were using wasn’t good enough for us to use in the
film, so we had to remove it all. By having a better microphone we
could have kept the sound and it would have helped to locate the
audience better.

11. Conclusion
• In general, our main film was an extreme improvement on what we
created for our preliminary, as we learnt a vast amount about the
editing process as well as the practical element to the filming. All of
this allowed us to create a successful production that met the
criteria we were set.
• The creation of our film taught us to work well within a group and
be time efficient when it comes to a tight filming schedule. We
learnt that splitting work between us helped us to keep to a
deadline.