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

When our groups were given our preliminary tasks I had never made a film and had barely used a camera before, I had never edited before and didn't even know what software to use and how to use it. Due to this there were a lot of mistakes in our preliminary task but I feel that these mistakes ended up greatly benefiting us when we did our film opening as I could learn from my past mistakes and thus have a better idea of how to actually shoot and edit our opening.

I think the biggest mistake in our preliminary was the lack of organisation and storyboarding so when it came time to film we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we were shooting. When we made our opening we made a concise storyboard that showed all the shots we wanted so when it came time to film we knew exactly what we were doing. The storyboard also helped us as a group to share our ideas and work together to try and find the best shots we could use.

As well as helping in pre-production this improved storyboard also allowed us to settle on the right atmosphere for our opening when it came time to edit in post production.

Another major problem we had that came with the organisational issues we had in our preliminary was that we did not delegate jobs very well and it ended up being a bit of a mess as people ended up taking turns editing and filming and while this was fairer it caused a lack of direction and made it hard to keep a simple flow. With our opening we delegated one person to film, with thoughts from the other two members on what shots might look good whilst doing there jobs, and this allowed for a more natural and smooth flow to our film and also eliminated any chance or arguments about how something should be done.

As I now had more experience holding a camera and knew some of the basic mistakes that could be made with a camera I could now explore a wider range of camera angles to use in our opening allowing for a more fleshed out and interesting piece. Coupled with the greater amount of experience I had with editing tools I could add in things like sound effects, voice overs and music to enhance our opening. It also allowed us to add in more complex title sequences that I really feel add to the movie and allowed us to express the themes and atmosphere we wanted to show in our film opening. . I would have to say that editing was the most notable improvement I had made between the two tasks.

All in all i'd have to say that the knowledge and experience I have with recording and editing have greatly improved since my preliminary task and this has allowed me to use more imaginative camera angles and allow for a greater range of editing techniques that add to the film