Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I evaluated the task when we finished creating the exercise, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/evaluation-this-was-short-exercise-to.html, the tasked helped me understand continuity and the role it plays within a clip and the exercise also allowed me to grow in terms of my editing skills.
Digital technology- We filmed our preliminary task on a digital camera which was very light and easy to use, it was great for the simple task we had to do. We then had to edit what we filmed so we used iMovie because we had previous knowledge for this program and the school offered us the camera and iMovie. A strength of using the digital camera was that it recorded sound as well as the shot, it was also very easy to travel with and allowed us to film and delete what we needed. However a weakness of the digital camera was the battery life, if the battery was low the camera wouldn't film much which wasted a lot of time. We went out filming once and got there and the battery was dead, the group wasted all that time and had to go back. A strength of iMovie was that it had a precise editor which meant when trying to edit match on action shots we could get it perfect like the shot at 0:25. Also we had used iMovie in previous projects which also helped when editing. Digital technology helped a lot in our preliminary task as we understood how it works which meant when we filmed our opening we knew what the digital technology could do and its limitations. We used the same digital camera which we used for the preliminary task in our opening as we felt that the quality which we got from our preliminary task was enough for a BSR genre film. Since we edited with iMovie we also used this piece of technology for our opening as we were both very familiar with it and knew how it works. When we created our opening we kept the technology the same because we both felt that it was all we needed in order to create the opening as they fit the needs to create a BSR film. I felt that i have gain more experience in iMovie and with the digital camera as well as grown more confident in using them which helped when we had to create our opening as we didn't have to ask for help as much.The preliminary task allowed me to get used to the camera and equipment i would be using in the BSR film, i feel i could use the equipment confidently next year. A strength of using digital technology, especially the camera as it let us film a range of camera shots from long shots at 0:03 in our preliminary task. We then was able to film a wide range of shots with more confidents using the camera in our BSR task.
Creativity- I joined the group late but the girls made the exercise original as they changed the story to a girl who is still in education but thinks she is pregnant, she is late for school one day because she was taking a test. We then see her arrive at school, when she is confronted by her teacher. We changed the story but we still kept to the brief as we needed to film someone entering a room and sitting down. A the beginning 0:02-0:06 we see her running into school.
They did this because they felt that a lot of young girls now days are getting pregnant at a young age whilst still in education, which i agree with and it made the brief more interesting. The also made the exercise creative by using a wide range of different shot types which I talk about in my continuity exercise http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/blog-post.html, the match on action shot at 0:25 helped create a realistic feel and makes the audience believe that its all filmed by one camera at the same time. We didn't want to create the idea of it all being filmed at once but still wanted it to look realistic. We used non-continuity in our opening as we wanted to show how her life is just repeated, the same thing every day, so we felt that non-continuity did that. However in our draft of our opening we used a lot of continuity because we felt then that it made more sense but it had a very slow pace. We the used the creativity skill from the continuity exercise into our full product because our brief highlighted aspects such as we had to create a BSR film which we did but we added our own theme and we changed the continuity to non continuity in order to create a montage which highlighted the theme of prostitution in the way it looks like she's sleeping with loads of men. Creativity allowed us to expand on the brief in both task and grow and expand on our idea to appeal to different target audiences. However the creativity was less successful as it meant that we had to be careful that we didn't move away from what the task was asking for us. I found it hard to be creative with the camera language in both task which i feel if i could improve my work, this is the area i would focus on as i didn't have much camera language in both task which we did. I don't feel like i worked on these when i created my BSR however i do feel like i had more creativity which meant my creativity skills grew, i felt that the BSR exercise was more original and had a better feel to it than my preliminary task. Next year i would make sure my work is different and more creative by spending more time on planning. As the brief was not as detailed for our preliminary task it allowed us to be more creative and expand on what the brief wanted meaning we could change and make the piece of work which had our own spin and was original, this goes for both our preliminary task and our BSR task.
Post production- The preliminary task helped me so much in our BSR task as the first task helped me become more confident with IMovie and understanding how to edit clips in more detail, something that really helped throughout both task was the precise editor as it allowed me to get the continuity when the girl opened the door in the preliminary task at 0:25. Learning to use this on IMovie then helped me when i was creating our BSR draft (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot0--k23y28) as we had a lot of continuity, i used this skill at 0:02 when she opens the door and also when she puts on her jackets as we filmed it in two bits. Before the preliminary task i never knew what continuity was, the task helped me develop and get a real understanding of what continuity editing was. This then helped me when we was planning and editing our BSR as we had to decide between continuity and non continuity. I feel like a strength of post production for our preliminary task was that it allowed me to work on a new area which i never had looked at or even thought of. Also the skills i learnt in the preliminary task in post production helped me when it came to our BSR film as it allowed me to use my skills with confidence and improved our work as the editing was more tight and i felt because i was used to picking up poor editing with our preliminary task i was more aware in our final BSR. However a weakness of the post production was that i found it hard to edit bits that didn't follow like continuity parts which we did in the preliminary task like the bit when she is walking up the stairs at 0:18, as we had a non continuity montage for our final product i felt that our opening didn't make sense and didn't follow even though that was the effect we wanted to create. Post production from both task has helped me a lot as i feel beyond confident to use IMovie and edit a piece of work, however i still feel for next year i could tighten up on my editing skills as i feel on parts of both our preliminary and BSR they didn't look the best. When we as editing our preliminary i had to add a shot of a clock at 0:33 because the editing didn't follow.
