Coursework Evaluation : Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in the progression from it to your main product?
PRODUCTS:
- Link to our preliminary task:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiD15xWzDJ0
- Link to our main product, (a two minute film opening in sequence, with titles):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ufTxFcrHY&t=1s
When reflecting back on our preliminary task we completed at the start of the year, I have learnt numerous things since then, that has helped develop our skills to complete our coursework film opening (the main product). For instance, my editing experience, sound knowledge, and camera shots and angles experimentation.
When reflecting back at my preliminary task I realise how much I have developed and progressed as a media student, building skills on planning, filming technique, and editing but also media and film production as a whole. To start with, I had a fundamental understanding of the film industry, only really watching films without much thought as to how they were made. I think this is somewhat evident in my preliminary task as I had hardly any knowledge of things like the mise-en-scene, dialogue and sound which resulted in a poor quality product. When filming, factors such as having to hand hold the camera instead of using the tripod so the camera stability was faulty or not having much knowledge on sound resulting in poor diagetic and non-diagetic sound. Later on, when editing, elements such as not knowing the software and planning our sequence without an idea of what we wanted also caused the film to be of a lesser quality than we wanted. However, with our coursework project, I had much broader understanding of the filming, and sound, and therefore creating a much better film opening. I think that this marks improvement as it is a clear disparity between my first media product, and the final cut of our two minute opening.
The main thing I've learnt in the progression from our preliminary task and our main product is the editing skills I have developed and the experience that has given us, as a team, to perfect our final film opening. Starting our preliminary task, our team had never even seen the software, Adobe Premiere Pro, before. So, considering this, we started from the bottom, learning the basics and slowly built our skills so we could create the best film we could. In the time between our preliminary task to our final cut, we as a group, and myself, individually, had several mini-projects that also included editing practice to help learn the software. For our final cut, it is also noticeable that we used a lot of after affects in post-production to create the atmosphere we wanted, that we had not previously used, especially in our first preliminary. Without the knowledge of how to do these little things, we couldn't have made the end piece we did, showing the progression between our first go and our last.
Another vital element that I have learnt in the continual progress with media studies, is the importance of sound. Before studying media, I had no idea of how the impact of something that I had previously unnoticed, could be such a big impact on the outcome. I quickly learnt, however, that the sound was as just as important as the visuals in a two minute film opening. For our preliminary task, we weren't very confident about including huge amounts of sound or relying on it to be extremely good but it was more that we overlooked it and covered it with music in post-production. With our final cut, however, we decided early on that we weren't going to use dialogue which was a perfect opportunity to use the sound to our advantage. Just before filming, our team went on a search for the perfect soundtrack to accompany the film, which had to suit the genre and tone for it to work, and thankfully, we did. I think that the difference between the sound quality with the preliminary and the final cut of our media product, is quite significant and it represents the progress of our learning.
Finally, the camera shots and angles are arguably the most important factor in film, and therefore one of the most important in our progression. Apart from editing, I think this is a skill I have learnt most about, due to the experimentation between the preliminary task and the final media product. This experimentaion allowed me to learn and expand my knowledge on different shots and angles, that, in turn, helped create our film opening. I also quickly realised that the editing side of media wouldn't necessarily resolve issues made during filming; it would only assist it a little. As a result I knew that for our final film we needed to capture everything to the last detail, even if it required us to film a particular shot multiple times. For example, in our preliminary task when we shot, we didn't take much care in looking back at footage on location and not bothering to re-shoot to get the perfect angle or the right close-up shot. On the other hand, for our final final opening, some of the macro shots we wanted to capture were hard to get right, and so it was only after half a dozen times of shooting and editing them, we got it right. This is another example of how in the time between the preliminary task and the final media product, I have progressed my knowledge of camera shots and angles even further.
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