Evaluation Question 7 - Learnt Since Pre-Lim

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



Before starting anything we spend a large amount of time researching into our chosen genre. We watched the openings of existing films of the same genre and comapared any themes, conventions or similarities we found within these openings with those we could find on reliable websites. This gave us a good insight into out genre (mine being slasher), and helped us whilst brainstorming for ideas, by giving us a platform to build on.

Our time management was majorly interupted by actors dropping out last minute, or not turning up without letting anyone know. However when we did manage to get everyone on set, our time management was sufficient because of the use of a call sheet and storyboard. We gave each actor a script with all the lines on so they knew what they needed to say and where they needed to come in. We also gave the actors the script as soon as we were on set so they could start learning their lines whilst we set up the camera, which would essentially save time.

On our reshoots, we have a printed version of what we needed to get done after advice from feedback. This made it alot easier to shoot because it meant that we didn't have to worry about not being able to read each others hand writing, and also that we didn't have to try remember what we needed to get done off the top of our heads, and potentially forget something.

The pitching for the pre-lim task was done once we were split into the groups that we were going to do the pre-lim task in, therefore it was much easier to get your idea across because there was no pressure of talking to whole class, whilst being timed. However during the pitches for the coursework, we were given a minute to speak which was timed to the second, and we were being filmed which put alot of pressure on the person speaking, therefore not making there pitch come across as clearly.

Our choice of possible actors was fairly small, and due to the fact that some people either didn't want to, or didn't feel comfortable infront of the camera, the choice was greatly shortened again. We decided to try find our actors from our media class, and the other media class, this however proved impossible due to everyone being so busy and everyone also helping others with their media. We then realised that our actors would have to be chosen from outside of the media class. Our actors were all discovered in different ways: - Lucy was found due to being friends with her, and because she has blonde hair (which works well with the scream queen idea) she was selected. Liam was selected by trying to think of friends that either took drama or media studies, and because Liam is studying media he was also selected. Pete was selected due to the fact that he was interested in doing some acting for us.

During the pre-lim task we didn't experience the importance of having a soundtrack. This was a drawback not realising this, because it would've given us ideas on how to structure and create the soundtrack. We do have an almost complete soundtrack, but there is nothing that we have created ourselves, all the sounds we are using at the moment are from iMovie which restricts how well they go with the moods or movements in the film.

For the pre-lim, one of the major priorities was attempting the get the continuity editting perfect on a simple task. This was fairly easily achievable and gave us an insight on how to edit the coursework task with continuity. However, when editting our first cut of the coursework task, trying to edit with continuity proved very difficult.

 For the pre-lim task we weren't required to make any idents. For the coursework task however, we were required to make two idents; one for the production company, and another for the distribution company. This was achieved via editting using LiveType; this proved fairly difficult due to the fact that we had never seen or used the program before, however we managed to create two good idents.