Evaluating our Progress from the Prelim Task to the AS opening sequence

1.Progress in Research and Planning 

Preliminary Task

The preliminary is completely without context - it is more of a chance to practise techniques than to create something with meaning. We approached it by planning a short sequence that would include the key techniques we were told to show, but had no idea what kind of sequence we were filming, where it would come in a longer text and what it would need to convey to an audience. Because of this lack of research and planning, we inevitably produced a sequence that does not create much meaning for the audience.
 

For example, the first shot in our Prelim task is taken from a mid to low angle  which should have an impact, possibly mysterious, but in the context of our sequence does not create any sense of atmosphere or meaning and doesn't add to the sequence. It possibly even makes it confusing as the techniques and content don't match. This was due to a lack of planning and not knowing what shots we needed to use and when - we filmed but without a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve.

We did not consider putting in any music and all of the dialogue was made up on the spot. We had a general idea of what we wanted to do but we did not create a story board so we were not prepared for what shots we wanted to take. The sound quality is poor as we chose the wrong location, a canteen where there is a lot of background noise.

Final Task

In our final task we made sure that we did a lot of research and planning. We produced a detailed storyboard after doing a lot of research into the techniques used in our genre in terms of sound, camera angles and mise-en-scène. This meant a lot of research into opening sequences that we split up between us to saturate ourselves in the genre and also to work out what the form of opening sequences actually needs, as we did not want to make the mistake of producing something that looked like a trailer or short film:

These are just two of the many films we looked into to collect our research.

Progress

From making our preliminary task we have shown a great improvement in our understanding of how research and planning affects your work. Initially, it makes progress slower as you have so much to consider; but ultimately it makes decision-making easier because there is a clear reason for your choices that you have already thought through. We have benefitted throughout as even now, when we are putting the final touches to our sequence, we are thinking back to our research to make sure our piece fits with the form and genre conventions we noted - we have just adjusted the music to run  more throughout, for example, as returning to our research reminded us this is generally the case in film openings.

Examples Of Our Research

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/exploring-our-chosen-genre.html
http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/chosen-genre.html

2. Progress in in Storyboarding and Scripting

Preliminary Task

We made a storyboard but with minimal detail. It contined only a few images explaining what shots we wanted to use, in written form as we were not at this time thinking visually and felt more comfortable writing our ideas. Often one post-it note combined a whole sequence of shots, as we had not learned to break down our filming shot by shot and thought more in terms of scenes and moments than individual shots.

Final Task

Compared to our preliminary storyboard, our final task storyboard was far much more detailed. We adapted it along the course of our planning as ideas changes as well as sound and camera movements. We added and changed it many times until we were completely happy with it. We presented it to others so that we could see if explaining the ideas revealed any weaknesses. We also annotated with comments to do with later editing so that our filming and editing would run in synch.

Photos Of Story Board

By making our story board it allowed us to have a clear view of what we wanted our film to eventually look like. From making the drawn story board, it helped us to realise that we needed far more detail in it for it to benefit us on our filming day. We ended up adding a lot more detail than we expected.

Photo Of Animatic

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/animatic.html

Doing our animatic gave us an introduction to editing, as we had not edited something like that before. It gave us a experience of different types of editing. Producing the animatic for our story board also helped us to experiment with different types of music that fitted our genre. We initially wanted most of our sequence to be filmed in a graveyard but due to external reasons thus was not possible. Therefore creating an animatic allowed us to see how we could fit a different location in to replace the one we originally wanted. We were also conscious of keeping to the two minutes, and our animatic helped us to do this. We were able to plan out our credits too and practise using LiveType to good effect. Overall, the animatic acted as a kind of dry run before we had even picked up a camera.

 

Very similar to a final credit shot showing that our planning worked.

 

Progress

Paying more attention to planning through the storyboard and animatic helped our filming to run smoothly on the day as we had previous preparation and we all knew what to do at certain moments in the day. Also, it saved us a lot of time as we didn't have to huddle around our storyboard moving things around and adding new things which would eventually chip away at our filming time. It also helped that we had practised some of the key shots and had worked out how to handle tricky camera movements.

Evidence Of Better Planning:

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/storyboard-second-draft.html

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/cast-list.html

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/animatic.html

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/camera-movements-task.html

3.Progress in Camera Work

Prelim

As we had basic knowledge of camera angles and different shots we ended up having a jumble of random, awkward shots that we initially thought were good, but going over this we have seen our improvement in actually thinking about what shots to use. We were more interested at this stage in using a variety of shots than in really thinking what the best shot is for the particular situation. We were also awkward handling the camera and the tripod. We were clumsy in our set up and this slowed us down. We recorded over footage we had taken at one point, and did not always have the tripod set up so that it was properly balanced.

Screenshots of Awkward Shots

The shots above show poor framing and an unbalanced camera.

 

The use of a handheld camera at times led to jerky shots, with poor framing and composition, which overall affected our prelim task. Also we struggled with the tripod as we didn't really know how to position it which led to the legs being at different lengths making a crooked shot.

Final Task

We gained more knowledge of and confidence with the use of cameras and tripods which helped our final piece to look more advanced. It also made us think more realistically about shots we could do, for example we wanted to do an birds-eye-view of the graveyard, but realised that couldn't happen due to the equipment we had access to.  We practiced numerous shots to see if they were still applicable to our piece, for example in our planning we wanted a jump shot of the door but we realised we couldn't make it work with our location and the changes in lighting. We gained greater knowledge of techniques we could use and then applied them to our piece to show how we had progressed from our prelim task.

Screenshots of Effective Camera Shots

Handheld tracking had improved from preliminary and is effective

 as it gives the impression that someone is following her.

The close up was effective as we knew we wanted the title

 to appear here to have an impact on the audience.

The establishing shot was effective as it gives

 the audience a sense if location.

This handheld POV shot was effective as it made the 

audience feel as if they were in the characters position.

Evidence of camera confidence:

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/photos-from-filming.html

4. Progress in Editing

Prelim

As we had never used Final Cut Express before we had to adapt to it, and we found it difficult to edit quickly and efficiently. We did not add any sounds or titles or credit. We only edited everything we had filmed to a point where we had a sequence that ran fluently and did not think further about how editing can be used to convey a meaning to the audience. For example, we did not explore effects and transitions at this point, or any of the other facilities on the editing package.  Our matches on action were poor and didn't match up at times - although this was more the fault of the filming than the editing.

Final Task

Compared to the prelim task we had much more knowledge of the potential uses of Final Cut Express as well as increasing our efficiency to use it to its full capacity. For example using the layering skill to add sound and titles and credits.

Screenshot of moment where layers were used:

By using the layering technique we were able to see continuity layers, blips in audio and we were able to see where we should place the music. Enlarging the tracks helped us to check for any cutting errors.

Screenshot Showing Match

We used effects and transitions effectively as you can see from the image,

 we have deliberately altered the audio by selecting what part 

we wanted to play and by inserting fade ins and fade outs.

Progress

We had  much more understanding of the full potential that the package had and how we could combine techniques to make them more effective. Our editing was more accurate compared to our prelim task and we were patient with the smaller details, balancing different tracks together carefully.  Overall we created a layered piece that was very detailed and intricate. Perhaps our biggest improvement was in realising that you have to know how you are going to edit before you film or all the solutions on the package won't help - if the basic filming is wrong, there is not much you can do. We were much more careful to think of the edit from the very beginning of the planning this time and that is probably our most significant improvement.

Evidence of focus on editing techniques and potential:

http://ticktockgroupblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/progress-with-editing.html