Question 7: Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full production?
Preliminary Brief: “Film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. A couple of lines of dialogue must then be exchanged between characters & match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule should be demonstrated”
Main Task: “The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes (all video and audio material must be original, produced by candidates, with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source)”
Our preliminary task was designed and assigned to us for the purpose of gaining brief knowledge and experience about the technical equipments used to produce a film sequence. From what we learnt after completing this task is then transferred, used and developed in our Main task, constructing an opening sequence for a new fictional film.
In our Pre-production for our Preliminary task, we firstly discussed the short story-line and the ideas that we could incorporate into our media product. We chose to illustrate a conversation between a manager of a football club, and a player from that same football club. We decided that this was perfect as it would allow us to explore different camera angels and how tension could be built just through a series of shots.
Our story was that the manager would be asking the player for some help, as the manager is in debt he asks the player to purposely make the team lose in a match to gain a profit from his superiors. We began allocating different jobs for planning our sequence. Heena and I were responsible for drawing up a rough story board, and Alex and Janelle were in charge of developing a script. In accordance to this idea, we crafted our plans and discussed what we had, briefly. I feel that we could have planned further as our shooting schedule was not drawn up until the day of shooting which caused us much hassle, we did not have a photo storyboard so we could not visualise our sequence, my group and I also did not make a copy of a location Recce, which was very much needed prior to shooting as the problems that we would have noted in our location Recce’s were discovered while shooting. This was again a problem for us and wasted a lot of time. It was a shame that we as a group were not fully organised due to the fact that we hadn’t planned our day out when shooting. Subsequently it took us a period of four hours in two days to gather the shots required for editing.
Learning from our Preliminary task, I was confident and was not intending to repeat the same mistakes as before. I disliked the idea of not being organised and since this sequence was to be relatively longer than our Preliminary, I was fully aware that an on-point and good plan was required for a successful opening sequence. We firstly began by each of the group members (Alex, Safa, Wayne and I) to write up at least two film ideas. All of us completed this task and shared our ideas. We found that each one of us had a unique element about our ideas; therefore we opted to combine our film ideas as this compound would result in a more entertaining plot for us to build upon. We decided that it was going to be about the 911 attacks, that a man, who is mentally unstable, predicts the attacks six month prior to them. We were aware of the genres that followed this proposal; that this film was going to be a psychological thriller with elements of other genres to allow it to attract a larger target audience. We then started analysing other established films that share a similar genre. We scrutinize the manner in which the characters, from said films, would be acted by the actors, we also considered the representations of such characters and found that one unique individual is necessary- if it be a protagonist or an antagonist. Films such as “Saw” were a great example to follow. It allowed us to see the typical codes and conventions of a psychological thriller and how camera techniques are used to illustrate this. After doing much research, we then started to draw our storyboard together. I felt that this is he best way to create a storyboard because when the whole group is present, many diverse ideas are accessible. Unlike in my preliminary task, were only one of our groups member’s storyboard was used. When we finished our storyboard, we thought that a variety of shots were still required, so we went to the drawing board again and drew up another copy of the story board with rough dialogue. This was done to allow everyone in my group to have the same vision as each other about our sequence. It was then when we realised that we would need another storyboard but with the correct dialogue that we were going to use. So we create three scripts all different in their own way and decided upon one and as our actor being filmed had no dialogue, it was quite difficult to make the visual elements parallel to the sound. After completing our script, we constructed our final storyboard with each shot supported by a line of dialogue and stage directions. We then proceeded to create a shooting schedule and time limits for when to get jobs done in an estimated time frame. After the completion of our shooting schedule, my group and I went to look at some locations that we could use for our opening sequence. We decided that our first and best choice was the history office, but we were unsure if we would be given license to use it for the whole day, so we went out looking for back-up locations. From this we decided that we would want one of the music practise rooms to be our location if the history office was unavailable. For both locations we wrote up a location Recce that illustrated the negatives and positives about the locations. From this we found that it was in fact the history office that would be most suitable for our production. From this I learnt the vast different between two locations and how it could alter the mood of our sequence. To confirm our rental for the office we asked the referee of the office and she said that it was okay. After this we assembled a props list that each of us would take a copy of, this was to be ensured and maintain an organised pre-production. We wrote down everything that would be required from what is to be in the shots, to what we may need. A costume list was also constructed for our character and we all bought something in to contribute to the representation of the character of Cornelius, as I learnt from my preliminary task that the more you dress up a character, the more convincing they will be. The only thing that was remaining was a photo storyboard which we done by taking pictures of each shot with the character, what he will do doing and how we will be seen in the sequence. This allowed us to experiment and add shots that were lacked and to see if our sequence was going to be successful or not. This was something we did not do for our preliminary, which resulted in varied vision of our media product for our preliminary task. I believe that pre-production is vital in preparing your cast members to shoot, I learnt that if one is not prepared, much valuable time will be lost, which could be used to better your product.
In our preliminary task, while producing our film we came across many issues such as the costume of the character, continuity, the poor quality of sound, the lack of organisation and much of our acting was improvised due to no rehearsals. It was difficult to remain concentrated because of the constant interruptions that occurred every now and then. This was a problem as we were nearing our time limit and at the last minute were required to rush everything which later resulted in a problem on its own. Continuity was heavily hindered as one of our actors failed to wear the exact same thing as he did the day before when shooting. We had to, nevertheless carry on shooting and had to compromise with the issue. I learnt that though taking your time while shooting is vital, getting it done early will ensure continuity.
