Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
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When I was
first introduced to the terminology there wasn't many words that
I already knew the meanings of, I knew what the depth
of field was, genre and the meaning of narrative enigma but words such as
long shot, medium shot and close ups were all to and I quick got used to
including them in my work and when talking about my filming.
During our
prelim task we learnt techniques that benefited us greatly with our
future edited and filming. The prelim was a continuity
task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room
and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then
exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue and help to demonstrate match on
action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule in our work. The task helped
us understand continuity editing and helped us understand what to do and
what not to do when it came to filming on our own, as we wouldn’t have
much guidance at this point.
We had little planning for the prelim and didn't
look into any other texts to help us develop our ideas, we had
a screenplay to follow but no screenplays or shot lists, there was no
casting involved only the people that were not filming helped
out by acting. We learnt how to import all of our media from the SD card onto
the laptop and onto final cut so we could start editing. When it came to
edited the prelim, very basic edited skills were used as using final cut pro
for the first time was very daunting therefore we only used tools
such as the select tool , zooming , blade and positioning tool.
When finished editing we learnt how to export the film into
a master film therefore saving in onto the laptop.
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From my swede I learnt how to use final cut pro
more efficiently, I learnt that using a tripod created a much
more professional and sturdy look to the shots and what screenplays, shot lists
and story boards were and that they were very effective and helped a lot when
it came to filming.
When we began the production of our openings, all
the techniques we had already learnt became very use
full. The first planning we did for the opening was
gaining information on the genre we wanted to our opening to be,
we had already be told lots of website that could help us
with this information from our swede and this came in
very useful. I choice the genre, teen murder of black murder
as existing texts such as scream queens and heathers appealed to
me. I also wanted to include feminist views toward the
stereotypes of women for example 10 things i hate about you was a
good example or a film that included both stereotypical and counter
typical female protagonist. After coming up with basic ideas i
started to think about the type of cast that would be good for our opening,
then we could start to storyboard out ideas knowing that we had a
dedicated cast.
We the started to story board our ideas, basing some of the ideas
on theme demonstrated in some of our previous texts, for example
the idea of having the protagonist along and the antagonist in a
group of girls , this idea was based on mean girls. I then started to develop
out ideas and created the shot list and screen plays, production script and
created a production schedule (weather dependent) so that we knew when I would
be filming and it helped me be more organized. Once I had done this is started
to think about locations that
would work well with the genre and audience of my opening, I knew that I wanted
a graveyard and as there was one in my village I knew that I would be using
that so then I only had to think about locations for the other scenes, I choose
to set some of the opening in my school because it was very convenient and I
thought that as my audience is mainly teen girls I though it would create an
approachable and relatable scene. My other scenes were set in two girls bedroom
and on paths.
When I started filming as a photography student the
quality of the shots were very important to me, I wanted it to be the best I
could possible be given the weather conditions I was filming in. When I was
shooting the graveyard scene I changed the white balance on the camera
regularly to ensure that the colors looked as good as they could be, I tried to
take as many different shot types as I possibly could these included:
Aerial Shot
Arc Shot
Bridging Shot
Close Up
Medium Shot
Long Shot
Deep Focus
Establishing
Shot
Handheld Shot
Low Angle Shot
High Angle Shot
Over-The-Shoulder
Shot
As I had previous learnt about these shots while
shooting the other two tasks it was fairly easy for me to find ways of
incorporating them into my shots. For example when Sarah is looked at
the girls from a distance i got an over the shoulder shot, this also gave
the sense that we were looking at exactly what she
was looking at. As well as the white balance and camera shots i also
worked in different iso setting, this gave different depth
of fields and therefore many of the shots had different parts of
the shot in focus which I really liked as I thought it gave variety.
When it came to editing out opening when all our
filming was done, felt much more comfortable with find cut than i did when
using it with the prelim and swede. I was able to use much more complex tools
and skills such as slowing clips down, speeding them up, layering clips
over each other and decreasing exposure, adding music/sound and
adding sound affects that sounded realistic for example in my opening is children’s
voices and the sound of wind and trees. As I created more and more
rough its I think my opening began to look much more professional,
through audience feedback I was able to highlight areas I
could improve to either create a
more approachable and relatable scene or to make it loo more
professional and well made.
In conclusion both my camera skills and editing
skill have developed immensely from the prelim task to now after the
opening. I have learnt how to plan shoots effectually through the use of screenplays
and storyboards etc. and also how to use may tools in final
cut pro to create a professional and neat finish to my videos. Finally
my knowledge of cinematography and different ways of
composing shots has greatly improved which I hope I
have demonstrated in my opening.
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