Evaluation Q5

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

            For the preliminary task we made the decision to film in a classroom as it would make the story seem more authentic as the story was actually set in a school. We had to book the classroom in advance to ensure we had it ready for filming and that it wouldn’t be taken by someone else. As it was all in one classroom, it made it a lot more convenient when filming, as we wouldn’t have to constantly move the camera around a lot. We didn’t encounter any problems with this decision; in fact it turned out to be a benefit as it meant that we wouldn’t have to worry about other locations being taken/used. We made a schedule as to what shots to film when which shots to film when as things like lighting and people in the area would affect could have affected our filming. We didn’t encounter any problems with this as we ended up filming the shots at the time we wanted to. In the main task we had to do a lot more shots within our storyboard as a pose to the prelim task which only required a few shots, we learnt from our mistakes we made in the prelim task and applied these to the storyboard for our main task to ensure our film didn’t have the mistakes made previously, and it would be harder to make sure of this as there were a lot more shots to film so we had to keep a consistency in the quality of shot across the whole film. In the main task we had to schedule what shots we would film at a certain time as the weather was always changing so we had to make sure we had the main shots we needed were filmed early on in case of any weather change.  The solution we came up with to counter any weather like rain or wind (which would affect sound). We made sure we filmed any outdoor shots in the morning whilst the weather was still holding up, and any indoor shots we could film at a later time as we wouldn’t have to worry about weather. From this I learnt that a lot more work goes into pre-production than the audience may see, and that everything must be thought about before going off to film.



As you can see in the storyboard above, we rectified the errors made and incorporated them into the storyboard.



            During production on the prelim task we were still relatively new to the camera, so operating it at first wasn’t as easy as it was on the main task because we didn’t know which shots would look best or how we should position the camera on a tripod, we didn’t encounter many problems with the camera itself, the only problems we did encounter were that we were recording when the camera was not being used. Also when filming we didn’t even think about the continuity of the shots as we just filmed the shots and assumed when editing the clips together that they would look good, however we should have looked at the continuity of the shots when filming to see if they would all match up. In the prelim task we had quite a wide variety of shots as we made sure that we used the majority of shots that we felt were appropriate, one of the problems faced when using all of these camera angles was that it was quite a hassle to constantly move the camera and tripod around a small, classroom, so maybe we should have taken into consideration whether manoeuvrability of the camera would be compromised in such a confined space. A solution to this however was that we moved a few desks around which created a lot more space but also allowed us to film from an angle we wouldn’t have originally. In the final task, we made sure that the locations we intended on using would be easily accessible for the camera, but also that they were not heavily congested with people who could possibly ruin the shot, a solution we found to this was filming at a quiet time, for example when we wanted to film a shot in the common room, we knew for a fact that it would always be busy, but we knew that a lot of people had a free period on a Wednesday which would mean that it would be extremely quiet and easy for us to film, we did however have to get the permission of a member of staff to ensure that filming there was ok, which it was. Luckily for us as well, it was also quiet which meant we could film without having to worry about anyone interrupting the shot. With the weather always changing the day we were filming, we made sure that the first shots we filmed were the ones that took place outside, so we started with the children entering the school first, and then filmed all the scenes near the bench which made sure that if we needed to we could re film those shots and still have the first shots already filmed. When filming the main task we knew that as there were a lot more shots, we should make sure that we kept continuity throughout the shots, which would make for a much more flowing film, we did this by continuously filling out a continuity sheet handed to which allowed the camera operator to adjust accordingly, however I think there could have been a wider variety of shots overall, but because we had so many shots to film, time constraints didn’t allow us to film with the wide amount of shots we wanted, however one shot we were quite happy with was the going crazy scene as it felt like you were moving with them through the corridor, however this effect was given from the tracks which we moved the camera along. I think we learnt that from the prelim task that continuity is the most important thing because if the film won’t flow it won’t look good, so we made sure that all shots matched the criteria on our continuity sheet.

          

As you can see in the video above, we tried to incorporate the techniques seen above into our film On the prelim task, the post production work was fairly simple as all we had to do was order the shots up and make sure they flowed, however because the software was relatively new to us, we didn’t know how to use a lot of the tools within the programme. One thing we made sure to do after every change we made was to save our work as it meant we wouldn’t lose our work if the computer crashed, we also saved various copies of the work so we always had something to go back to if we couldn’t save the file we were on, which a few times was useful as the computer did freeze up. During post production my knowledge of Adobe Premiere grew as I started to feel more comfortable with it from all the time spent editing, I also learnt some new things from basics like cutting to extending the audio over multiple clips. I think one thing we could have done differently was make the film flow a bit more as there were a few jump shots that didn’t seem very natural, there were a few technical issues with the film but those couldn’t be rectified as they were made when filming. When editing the main task we used the feedback from the prelim task and made sure that there were a lot less jump shots to make sure the film was a lot smoother throughout. On the main task we had to have some sound with our clips, so we had to blend the sound in with the clips we had filmed, which took quite a bit of time because during the prelim task we didn’t have to worry about any sound except for the speech coming from the characters. When it came to picking music I think the right choices were made, for the majority of the film we needed a song that would be like a background tune to accompany the speech, we chose a comedic style tune which matched well with the film as it was after all, a ROMCOM.

When we had to add the second song for the two friends going crazy, we had to make sure it blended well with the other track and that it was a smooth transition, because this was pretty much the first time we were editing the audio together, it was a little complicated as we didn’t get the exact effect we wanted, however after trying countless times, we eventually got the result we wanted. Since there was a lot more time to edit for the main task, we could take our time on each section to make sure it wasn’t rushed and that the clips were of a high quality. We also took into consideration the feedback that was given from the prelim task and applied that to this task, so there weren’t any jump shots. Another thing which was quite time consuming was adding titles, some titles were quite easy as we just placed them over the footage and faded them in and out, some titles however were a little more complex as we had to track them and make them disappear differently using different transitions and things like masks. I think the only problem with having these kinds of titles are that it was very time consuming and maybe took some time away from editing other parts of the film. I think the key lessons learnt here are that we made the right choice by saving our work various times at different stages, because at some points when we wanted to preview something the computer would freeze, so that meant we had something to go back to, also I think I learnt a lot more about the editing software which means when I work on future tasks it will be a lot easier.