Prelim Task

1) Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?
For the prelim task I worked with Chay Pollinger, Libby Collins and Marcus Bowring. We went about the task by firstly deciding individual parts for the task. I ended up being camera man, Chay was the overall director however he did star in the film towards the end. Libby was the Superhero called SuperLib, and Marcus ended up starring as the villain and was called 'M'.

2) How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take in to account?
We planned our sequence initially using a storyboard to plan out roughly how we were going to film it and what shots we were going to use and so forth. We already had specific shots that we had to include in our film so we firstly thought of ways we could include them into our film.

3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
We used a video camera provided by the school to film every shot we recorded, we also used a tripod which was provided by the school also to minimize camera wobble when recording.

4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing? When planning our film, we first of all took into account where to shoot each shot as in the location of the scenes because this was vital in choosing the right place in order to make the film feel as real as possible. Another factor we took into account was the sounds we were going to use over the footage, for example in my prelim I used a heartbeat sound when the writing was being displayed to create suspense. I also used music at the beginning and end of the film that had connotations of a super hero genre to aid idea of the film being in he genre of super hero.

5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently? What did others say about your production?
In my opinion I think that the sequence itself went reasonably well however I think that there are lot of things that could be improved to make it better. This however isn't always a bad thing as I could use it as a learning curve. I think the opening scene of my prelim worked better than I thought it would have as the pan across the sky leading into the standoff between 'M' and SuperLib worked nicely I thought. To improve though I think that we could have included a bit more dialogue as a group, this could have made the film a little more understandable, however I did like the fact that the lack of dialogue leaves questions in the audiences mind.

6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?
From this task I have learnt a variety of different things that will help me in the future. I learnt numerous filming rules and different types of camera angles that work in different situations. For example the 180 degree rule when filming dialogue and other things like long shots, close ups, extremely long shots etc. I also learned a few new techniques on the software Adobe Premiere for example I used certain sound effects to create effect, an example would be the sound effect I used when 'M' begins to open the door towards the end. I think the skills I picked up when putting the task together, filming it, editing it will all come in handy for the future because before I wasn't aware of the different camera shots that producers use before the task itself, however now that I do I will be able to apply them effectively for the coursework I will be doing in the future.