In our main task, we were very much organised due to the fact that we fully planned our shots prior to the initial shootings. Firstly we considered our shooting schedule and saw were to start. After confirming our initiating duties we set up the location with our props but most of what was needed was already there, which was one of the reasons we chose that location. We set our camera and I then tested to see the lighting if it was correct. We wanted the sequence to be dark and mysterious so we turned off the lights of the office which resulted in total darkness which could not allow the camera to pick up anything. This was a major problem as we wanted the lighting to be bleak which contributed to the codes and conventions of a typical psychological thriller. So one of our crew members went and got a studio light from the other department. This was a problem that we should have anticipated and avoided, despite the fact that we discussed the lighting, we forgot how we were able to achieve it. Our actor (Wayne) got into costume and was set for shooting. Just before recording, we checked if everything was in place by referring to our photo storyboard and our initial storyboard. It was and we began shooting. Unlike in our preliminary task, where the storyboard had kept being reconfigured as a result of not understanding its contents. After every shot, the director (I) would check the shooting schedule to see if the production was working on time. We learnt from our preliminary that when we got into shooting, we would often lose track of time and end up going over the time limit, it was important for us to step back and just make sure that we were on schedule. We were in fact, ahead of schedule because most of our shots are quite short, so we just had to take the shots a few times and move on to the next. I believe the shooting schedule really helped as it allowed us to view what we wanted to do, how and when we needed to do it. We did not miss anything out which was vital, but in our preliminary task, we accidentally missed out a very important shot and had to set up again the next day for the one shot. During our production we took some safety shots, we did not do the same for our Preliminary task which had created many problems while editing. Our safety shots were mostly in the cut-away scene where we explored the different angles we could use. We understood that it was better to have more than you need than less than you need because going back to retrieve more shots after you had the initial chances to shoot would waste time and not seem as professional.
As we did not use original sound that was recorded while shooting our scenes, we used voice-overs and a very low volume hum that played in the background and in the cut-away shots. We used voiceovers to demonstrate to the audience that, the voiceovers and the visual elements are not in the same time sequence. We wanted it to be clear that Cornelius was predicting the attacks, so we recorded ourselves as news reporters, reporting the 911 attacks and showing their initial reactions to it. On our shooting schedule we did not put include this, which resulted to some problems such as testing if the script goes with the sequence or not. However we still recorded our voiceovers with the script we chose and hoped that while editing, it would be long enough and shall suit. In our preliminary task, the sound quality was very poor, due to the fact that we were not using any sound equipment, except the one on the camera which picks up sound at different volumes depending on its proximity to the person speaking. For example, in my preliminary task, when “The Manager” says “I know im asking for a lot here” then “but you wont come out of this empty handed” the camera was placed far away from “The Manager” when saying “I know im asking…” and it sounds echoed, but when he says “but you wont…” the volume instantly changes. From this learnt that it is always vital to use sound equipment in a conversation.
For our preliminary task, I feel that the editing went very well, as we had a lot of the shots that we required, but in one of the shots a part of one of the crew members was in the shot, therefore ruining the whole shot. We did not have another take of the same shot as at that time we were in a hurry and decided that it was perfect how it was. This was a mistake as we regretted it while editing. We found out that the quality of the sound was very poor because we were not using correct sound equipment. This was due to the lack of organisation and planning that my group and I did not complete. I think as a whole, editing went the best and was very successful. We finished our editing before our deadline had occurred.
In our Main task I was fairly confident about editing as it was a great success in our preliminary task, considering the lack of planning, I thought it had went well. When we started editing our opening sequence we firstly digitised our shots onto the computer to save it on the lacie. When we had finished this we later put a rough sequence together of the shots we digitised and compared it to our storyboard to identify any missing shots that we needed. It was then were we realised that we were missing a very vital shot, subsequently we pondered the idea of re-shooting, and we knew it would have been very difficult to get the office exactly like it was. Then we thought that maybe if we look back at the tape and see if we missed a shot while digitising. We did so and thankfully the shot was present, we had merely missed it out while getting the material onto the computer. When we had completed our visuals, we then starting working on our sound, were we hoped that the sound was going to match the sequence. This was very frustrating because I was aiming to be fully well planned for this sequence and only one thing was missed out and now we were left hoping. We assembled the voiceovers and checked if it did go with the visuals, it did and we then started adjusting the volume of each voiceover. While looking for music, we found many beats that we could’ve used, but we settle for a light hum that did not distract the audience from the voiceovers and instead soothed sequence further, but at time it would get too loud so I had to configure a specific point in which the volume of the instrumental would reach over the desired peak.
When we applied our credits, we firstly filmed them, by cutting out the letters from newspaper articles and putting them together to make a name of a cast member. We did this and put it into our sequence, we then found out by closely analysing it, that the quality of the light was poor and it quite frankly looked shabby and unprofessional. So we designed our credits digitally by using Adobe Photoshop which looked much better.
We had a shot that zoomed into a calendar to show the date that Cornelius was in. From feedback we discovered that the idea was good, but the manner in which it was executed in was poor. It did not look good, though its significance was vital to the sequence. So we make the date into a title and replaced it with the one that was initially there. I then added a layer of the previous shots to show the significance of the shot.
