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

 Our preliminary task was a very simple arrangement of a character walking through a door to then have a conversation with another character. The main task was not the content of the scene, but making sure there was no continuity between shots, and making sure we got a feel for how filming works in practise for our final projects.

I learnt straight away that the amount of planning and research going into my film opening was a lot greater than what went into the preliminary task. For the preliminary task we sat, as a group of 3, around a computer for about 30 – 40 minutes and decided what our script would be as we had already been told the shots we’d be using. To make it a bit more interesting, each group was given a genre to play around with, and we were given western. This didn’t have an effect on the overall shots taken, but it helped us to write up a script as we had something to work with .

The only editing used in the editing was the cutting of shots and takes that weren’t necessary and putting them in the right order, whereas in my opening there was much more editing with things like transitions, music, credits and changing the speed of some shots.

In the preliminary, we had to do multiple takes where the actors laughed or got their lines wrong, but in my film opening I had a much larger number of takes and from a wider variety of shots. Out of probably an hour’s worth of footage, I only had 1:48 worth of film opening, including transitions.

The preliminary only used sound that we had captured on the camera microphone, but my film opening had the addition of music. This was something new that wasn’t used within the preliminary task.

I also was much more aware of the mise-en-scene with my film opening than with the preliminary task as it has a much larger role and we only had 40 minutes of lesson time to film the preliminary task, so we had to make do with using the cafe and actors who were in a free period. Whereas in my film opening, I had the burglars dressed the part, in black costume with one wearing a balaclava with the appropriate props, and that the partygoers had party hats and/or party poppers. I also got a birthday banner and party food to make it seem more authentic.

Some things I learnt from my preliminary task is that you don’t always need to dialogue to portray a character’s emotions as sometimes facial expression can say it all. This helped when it came to writing my script for my opening as it meant I didn’t have to try and cram loads of words and explanations into the 2 minutes as their facial expressions would say it all. The same goes for my character’s positions in the frame and their body language. This all helps to put over to the audience how the character is feeling.

I feel that I have definitely progressed from when I did my preliminary task and that my skills in both filming and editing have significantly improved. I feel that the preliminary task was a good starting point to get me used to how things work, and worked well as a preliminary task, as it should and it helped me to be ready to create a film opening that I can be proud of.