Final Preliminary Task

 

There were many small difficulties when producing our preliminary task in both the camera aspect and the editing. We had to make small adjustments to our storyboard as some of the chosen shots were not possible or were harder than we thought. However the biggest challenge for me was the editing, using Adobe Premier Pro as I had never used to software before. Using the software to merge all the different camera shots together into a short film has been high beneficial, as now when I come to create my final piece I know what camera shots fit together the best and how to use the software. I need just need to expand my knowledge of editing in order to make my clips look more professional.
Improvements
-Our preliminary task clearly showed us the importance of filming dialogue in an area with minimal background noise as a lot of the speech is drained out in ours by the loud buzzing in the background from the speech.
-Another improvement I would make is to enhance to storyline as we were just trying to familiarise ourselves with the different camera shots rather than portray a short narrative.

Filming

After lots of planning my group and I were ready to start filming.
Location- We located our short clip in a large area of our lower school, we showed this using a series of establishing shots with Paige in the distance; in order to show the different locations.
Whilst filming everyone in the group got a chance to experiment and film using the camera, this prepared us for our final task and we now know and understand the basics of how to use the camera. We also got to try out a variety of basic shots and takes which will commonly be used in most films, but also got to try more challenging shots such as the shot of Paige's refection or panning up at her feet as she walked.
In our group we got to film using a tripod which helped us with the steady movement of the camera and keeping the camera in the same position which makes the clip look a lot more professional. Within our group we all worked well together whilst filming to make the adjustments to our storyboards when what we had planned wasn't possible and finding an alternative shot. This enabled us to find out where our strong points are with the camera and what we need to work on before our final piece. My personal improvements being the change from a long shot to a close up with out making it look jerky and also positioning the camera in the right place whilst carrying out a shot reverse shot.
When filming there was not one shot which was only filmed once. This shows that your initial ideas are not always appropriate when they have to be put into practice. However having a variety of attempts will give our group an advantage when it comes to the editing process, as if one take doesn't work well with the others there are different attempts to choose from.
In conclusion, from my lesson of filming, I feel I have become a lot more comfortable with the camera, and can carry out a variety of different shots from different angles. However I feel the scenarios within the clip will have to be better thought out next time and more effort will have to be put into the mise en scene in order to fit the genre provided.

Story Boarding

Once the basic plan for our clip was it was time to create a final story board. This involved finalising which camera shots would be used the placement of the characters and the location of our preliminary.
However when drawing up our story board we had to begin to efficiently consider the editing required to piece our clip together. The length of each take also had to be thought about in order to build the tension within the scene as the long takes create a slow pace which slowly start to build the tension up to where the pace quickens. Although we have drawn up a final storyboard, many shots during the process of filming may not be possible so it might have to be altered slight

Preliminary Activity

Today we were put into our initial groups to start planning our preliminary activity. We said at the start we want to make a final decision for the scenario of the short clip, the characters and the location. We came to the conclusion that we were going to try and create a mystery clip as it provides us with a good opportunity to experiment with music and a variety of camera shots to build the tension in the scene; this will also be important when it comes to filming our final pace as the the build in tension is a common convention within thrillers.
Camera-The storyline to our activity was not as important as we were more focused on using the camera rather than creating a story, so we focused most of our short clip on a character walking to an unknown location. This enabled us to use low angle shots on her walking up stairs, handheld camera, panning and lots of high angle and low angle shots.
Music- The song thick as thieves by Kasabian was decided as the opening instrumental is slow paced and has a steady build up which matches her walking speed and the build up in the music emphasises the growing tension within the scene.
Editing- As our character is walking a long distance within the clip we have to use an ellipsis of time. We thought this would be a editing technique to practise as it allows you to fit more of the story into a shorter space of time which will be vital for the final piece as it can only be 2 minutes long.