Research and Planning- I joined the class late so i missed the research side but i did independent research by watching clips and reading up on the shots such as 180 degree rule, i also created a blog post about continuity, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/blog-post.html. I felt that the independent research i did helped a lot when we was filming our preliminary task but not so much we was filming the BSR as the BSR task required different and more detail research as we had to watch movies, look up the genre, ethos and ideology of film 4 and looks at shots and camera angles. We also looked at the opening conventions when it came to our BSR, we looked at the credits which we denote at 0:24, all films have credits. We created a story board for our preliminary task which is in the blog post above, this helped me as i knew what shots we had to film and where the go when i had to edit, we didn't have a storyboard for our BSR but we did have a script. The script acted as a storyboard, as it did the same thing but didn't have pictures. http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/new-script.html. The preliminary task really helped me when i came down to our BSR as i felt that i learnt from my mistake in the preliminary task, as i didn't follow the storyboard as much in the preliminary which meant it was harder when i edited the task however in our BSR i referred back to the script when i got stuck. A strength of research for both task was that i knew what i had to do, i didn't just jump into the work and do what i had to do as i go, i had all the planning and idea there, all i had to do was film and edit. However i still feel like i could us the planning more when editing and filming which i learnt in my preliminary task, next year i would make sure i spend more time on the planning as it helps all the way through the task.
Post production- The preliminary task helped me so much in our BSR task as the first task helped me become more confident with IMovie and understanding how to edit clips in more detail, something that really helped throughout both task was the precise editor as it allowed me to get the continuity when the girl opened the door in the preliminary task at 0:25. Learning to use this on IMovie then helped me when i was creating our BSR draft (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot0--k23y28) as we had a lot of continuity, i used this skill at 0:02 when she opens the door and also when she puts on her jackets as we filmed it in two bits. Before the preliminary task i never knew what continuity was, the task helped me develop and get a real understanding of what continuity editing was. This then helped me when we was planning and editing our BSR as we had to decide between continuity and non continuity. I feel like a strength of post production for our preliminary task was that it allowed me to work on a new area which i never had looked at or even thought of. Also the skills i learnt in the preliminary task in post production helped me when it came to our BSR film as it allowed me to use my skills with confidence and improved our work as the editing was more tight and i felt because i was used to picking up poor editing with our preliminary task i was more aware in our final BSR. However a weakness of the post production was that i found it hard to edit bits that didn't follow like continuity parts which we did in the preliminary task like the bit when she is walking up the stairs at 0:18, as we had a non continuity montage for our final product i felt that our opening didn't make sense and didn't follow even though that was the effect we wanted to create. Post production from both task has helped me a lot as i feel beyond confident to use IMovie and edit a piece of work, however i still feel for next year i could tighten up on my editing skills as i feel on parts of both our preliminary and BSR they didn't look the best. When we as editing our preliminary i had to add a shot of a clock at 0:33 because the editing didn't follow.
Research and Planning- I joined the class late so i missed the research side but i did independent research by watching clips and reading up on the shots such as 180 degree rule, i also created a blog post about continuity, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/blog-post.html. I felt that the independent research i did helped a lot when we was filming our preliminary task but not so much we was filming the BSR as the BSR task required different and more detail research as we had to watch movies, look up the genre, ethos and ideology of film 4 and looks at shots and camera angles. We also looked at the opening conventions when it came to our BSR, we looked at the credits which we denote at 0:24, all films have credits. We created a story board for our preliminary task which is in the blog post above, this helped me as i knew what shots we had to film and where the go when i had to edit, we didn't have a storyboard for our BSR but we did have a script. The script acted as a storyboard, as it did the same thing but didn't have pictures. http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/new-script.html. The preliminary task really helped me when i came down to our BSR as i felt that i learnt from my mistake in the preliminary task, as i didn't follow the storyboard as much in the preliminary which meant it was harder when i edited the task however in our BSR i referred back to the script when i got stuck. A strength of research for both task was that i knew what i had to do, i didn't just jump into the work and do what i had to do as i go, i had all the planning and idea there, all i had to do was film and edit. However i still feel like i could us the planning more when editing and filming which i learnt in my preliminary task, next year i would make sure i spend more time on the planning as it helps all the way through the task.
