REFLECTION OF PRELIMINARY TASK

BY AMINATTA SYLVA

DID YOU MANAGE TO FULFIL ALL THE CRITERIA?

Yes I do think that we managed to fulfil the criteria as we did what was set in the preliminary task- continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door. Max 2 minutes. We made our video under 2 minutes which meant that we met the regulations for the length of the video. I think that our filming went well because we did things like obeying the 180* rule, rule of thirds, eyeline matches, using match on actions to stop the audience from being bored, cuts (the software wasn’t allowing me to use a fade on the subclips.). The shots we used- long shots, to show the settings and mise-en-scene, close ups to display emotions, mid shots to show facial and body expressions, over the shoulder shots, to make the audience feel as if they’re in the scene with the character. We didn’t use any tracking shots because the dolly made the camera shake and it would make our film fall into the thriller or horror genre. We only used diegetic sounds as the video wasn’t long enough to have an introduction that included non-diegetic sounds. However I did want to do freeze frames to introduce the characters to the audience, but I thought that we would not have enough time.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN DURING THE FILMING PROCESS?

I learnt lots of things that I found difficult to do a year ago, such as editing and using Final Cut Pro and filming. I also found that the filming process for ideas, locations and characters took a less time than last year. As we managed to get all of ideas down on to a final product in less than a month. I found it a bit difficult arranging the actors for the scene, as there would be some errors on the footage from them, such as facial expressions, mixing up scripts, not taking acting seriously (which made us film the same scene many times.) and filming during different times of the day as it affected the lighting of the footage (but we fixed it up on the filter changers available on Final Cut Pro), also the people in the background. I also improved by cutting skills and made 3 match on action shots in the video.

So I learnt that it is best to film during lesson time as all the children are away, because in one of the footages a kid was asking “are you filming?” which ruined the scene. But we lowered to the volume of that shot to hide the kid’s voice. Another thing was the costume, actors forgot to wear the clothing that they previously wore in other shots, this caused a delay in finishing our final product as we didn’t want to have any continuity errors.

We had another idea but it looked a bit boring and lacked drama and the audience would get bored so we switched it to this idea. I think that we’ve only re-filmed twice due to continuity errors (actor wearing different coloured jumper etc.), lighting and finding a vacant room to film in. Furthermore I learnt about framing during our filming process- how everything significant had to be in the shot. I made sure that in most of our shots that the audience know that it is set in a school. I learnt that not all places give out great sound quality in the footage, so we avoided the canteen and playground as the sound doesn’t come out clearly.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT EDITING FROM THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE FILM?

During the process of editing, I learned how to upload footages, create bins to store the clips in, mark in and out to select the parts of the shot that you want to make a subclip, how to lower and increase the volume of subclips, change the lighting through the filters and converting the video into a movie through quicktime player. Now I find it a lot easier to edit, which is a vital skill for our next preliminary task as it means that the product will be completed quicker.