Grace Haybyrne: Evaluation - Question 7

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

Our prelim task was very basic in terms of the research, planning and production skills required. We needed to shoot a conversation that included continuity editing and a shot reverse shot sequence.



We edited on iMovie

We struggled a little learning to use the new hardware (iMacs, MiniDv Cameras as well as tripods and tracks) and software (iMovie 11 HD. We also had to get to grips with things like the 360 rule match on action. However the piece was quite simple and easy to manage, in terms of group work etc as well as the practical aspects of the task.

For our main task we needed a lot more detailed work on:

Research and planning 

Product research for our opening.

For our final product we had to carry out different types of product research including:

soundtrack: we felt that this was really important as it sets the mood of the whole piece. 

lighting (in order to create different atmospheres - we did not need to consider this in our prelim) 

titles (appropriate to our opening)

different thriller films (to give us some interesting ideas that we can include in our own opening.) We didn't have to think about genres and sub genres in our prelim.

production: because we needed to include many more techniques we encountered many more problems, for example, our tracking shots in the corridors were very technical and required many reshoots. We also had continuity issues, for example, ensuring that  Mr Gibbs, who played a teacher, dressed the same on different days.

post production: Although it seemed difficult at the time, the prelim was a lot less complicated than the final product. We had many different edits to consider as well as transitions to put in. The combination of the moving images and the sound - both diagetic and non-diagetic was very tricky but very important to get right. We also had to learn all the features from creating events to editing via Clip Adjustments as well as adjusting the volume levels and lighting contrasts in a fine way.

Overall, the journey from the prelim to the final product was very demanding but enjoyable too.