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

Prelim Brief:
"To film a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair opposite a character, with whom he/she exchanges dialogue with while demonstrating continuity techniques, like match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule."

It was good practice on how to make a film because it helped us understand the basics of how to plan and edit a sequence.


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

For the preliminary task it was imperative we used continuity techniques to create a well-flowing narrative. We also had to focus on this when filming and storyboarding our opening sequence, for example:

Match on action

Match on action from storyboard put into production

Match on action on storyboard 
of main task

Match on action sequence from
 'New Guy' storyboard, influenced 
by the GIF of our Prelim above

We also learnt from our prelim to use a variance of shots to keep the audience interested rather than if shots were just the same standard MS, CU and LS every time; but pans, tracks and angles add depth and difference.

From the Preliminary task we learnt different types of planning needed for a shoot, for example shoot-board, script etc. We decided to implement these same types of planning but instead make it more formal as you will see in the picture below. However in our Prelim, we did not formally sort out a cast, costumes list, or method of communication with actors. For the main task we included this form of planning as we realized we would have a bigger cast than in the prelim so better organization for them was needed.

Also we decided to plan a layout of the location we would be using for our shoot for the main task, which we did not do for the preliminary, because the locations we would be using are unfamiliar to the school where we did our prelims as it was the only location available to us.

Communication with actors evidence

Set layout preparation

In post production we used the same editing software in the Prelim, Adobe Premier pro, as we did for the main task. We learnt that differently to the Prelim we would also need a software for grading as the look on our prelim did not connote 'teen comedy film' but our main task would need to.

Analysis of Post-Production

The only additional equipment that we used in our main task that we didn't use for the prelim was the go pro camera and dolly which we learnt to use before the test shoot of the main task.

The placement of titles we didn't learn for when we made the prelim but we did for the main task because we learnt that it's conventional for a film opening to have titles.

Below is a video of us trying to control our actors on set. For the prelim we didn't need such a large cast so didn't realise set management was need for a shoot until we started shooting for our main task. As you'll be able to see from the video it was very hard, but we managed to take charge and pull through.

I think the most substantial thing that I learnt looking back on my Preliminary task that I didn't learn when making the Prelim was mastering continuity and editing and then relating those skills to the idea of how to attract and address specific audiences using the form and style of opening sequences and genre conventions.