Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from i...

1. If you could redo the process what would you do differently?

2. What have you physically learnt during the process?

3. I have learnt that I work well in a group and can listen well to other people’s ideas and compromise my own and I can also take control of the group when necessary. For instance we hit a slight rut when figuring out how to present our protagonist’s thoughts whilst still remaining ambiguous, so I decided to write a voice over which the rest of the group liked and from there we worked together to improve it.

4. I have learnt the importance of managing your time effectively because of the constant deadlines throughout the process. I feel like the preliminary task initially drilled time efficacy into me because it gave us our first glimpse at the fast paced speed at which we would work and how if one task isn’t done the whole process is halted; for instance if you haven’t completed the shooting script it’s hard to create an accurate storyboard. I have also learnt the importance of planning and research in order to create a successful product which meets its criteria.

5. I wish we had planned the lighting for the internal shots, filmed in the abandoned room, more carefully as they ended up being too high key which slightly ruined the tense atmosphere we hoped the low key lighting would create. And if I was to do it again I would have tested the lighting before our filming day and I would have brought back up lighting options in order to ensure our planned low key lighting would happen.

6. I would have also liked to have layered more shots on top of each other and have more layered sound because I think it would make our product more visually interesting and more creative technically. . I would not film on separate occasions to avoid broken contentunity and I would also film more footage or plan a longer shooting script/storyboard than what is needed because our product had to a minimum of 2 minutes long which we found difficult to meet after editing our raw footage and it meant our planned fast paced editing had to be sacrificed.

7. Did you change groups from the preliminary task to the main task? Why?

8. I did not change groups from the preliminary task to the main task. We decided to work together after the success of our Preliminary task because our individual strengths combine together effectively and we had a similar creative vision on the outcome of the opening sequence. Being best friends we shared a clear understanding of each other and know all our individual traits which allowed us to have a good scope on what we all liked and disliked. This avoided disputes and allowed us to create a product we all are pleased with.

9. We were also given editing techniques that we had to follow, for example match on action. Whereas on the main task we had no such direction so subsequently I learnt a lot more editing techniques and terminology. I also learnt it was in the editing stages that our product really came to life as we could alter the lighting, create the CCTV effect and add slow motion to flashbacks.

10. What did you struggle with during the process? Did you combat these issues in the main task?

11. What have you learned making a longer film rather than a simple pre-designed conversation?

12. What have you learnt about the importance of research and planning?

13. I had never taken media before as a subject so therefore had no experience using the camera equipment and had no knowledge of any of the camera angles or other terminology so as to be expected I found the preliminary task quite challenging but also a great learning curve. By having the opportunity to practice my new found knowledge practically I think I learnt quickly and more effectively. For example I got to position all the shots in the scene and I also learnt by watching Meg and Charl work.

14. It was really helpful being in a group with Charl because she had taken GCSE media and was a lot more experienced. For instance the main thing I struggled with was using the editing Software Final Cut Pro because although I had never used a proper video camera before it was still similar to filming on a phone however editing software is not something I had ever encounted. Therefore being able to watch Charl use the software I learnt through observation and asking her questions and then when I felt more confident I had tried editing some raw footage together. This was really beneficial because when we got to producing our main task we all now had experience with all aspects of the creation process so if necessary could complete tasks independently.

15. In the preliminary task the amount of research and planning was limited because it wasn’t necessary as there was no genre or real depth to the scene. We created a shooting script and a storyboard but they were very basic whereas in our main task we not only went into detail explaining the shots in the storyboard descriptions but also the timings in our shooting script and we also did draft shooting scripts/storyboards and then final edited versions after gaining feedback from fellow media class mates.

16. Now I have completed the main task, I understand the importance of in depth research as creating an opening sequence for the thriller genre and more specifically psychological thriller genre that was an accurate reflection of the genre required extensive research to ensure our product fit with the conventions but also so we knew that conventions we would want to avoid or even challenge. For instance we decided to film some external shots in a wood, which is a common convention of thriller films, because woods are often an isolated and dark environment which then creates a sense of danger. However a convention we challenged was dressing our protagonist in grey to make her more complex because the colour grey is neither stereo-typically black (bad) or white (good). This challenged the normal female protagonist role in a thriller because they are usually viewed as weak and innocent whereas our character clearly had a darker past.

17. With our preliminary task being so short and unspecific we didn’t really have a target audience. However for the main task it was essential we that we did therefore we had to carry out audience research very early on in the planning stages by doing an online survey. This online survey was very helpful because after analysing the results it is clear that a male antagonist and a female protagonist is the most popular combination which we then used. It also told us that flashbacks within the narrative were liked and that went on to become a key part of our end product.

18. In the preliminary task we were given set cinematography and sound that we had to include in our extract however in our main task we could use any sound or shots that we wanted. From this I learnt that media language can have a huge impact on the narrative. For example the amount of impact a soundtrack can have on a product which we didn’t use in our prelim but did in our main. Also that dialogue between characters isn’t necessarily the main way to create meaning in a piece as a soundtrack and a voice over can create much more emotion and engage the audience more effectively.

19. I have learnt that creating a longer film is much more time consuming and requires a lot of more planning and thought due to our main task having a specific target audience (young adults) to cater for and a genre to accurately fit. By having more jobs to do it meant often our group split off to do independent tasks which allowed us to play to our strengths. For instance I wrote the voice over due to my english literature background but then I also did tasks which I found more challenging like solo editing the first draft of our ident.