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

My preliminary task

Our aim when approaching the Prelim task was to showcase our technical ability through the creation of a sequence that put a lot of emphasis on continuity and camerawork. Having looked back, the prelim task proved to be very important as it allowed for the development of these technical skills. This differed to our approach to the film brief, most likely because the two tasks asked for different things. With our now developed technical skills following the preliminary task, our aim for the film brief was to be as creative as possible through the process as this would allow our product to be more unique and original.

The preliminary task brief - "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. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule."


The production task brief - "To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music and audio effects from a copyright-free source. It should be clear from your sequence who he target audience is."

The main differences between these two task are:

• The film brief emphasises a need for originality and creativity in task
• Film brief focuses on audience unlike the prelim task brief
• Final product is to be shorter in the prelim task

Pre-production

The planning processes that we carried out for the prelim task and the film brief were different in a few ways:

• We created more documents for the film brief such as the re-shoot shot list, the call sheet and the props list
• We held a significantly greater number of group meetings for the film brief
• The preliminary task did not put as much pressure on the groups organisational skills so there was little need for the documents that we created for the film brief

As the film brief was more demanding and required good organisation, it became a necessity to have detailed documents to help keep the group organised and on top of things during the planning stages of production. That said, we were sure to sustain this level of organisation for the rest of the task through the use of documents and careful planning during the following production and post-production processes.

Production

The production process that each task required was also different:

• The people that were actors in the prelim task were only from our group, unlike the film task where we used one actor that was not a member of our group
• We had a lot more time for the shooting of the film task
• We were only able to shoot in school for the prelim task
• We completed the shooting of the prelim task in two lessons (1hour 20minutes), unlike the two 9am - 5pm weekend main and back-up shooting sessions for the film task

Following the success of the product for the prelim task, we were sure we could repeat this in the film task, and even better it by using different locations and different actors.

Post-production

The differences in the processes carried out during post-production are as followed:

• The film task allowed for numerous editing sessions over a 3 week period where as the total editing time for the prelim task was 1 week
• The preliminary task did not require us to add extra effects to the finished edit e.g. grading, titles and/or music and a soundtrack

The skills learnt in the post-production of our prelim task were transferable, and we were sure to make use of them in the post-production of our film task. These skills included things such as organisation, teamwork, decision making and communication.