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?

In the progression from our continuity task, to our final task, i feel that i have learnt many things. When planning and researching, i learnt that changes can always be made and that what we decided on when making our storyboard, will not necessarily match our final product. We adapted and changed things throughout the planning and researching stage, deciding what themes and ideas would make the film more effective.
When actually filming our final task, our group learnt not to be too reliant on each other, because many things could get in the way and prevent people turning up, or having the right equipment. For this reason, we made sure that every person in our group had a copy of the script and knew exactly what needed to be done, if a problem should arise, and one of the group members be missing, that way the others could still continue.
However, there is still a large amount of the project, where we needed to work as a group and rely on each other, be it some one bringing the camera or the tripod, or using some one's house to film. We had to be organised, to plan the time we had in and out of lessons to make the most use out of it. Often, we would use our double media lessons to go and film in the park, which was not far from our sixth form, or to go to one of the group member's houses to film the child in the bedroom.
Whilst filming our continuity exercise i learnt about the difficulties of continuity, having to make sure that all clothing is the same, as well as haircuts. We also had to be prepared that the weather would not be the same, as we discovered when filming our final piece, therefore you have to just work through it, because we did not have the time to wait for certain weather conditions.
When filming our continuity exercise, i learnt about the 180 degree rule and its use in our filming, i also learnt about the match on action shot, and how it can contribute to the relationship between charatcers, as well as including an over the shoulder shot, which is effective at showing one character's emotion's whilst hiding the other, to give a different viewpoint. Many things need to be taken into account when we were filming our continuity exercise, even really simple things, like removing the clock on the wall, or at least making sure that the time it reads makes sense, so that the continuity in our filming is kept up continuously.
I learnt to use these skills in our final tasks, so that we could improve on our filming. For example, we also included a match on action shot in our final sequence, when the brother walks through the bedroom door. We also used an over the shoulder shot, to put these new ideas into different effect. We also kept up continuity throughout our title sequence, making sure that character's were dressed the same and stood in the correct places so that it didn't seem as if the character was 'jumping' from one place to another, unless we planned it this way i.e. when the main character walks up the hill.
I have also learnt that technology will let you down at some point, but we had to be prepared to carry on without it, rather than let it slow down our progress in some way. For example, when our work was prolonged because the burner did not work, we had to be patient, and wait for it to be fixed.
Overall, i learnt the importance of time keeping, team work, organisation and preperation.